God and the Aliens

Article by CatholicTech Intern Dominic Andres

The concept of non-human intelligent life is not new. Since ancient times men have wondered if we are alone in the cosmos. A paper was just published which may upend the prevailing theory on the subject, so I thought I’d give some answers.

There are two things we need to look at here: Possibility, and Probability. First, we have to ask: Is extraterrestrial life possible? From a scientific perspective the answer is clearly yes. However, as Catholics we have a few extra hurdles to jump in giving an answer. Second, if we decide that Alien life is a possibility, we have to ask: Is it likely? The answer to this question lies in understanding the origins of life. That new scientific paper I mentioned threatens an old theory, and shows that alien life *might be more likely than we thought* 

Part One: Possibility

There are two aspect of Catholicism which we need to examine: The Soul, and salvation history.

First, the soul. The church teaches that what makes humanity unique is our immortal soul. When Scripture says that we’re “made in the image of God,” it’s referring to the soul . On top of that, tradition tells us that the soul is the source of consciousness. However, while the soul is what makes us unique compared to animals, and thus unique *on earth*, man is not just a soul. Man is an animal as well, a material being needing to eat, sleep, etc. The angles, for example, are “spiritual beings” which have souls but are not human. So the Catholic idea of a soul does not mean there can be no other spiritual beings, or no other intelligent beings.

Second, salvation history. Christ’s salvation of man was indeed a salvation of *man*, as both the necessity for salvation (original sin) and the act by which God saves (the incarnation) are specific to man. Thus other intelligent beings may have their own history of salvation, whether they did not fall, or fell and were also redeemed.

Now, before I delve into the scientific probability of aliens, I have to mention Catholic teaching on evolution. The core of the church’s position is the immortal soul. While a materialist will attribute human consciousness to matter, Catholicism denies this position, stating that the soul is the cause of human consciousness. Further, the church’s position is that the soul is directly created by God, and not a chance process. However, while consciousness is not caused by matter, in us it obviously depends on it. Brain damage, for example, can effect our decisions and thoughts. Therefore, it is quite possible that evolution produces the body, and in doing so makes the proper vessel for the soul. This is why evolutionary theory is important to figuring out whether Aliens exist.

Part Two: Probability

Up until now, the scientific consensus was that the existence of intelligent alien life was unlikely. The dominant theory was known as the “hard steps theory”, and was first posited in 1983 by theoretical physicist Brandon Carter.

Carter saw that humans first appeared very late in the lifespan of the earth, 4/5ths of the way from the beginning of the earth to the end of its habitability. Since we don’t know how much time is necessary to evolve intelligent life, Carter used probability to guess at that time. Since, he said, we evolved late in the earth’s lifecycle, we should assume that it takes at least that long, on average, to evolve intelligent life. And since it’s pretty unlikely that the length of evolution and the lifetime of a planet happen to coincide, he posited that normal evolution of intelligent life needs longer than a planet’s lifespan to occur. Thus, the existence of intelligent life on any planet is very unlikely, and so is the existence of aliens.

In order to explain the length of necessary time being so long, Carter posited that certain of the steps in the evolution of intelligence are very unlikely, thus increasing the time necessary for them to come about given random evolution. Many alternatives were proposed for what those hard steps might be, but in general, that’s the theory.

On to the new paper! It argues that Carter’s theory doesn’t take into account that the time Earth has been habitable is much shorter than the time it has existed, and thus it’s not necessary to assume that the evolution of intelligence takes such a long time. Further, the paper explains that many of the proposed “hard steps” may not be as difficult as theorized. Therefore, the evolution of intelligent life might be pretty likely. *We may not be alone*.

So, in summary: a decades old theory has been called into question, and with it the much older question returns: “Are we alone?” While no definitive answer has come, the question as a whole is a fascinating one, and worthy of real reflection.