I have an idea about the possible explanation for
how distant, habitable, yet lifeless planets fit into a Biblically Christian
framework of cosmic history. It’s based on the three points I mentioned already—the
distance, the habitability, and the lack of any evidence of other sentient life
among them. I’ll unpack them. First, why should there be any planets that could
be habitable by humans, other than Earth, if humans were only planted on Earth
initially? It seems like a simple conclusion that, given enough time, we were
expected to live on them as well. Otherwise there would be no point in them
being habitable, from a purposeful-universe-by-design perspective. But why should
they be so far away? Well, the universe itself is vast, so if there were no
habitable planets in distant reaches of the universe, then large parts of it
would by definition be uninhabitable. And how then could mankind fulfill its
role of exercising dominion over all creation?—assuming, with reason, that the
Dominion Mandate would be extended from just the Earth to encompassing all of
the universe, at some point. It does appear to be the intention that humanity
would have,upon fully developing the Earth, have been given dominion over the stars
as well, and told to spread out to distant planets so as to govern the entire
universe that God created. But something prevented this from happening.
The reason that other planets don’t have life is
very simple. It’s not just that we haven’t found it, or that it’s sparse
throughout the universe, but that it isn’t there. There are very good reasons
for believing that no intelligent aliens exist, or life of any kind beyond the
Earth for that matter. Here are a few:
* Sentient aliens would either have spirits or not.
If they did not, they would have no hope of life after death. Why would God
create self-reflective beings like humans but make them otherwise just like an
animal, denying them eternity? And if they did have a spirit, then are they
perfectly sinless or sinful? If they are sinless, then they suffer from the
Curse which is over all creation, which is unjust to them—what did they have to
do with Adam’s sin? And if they are sinful, then they are also fallen, and according
to the developed concept of a kinsman-redeemer, needed God the Son to be born
as one of them, live a perfect life on their behalf, and die in their place for
their sin. So Jesus would suffer and die an untold amount of times for an
untold amount of aliens. But the Bible said He died once for all. Is this
reasonable? Alternatively, if the Bible doesn’t only restrict the Atonement to
humans, (though none of the language implies this to be true), then how would
aliens learn about it so as to believe and be saved? And why should humanity
have been the one place where Jesus came to be incarnated, and not one of the
multitudes of other alien races? These are all important questions to consider
before accepting that alien life can coexist, even as a concept, with orthodox
Biblical Christianity.
* The Bible strongly implies that everything that
was created is for the benefit of mankind. If there were unknown lifeforms on
other planets, what good would these do for Man if he couldn’t even know that
they were there, much less utilize them? If this doesn’t sound convincing, then
what do you make of the utter lack of any mention of other planets or life
forms in the creation account in Genesis? The Earth is the only place described
where plant, animal and sentient life were created, and at the end, the record
concludes with the declaration that ‘thus was (the heavens and the earth, that
is, everything) created, in all its vast arry,’ which means that no other life
was created elsewhere afterwards. The circumstantial evidence is strong that
there are no aliens anywhere. And it is such a strong implicit case, like the
Trinity is also, that a scientific test to prove or disprove Scripture would
come down to the question of whether alien life will be found outside of earth.
If our faith can’t be disproven, it isn’t meaningful. A faithful Christian can
with confidence say that the discovery of sentient alien life, such as that in
Star Wars, Halo, Star Trek, etc, would invalidate the Bible. And that same
Christian would have no fear because of his confidence that that will never happen, because of the strong
Scriptural case against it, and his preeminent trust in the Bible as the word
of God.
So what prevented mankind from being given the
commandment to spread out among the stars and have dominion over them? It’s the
same reason Mars is red. Key to the understanding of the universe as it is
today, is the knowledge that “all creation groans and travails in birth pangs
together,” and the knowledge that that is happening because of Adam’s sin as
recorded in Genesis 3. The entire universe is wearing down and breaking to
pieces. There is some aspect in which this has to do with the second law of
thermodynamics, since it concerns the increase in entropy, that is, disorder,
which means that energy tends from more usable forms to less usable forms over
time. Stars become dust. Buildings become rubble. It takes energy to maintain
things in a specific condition. It takes no energy at all for things to fall
apart. It happens on its own. There is one form for a wineglass when its
molecules are all ordered together, but an infinity of ways for those molecules
to be arranged if the glass is destroyed. Pure statistical probability, then,
guarantees that, given the opportunity, things will randomly break down rather
than remain in “high energy conformations.” But please note that the second law
of thermodynamics describes things like friction and the release of energy due
to food digestion. It would be incorrect to say that the law was not in effect
at all in the initial creation that God made. But there appears to be some
aspect of the universe now—a general trend of decay—that wouldn’t have been the
case before.
What’s my point in saying this? Fairly simple. Mars
is red because it is rusted. The whole planet is rusted, which means that the
whole planet at some point was covered in water. It is an amusing irony that
astronomers are willing to posit a global flood on Mars, a planet with nearly
no surface water, and none in liquid form, but unwilling to accept the claim of
a global flood on Earth, a planet 75% covered in water, to depths of several
miles in places. Mars has almost no atmosphere, and it’s posited that it was
blown away by solar winds that were undeterred by the planet’s weak magnetic
field. Earth’s field reflects charged particles from the sun all the time,
which “keeps the atmosphere safe,” and intact. Water evaporates and becomes
part of the atmosphere, given temperatures above freezing point. The Red
Planet’s water would then have blown away also, and any water that now remains
would be the amount that had not yet evaporated when the temperature
permanently plunged below zero degrees Celsius.
What’s the point, you ask again? Simple—Mars is red
because its magnetic field decayed and its atmosphere was blown away by the intense
radiation given off by the sun. And why should the field have decayed rather
than maintained at its primeval initial state? May I suggest that God is the
one who ‘holds all things together,’ and that while He keeps everything
material in existence to this day, has as one consequence of Adam’s sin chosen
to remove, partially, His activity of maintaining the creation in pristine
conditions? Mars used to have more water than it does today. How much, we can’t
be sure, but the channels on its surface are considered evidence of gouging by
large amounts of fast-moving surface water. We could have eventually settled on
that planet, but even if we can now, it seems like it’s going to be much more
difficult on a frozen rock with nearly no atmosphere.
Because of the Fall, the universe is in decay.
Because of the Fall, we no longer have the opportunity to settle the universe
this side of eternity. We could try, but the end of history as described in
Revelation will come long before we get very far at all. What remains is the
evidence of the planets that could have been colonized if we had been obedient
to God. What remains is a faded picture of what could have been, and what one
day may be the reality yet again, for those who repent of their sin (since sin
is, after all, why our universe is so uninhabitable and generally messed up)
and put their faith in Christ—they will one day live in a new universe, one
that won’t see decay. Maybe we can have fun playing a game of galactic
colonization with the other saints. Who knows what God has in store for us. But
make sure you don’t miss the boat. The Ark was the ‘door of salvation’ to those
who survived Earth’s global flood. Now it is Jesus who says, “I am the door…”
and will save you from the second and final time that God destroys the Earth.
Mars is red, because we sinned. Who would have thought?
Related reading:
Is the Bible Falsifiable? And Would a Real Live ET do it?
Did God Create Life on Other Planets?
Will We Have Any Work to do in Heaven?
What is a Kinsman-Redeemer? - GotQuestions
The Creation of Planetary Magnetic Fields - CRSQ
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