Astrobiology and Christian Doctrine: Exploring the Implications of Life in the Universe

by Andrew Davison

In recent decades, powerful telescopes have enabled astrophysicists to uncover startling new worlds and solar systems. An epochal moment came in 1995, when a planet – 51 Pegasi b – was located orbiting a star other than our own sun. Since then, thousands of new planets have followed, and the question of life beyond earth has become one of the principal topics in discussions between science and religion. Attention to this topic has a long history in Christian theology, but has rarely been pursued at any depth. Writing with both passion and precision, Andrew Davison brings his extensive knowledge of Christian thought to bear, drawing particularly on the thought of Thomas Aquinas, as well as his training as a scientist. No book to date better prepares the Christian community for responding to evidence of other life, if it is found. And yet, we do not need to wait for that to have happened before this book shows its worth. In thinking about planets, creatures, and ecosystems beyond our planet, Davison already reinvigorates our theology for the earth.

Genres: Theology, Nonfiction

350 pages, Hardcover

Published September 7, 2023

About the author

Andrew Davison (DPhil, University of Oxford) is the tutor in doctrine at Westcott House, University of Cambridge, in Cambridge, England. He has taught theology at St. Stephen’s House, Oxford, and is known for his writing on doctrine, mission, and the church. He is coauthor of For the Parish: A Critique of Fresh Expressions and joint editor of Lift Up Your Hearts.

Reviews

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interest in UFOs (or UAPs) are at an all-time high following revelations from the US government that it's been tracking the phenomenon for years. Speculation about extraterrestrial life (or "exobiology") has moved from the subject of "fringe" debates to a more prominent place in the public imagination. Partly this is because of new developments in scientific inquiry and technology revealing that the universe is unimaginably large: around 100 billion stars in our Milky Way galaxy alone with perhaps 4 billion sun-like stars in the Milky Way capable of sustaining habitable planets. There are also approximately 200 hundred billion galaxies in the observable universe. I was already familiar with Fermi's Paradox, the discrepancy between the high statistical likelihood of life in the universe beyond earth with the apparent absence of hard, concrete evidence for such extraterrestrial life. But I was not aware until reading Davison's book how frequently many Church fathers and theologians throughout history, from Augustine and Aquinas to St. Bonaventure, William of Ockham, and John of Damascus have speculated about and even embraced the possibility of rational, sentient life beyond our planet.

Part of the reason for my ignorance is that many Christian traditions today would view the notion of extraterrestrial life as a threat to orthodox understandings of Scripture and of God. As Davison puts it late in the book, "our *concern* is to focus on God revealed to us in Christ, and speculation about God's dealings with other creatures [possibly scattered throughout the universe] is to be avoided" (325). Many feel that if definitive proof were offered of advanced civilizations or rational beings in the far-flung reaches of the universe, it would undermine or eliminate the truths of Scripture and possibly even the existence of God Himself. But Davison systematically explores through careful theological and philosophical analysis why that shouldn't necessarily be the obvious conclusion to be drawn. Even though Scripture is silent on the possibility of such exobiology, does that mean that God in His freedom and plenitude hasn't created other worlds teeming with life, even ones filled with rational beings who possess memory, will, and the capacity for love? Would that require the Son to experience multiple Incarnations to accommodate Himself to the sensory perceptions and categories of awareness of other species? Would such a revelation do damage to our human awareness of having been made special and unique in the "Image of God"? Would Christ have to be crucified over and over again on different worlds? Surely not!

C.S. Lewis explored some of these ideas in the 2nd novel of his Space Trilogy, *Perelandra,* when he had his main character Ransom travel to Venus and encounter a recently created couple (the Green Lady and the Green Man) who had not sinned and could potentially avoid the effects of the earthly Fall by successfully resisting temptation. Davison likewise has an entire chapter devoted to how God would deal with unfallen creatures by emphasizing the possibility that God the Son could become Incarnate elsewhere, not just for the purpose of "remedy" (salvation/atonement for sin), but in order to dignify those rational beings with the privilege of being joined to God through hypostatic union. This speculation is apparently one that has been theologically considered at various points throughout history--would God the Son have still been made Incarnate even if we had not fallen?

Davison acknowledges his debt to Thomist theology and philosophy and quotes frequently from Thomas Aquinas so that his arguments are quite systematic and occasionally rather dense (particularly in Part IV on Christology, Salvation, and Grace). He also tips his hand in affirming his belief that multiple Incarnations are not just possible, but likely, which still feels rather radical to me. But check this book out if you're interested in the theological implications of extraterrestrial life. As he puts it in one of his epigraphs from Eric Mascall, "Theological principles tend to become torpid for lack of exercise, and there is much to be said for giving them now and then a scamper in a field where the paths are few and the boundaries undefined; they do their day-by-day work all the better for an occasional outing in the country."

[Jacob · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting book that covers many important questions for Christianity. Although, I am not myself a Christian, I find these questions extremely interesting and Andrew Davison does a great job guiding you through them via the age old debates of Aquinas and other theologians. The topics can sometimes be a bit difficult to comprehend, but Davison does an admirable job making them as easy to understand as possible. It makes you ponder what it would truly mean if we found life elsewhere in the heavens.

[David Strong · Rating 4 out of 5]

My rating: 4 stars.

[Bishop D Hamid · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating exploration. Also stimulates one’s thinking about some central Christian doctrines.