BobRyan said in post 1:
so what does that life mean to your idea of Christianity?
Some people feel that Christians mustn't believe in the existence of aliens, for then Christians could be deceived by entities such as Satan and other fallen angelic beings or demons claiming to be aliens. But the existence of aliens doesn't require that all aliens must be good, just as the existence of angels doesn't require that all angels must be good. Christians would have to evaluate the goodness of any alien in the same way that they would have to evaluate the goodness of any angel: by the doctrine that he teaches (Galatians 1:8), by his faithfulness to God's Word the Bible (2 Timothy 4:2-4; 1 Timothy 4:1, John 8:31b, Matthew 4:4), by his obedience to
YHWH God (Mark 12:29-31, Deuteronomy 6:4-5, Leviticus 19:18b). Also, the Bible doesn't say that Satan appears as a good alien, but it does say that he can appear as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14). So worrying about being deceived
only by aliens is a dangerous distraction. Christians need to also be careful of being deceived even by angels of light.
The universe is so vast, with something like 100 billion galaxies, each containing something like 100 billion stars, that even if only one star out of every 10 billion stars has a planet with intelligent life on it, there would still be a trillion inhabited planets. This would be to the great glory of God, for he is the Creator of everything (Revelation 4:11). God could deal with intelligent life on other planets in the same way that he deals with people on the earth: Some individuals could go to a heaven when they die, while others could go to a hell. Or the intelligent life on some other planets may have never fallen into sin, like Adam and Eve did, so that the intelligent life on those planets never became mortal. Any such unfallen, intelligent life could be living in sinless, immortal bliss on their planets, like Adam and Eve lived in the Garden of Eden before their fall. Also, ultimately, the destiny of saved people on the earth isn't to live forever in heaven like ghosts strumming harps on clouds, but to live forever in resurrected, immortal physical bodies (1 Corinthians 15:52-53, Romans 8:23-25, Philippians 3:21, Luke 24:39) on a new earth with God (Revelation 21).
Some people feel that aliens can't exist because the Bible makes no mention of them. But not everything that exists has to be mentioned in the Bible (cf. John 21:25). For example, the Bible makes no mention of Velcro, yet it exists. And the Bible makes no mention of the fact that the earth orbits the sun, and not vice versa as many Bible believers mistakenly assumed for centuries. Such believers even mistakenly claimed that the heliocentric system was a lie which was against the revealed knowledge of God in the Bible that the sun orbits the earth. Of course, the truth is that nothing in the Bible requires a geocentric system. Similarly, nothing in the Bible requires that aliens can't exist.
Also, the argument that other inhabited planets can't exist because if they did, the Bible would have told us about them, is like someone in the 1300's in Europe saying: "Other inhabited continents can't exist besides the ones in the Bible: Europe, Africa, and Asia. For if other inhabited continents did exist, the Bible would have told us about them". Of course, the truth is that the Bible made no mention of the other inhabited continents of North America, South America, and Australia, and yet they existed. Similarly, even though the Bible makes no mention of other inhabited planets, they could exist.
If the specific aliens which some people claim to have had contact with (such as "the Greys") truly exist, they could be fallen angels or demons. Or they could be real aliens in the sense of mortal beings from some other star system. Or, if interstellar travel is physically impossible because of the practical limits which special relativity places on how fast matter can travel, they could be mortal beings from our own solar system who evolved (by God's created process of evolution) or were miraculously created by God long before humans, whether on this planet, or on the 2nd or the 4th planet from the sun, in some past eon when either or both of those planets was inhabitable.
Some people feel that other inhabited planets in other star systems can't exist, because God is only going to live with the saved people on this planet (Revelation 21:2-3). But God can live in more than one place at a time (Psalms 139:7-10). Something similar to Revelation 21:2-3 could already be in place on billions of other inhabited planets. For just as the body of each individual believer on this planet is the tabernacle/the temple of God (1 Corinthians 6:19), so each unfallen or regenerated planet could have its own tabernacle/holy city of God. And God can reign in all of them simultaneously, just as he can reign in each believer on the earth simultaneously (John 14:23, Ephesians 3:17).
