Extraterrestrial Soteriology
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.12775/SetF.2023.006Palabras clave
extraterrestrials, incarnation, atonement, original sin, fall of humanity, antipodesResumen
One scientific objection to religion is that the discovery of extraterrestrial life would show that our religions are not veridical, with Christianity being the most common target. I will first look at a parallel issue, the ancient and medieval controversy over antipodes. This raises two problematic Christian doctrines that would apply equally to extraterrestrials: the transmission of original sin and the cosmic fall. These issues raise questions about their spiritual status, but I conclude that not having such answers does not amount to an objection to Christianity’s credibility.
Citas
Aquinas, Summa Theologica. In Robert Maynard Hutchins, ed. Great Books of the Western World, vol. 19. Trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province. Revised Daniel J. Sullivan. Chicago, etc.: Encyclopædia Britannica, 1952.
Augustine, City of God. In Philip Schaff, ed. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, vol. 2. Trans. Marcus Dods. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995 [1887].
Avramides, Anita. 2020. “Other Minds.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Edited by E.N. Zalta. (Winter 2020 ed.). <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2020/entries/other-minds/>.
Carré, Lorenzo, et al. 2022. “Relevance of Earth-Bound Extremophiles in the Search for Extraterrestrial Life.” Astrobiology 22/3: 322–367. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1089/ast.2021.0033.
Chela-Flores, Julian. 1998. “The Phenomenon of the Eukaryotic Cell.” In Robert Russell, William Stoger, and Francisco Ayala, eds. Evolutionary and Molecular Biology: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action. Pp. 79–98. Vatican City State and Berkeley, CA: Vatican Observatory and Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences.
Danielson, Dennis R. 2001. “The Great Copernican Cliché.” The American Journal of Physics 69/10: 1029–1035. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1119/1.1379734.
Danielson, Dennis R. 2004. “Copernicus and the Tale of the Pale Blue Dot.” Lecture presented at The Pascal Lectures, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Oct. 20.
Galilei, Galileo. 1989 [1610]. Sidereus Nuncius, or The Sidereal Messenger. Trans. Albert Van Helden. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
George, Marie I. 2005. Christianity and Extraterrestrials? A Catholic Perspective. Lincoln, NE: iUniverse.
Goldie, Matthew Boyd. 2010. The Idea of the Antipodes: Place, People and Voices. New York and London: Routledge.
Hoyle, Fred and Chandra Wickramasinghe. 1981. Evolution from Space. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Lewis, C.S. 1960a. “Religion and Rocketry.” In The World’s Last Night and Other Essays. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc.
Lewis, C.S. 1960b. Miracles: A Preliminary Study, 2nd ed. Glasgow: Fontana.
Liu, Cixin. 2016. Death’s End. Trans. Ken Liu. New York: Tor.
Lovejoy, Arthur O. 1964 [1936]. The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the History of an Idea. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Pannenberg, Wolfhart. 1994. Systematic Theology, vol. 2. Trans. Geoffrey W. Bromily. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.
Peters, Ted. 2018. “One Incarnation or Many?” In Ted Peters, et al., eds. Astrotheology: Science and Theology Meet Extraterrestrial Life. Pp. 271–302. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock.
Russell, Jeffrey Burton. 1991. Inventing the Flat Earth: Columbus and Modern Historians. New York: Praeger.
Sagan, Carl. 1997. Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space. New York: Ballantine.
Shklovskii, Iosef S. and Carl Sagan. 1966. Intelligent Life in the Universe. San Francisco, Holden-Day.
Slagle, Jim. 2013. “The Myth of Mortification: The Cosmic Insignificance of Humanity and the Rhetoric of ‘Copernican Revolutions.’” Theology and Science 11/3: 289–303. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14746700.2013.809952.
Slagle, Jim. 2022. “Cosmic Proportions and Human Significance.” Scientia et Fides 10/1: 265–78. DOI: https://doi.org/10.12775/SetF.2022.013.
Stevens, Wesley M. 1980. “The Figure of the Earth in Isidore’s ‘De natura rerum.’” Isis 71/2: 268–277. DOI: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/352464.
Turner, William. 1912. “St. Vergilius of Salzburg.” The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 15. New York: Robert Appleton Company. <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15353d.htm>.
Vainio, Olli-Pekka. 2018. Cosmology in Theological Perspective: Understanding Our Place in the Universe. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic.
Ward Peter D. and Donald Brownlee. 2000. Rare Earth: Why Complex Life Is Uncommon in the Universe. New York: Compernicus-Spencer Verlag.
Descargas
Publicado
Cómo citar
Número
Sección
Licencia
Derechos de autor 2023 Jim Slagle
Esta obra está bajo una licencia internacional Creative Commons Atribución-SinDerivadas 4.0.
CC BY ND 4.0. The Creator/Contributor is the Licensor, who grants the Licensee a non-exclusive license to use the Work on the fields indicated in the License Agreement.
- The Licensor grants the Licensee a non-exclusive license to use the Work/related rights item specified in § 1 within the following fields: a) recording of Work/related rights item; b) reproduction (multiplication) of Work/related rights item in print and digital technology (e-book, audiobook); c) placing the copies of the multiplied Work/related rights item on the market; d) entering the Work/related rights item to computer memory; e) distribution of the work in electronic version in the open access form on the basis of Creative Commons license (CC BY-ND 3.0) via the digital platform of the Nicolaus Copernicus University Press and file repository of the Nicolaus Copernicus University.
- Usage of the recorded Work by the Licensee within the above fields is not restricted by time, numbers or territory.
- The Licensor grants the license for the Work/related rights item to the Licensee free of charge and for an unspecified period of time.
FULL TEXT License Agreement
Stats
Number of views and downloads: 623
Number of citations: 0
