From: Dr. Blake Nelson (bnelson301@yahoo.com)
Date: Thu Sep 18 2003 - 13:44:39 EDT
It only becomes ridiculous when one makes tendentious
arguments and presupposes, inter alia, that all
sentient species require redemption in the exact same
manner as the Christian proclamation about the life,
death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.
Something which I did not assert in my comments.
Maybe a good entry level primer of the issues (and
non-issues) ETs present would be David Wilkinson's
_Alone in the Universe?: The X-Files, Aliens and God_.
It covers many different topics at a very
introductory level. This is one of those topics, and,
if I recall correctly, he does a fairly decent job of
dealing with both what scripture has to say about this
and what traditional christology has to say. Needless
to say, he -- like I -- would disagree with a lot of
your assumptions and certainly with your conclusions.
--- Steve Petermann <steve@spetermann.org> wrote:
> > The fact that
> > the second person of the trinity relates to us as
> > Jesus of Nazareth and what the NT says about how
> > through the second person of the trinity the
> universe
> > is redeemed does not describe those redemptive
> efforts
> > *exhaustively* nor is it concerned with how the
> second
> > person of the trinity relates to ETs.
>
> Okay, I guess I *am* ignorant of this line of
> theology. So I guess earth
> based Christians would accept an "Alonzo of Alpha
> Centari" as the
> incarnation of the "second person of the trinity" on
> Alpha Centari. This
> could mean there are billions of "Christs". Does
> this mean that salvation is
> planet centric/dependent, depending on a Christ
> appearing at some time in
> the history of the planet to save all prior and
> future inhabitants? Can
> there only be one Christ per planet? Do you see how
> ridiculous this line of
> thinking becomes?
>
> In the past religions could avoid these types of
> thought experiments but I
> don't thing they can now. If a theology is supposed
> to be systematic, it
> cannot avoid addressing these types of questions if
> it is to be considered
> serious.
>
> Steve Petermann
>
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Dr. Blake Nelson" <bnelson301@yahoo.com>
> To: "Steve Petermann" <steve@spetermann.org>; "ASA"
> <asa@lists.calvin.edu>
> Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2003 12:05 PM
> Subject: Re: Fragility
>
>
> > This "problem" has been dealt with extensively
> many
> > times by many theologians. And Christianity has
> not
> > ever been particular anthropo-centric in the ways
> that
> > people who claim, inter alia, the Copernican
> > revolution threatened the church assert.
> >
> > These are old cannards that are trotted out by
> people
> > who tend to be very ignorant of christian theology
> > historically as well as presently.
> >
> > Perhaps, the problem may be understood better
> simply
> > by thinking about it this way -- the universe is
> > redeemed through the second person of the trinity
> --
> > who was Incarnate as Jesus of Nazareth. The fact
> that
> > the second person of the trinity relates to us as
> > Jesus of Nazareth and what the NT says about how
> > through the second person of the trinity the
> universe
> > is redeemed does not describe those redemptive
> efforts
> > *exhaustively* nor is it concerned with how the
> second
> > person of the trinity relates to ETs. The
> assertion
> > to the contrary brings in a boat load of
> assumptions
> > that are not necessarily textually nor
> theologically
> > sound. Since it gets more into theology than
> science
> > I will drop the matter there.
> >
> > However, Christianity is no where near as fragile
> as
> > you posit by the thought experiment.
> >
> >
> > --- Steve Petermann <steve@spetermann.org> wrote:
> > > Science has continually chipped away at the
> > > reasonableness of religious
> > > claims until, in my opinion, traditional
> religions
> > > are at this point very
> > > fragile. This fragility is no more evident for
> > > Christianity than in the
> > > area of extra terrestrials. Last number I heard
> was
> > > that there are 100
> > > billion galaxies in the universe. The milky way
> > > galaxy has an estimated 200
> > > billion stars. That means there are an enormous
> > > number of planets out there
> > > and it doesn't take a mathematician to claim its
> > > reasonable that there are
> > > at least millions of earth similar planets in
> the
> > > universe. Is it reasonable
> > > that of all those millions of earth like planets
> > > with oceans and mountains,
> > > soil and rain, that in all those there is not a
> > > single microbe of any kind?
> > > Is the entire focus of all those billions of
> > > galaxies, stars and planets on
> > > this one little third rock from the sun. Is this
> a
> > > compelling story to tell
> > > people?
> > >
> > > Question is, is a theology that can fail to be
> > > reasonable so easily from a
> > > reasonable thought experiment viable for
> thinking
> > > people?
> > >
> > > Thought experiment1:
> > >
> > > The SETI project discovers a signal from another
> > > sentient people on a
> > > distant planet which includes a description of
> their
> > > own religion.
> > >
> > > Thought experiment2:
> > >
> > > ET's show up on earth in order to relate to us.
> > >
> > > The crux for Christianity in these reasonable
> > > thought experiments is, if
> > > Jesus is the universal, one time only, unique
> event
> > > for the salvation of the
> > > universe are we to expect the possibly millions,
> or
> > > trillions of other life
> > > forms to accept an earthly human as their
> savior?
> > > Does this sound
> > > reasonable or must we rethink Christology in
> more
> > > metaphoric terms?
> > >
> > > Steve Petermann
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> > __________________________________
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