From: D. F. Siemens, Jr. (dfsiemensjr@juno.com)
Date: Thu Sep 18 2003 - 15:01:12 EDT
If our salvation depends on God entering human life and dying as a man,
it follows that the redemption of a different race of "fallen" creatures
would either require entering their kind of life or a totally different
approach. The revelation of the deity to us as the Trinity does not set
upper limits to his being. It may be that we are the only "visited
planet," but we have no way of knowing that, even if we discover that
some forms of organisms have come into being on other planets or their
satellites. Solid evidence of life elsewhere in the solar system will
lead to the expectation that life also arose around other stars. However,
the distances between stars in the Galaxy, let alone other galaxies,
makes communication very difficult, and visits impossible. N.B., beyond
revelation all we have is speculation on a slim basis.
Dave
On Thu, 18 Sep 2003 12:22:10 -0500 "Steve Petermann"
<steve@spetermann.org> writes:
> > 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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>
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