Some people feel that fallen aliens can't exist because the book of life, Hades, the lake of fire, the judgment days, and the 3rd heaven are only for people from this planet. But each fallen planet could have the equivalent of its own book of life, its own Hades, its own lake of fire, its own judgment for the saved only, and its own great white throne judgment. Some fallen planets' judgments could have already occurred billions of years ago, while others may not occur for billions of years after the judgments on this planet occur. Also, each inhabited planet could have its own 3rd heaven, above each planet, in a 4th spatial dimension which is "higher" than the 3 spatial dimensions which we can see.
Some people feel that fallen aliens can't exist, because Christ can die for sins only once (Hebrews 10:10), and only for the sins of people on this planet (Hebrews 2:16-17). But just as Christ incarnated as a human on this planet (John 1:1,14), and died once for the sins of humans on this planet, so he could have incarnated as other intelligent life-forms on other fallen planets and died once for them as well. Also, the universe could be so old (some 14 billion years, while the earth could be some 4.5 billion years old) that many fallen inhabited planets could have already completed their regeneration billions of years ago, with their saved inhabitants having had their sins forgiven by faith in a divine sacrifice on their planet, and their bodies already having been resurrected (if dead) or changed (if alive) into immortal bodies (which the saved still await on this planet: 1 Corinthians 15:51-53), so that they became like/equal to the angels of God in heaven (cf. Matthew 22:30, Luke 20:36), so that many of the entities which we call "angels" could have started out as what we would call "aliens" on other planets.
If even some unresurrected humans on this planet can sometimes be called "angels" (in the sense of "messengers"; see Luke 7:24 in the original Greek), then some redeemed aliens on other planets who have been resurrected or changed into immortal bodies could have been assigned by God to serve as angels/messengers of God to minister to the unresurrected elect on this planet (cf. Hebrews 1:14). And once the saved on this planet have been resurrected into immortality, and become like/equal to the angels of God in heaven (Matthew 22:30, Luke 20:36), some of them could be assigned by God to other fallen planets which haven't yet been regenerated, to serve as angels/messengers of God to minister to the unresurrected elect on those planets.
We really need to get away from every form of geocentrism. Just as it was a mistake for some believers to refuse to accept for so long the fact that the earth isn't the physical center of the universe, indeed, isn't even the physical center of our solar system, so it is a mistake for some believers to refuse to accept the very real possibility that the earth isn't the spiritual center of the universe either, but could be just one of a trillion inhabited planets in the universe, all filled with worshippers of God. And there could be trillions of other universes outside our own, filled with a googolplex of inhabited planets (or other structures which we can't even imagine). We infinitesimal humans on this one, infinitesimal planet really need to have some sense of humility (Isaiah 40:15,17, Psalms 8:3-4).
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Some people say that aliens created humans. But the existence of aliens doesn't require that they, instead of God, created humans on this planet. For God himself could have directly created both humans on this planet and aliens on other planets (cf. John 1:3). Also, if someone were to claim that aliens created Adam (the forbear of all presently-existing humans on this planet) instead of YHWH God creating Adam, that claim would be false, for it would contradict the Bible's teaching that YHWH God himself created Adam (Genesis 2:7).
Some people feel that the Antichrist's future, one-world religion will teach that Lucifer (Satan, the dragon) is an alien who created humans on this planet. But while the Antichrist's future one-world religion will indeed be Luciferian (Revelation 13:4, Revelation 12:9), it will at the same time also be Gnostic, denying that Christ is in the flesh (1 John 4:3; 2 John 1:7) and utterly reviling YHWH (Revelation 13:6, Daniel 11:31). And it wouldn't make sense for this religion to say that Lucifer is an alien who created humans on this planet. For the reason that Gnosticism reviles YHWH is because
he is the Creator of all human fleshly bodies. So it would be better for believers not to worry too much about an "alien deception", and start arming themselves against the Gnostic deception, which happened to have also been one of the main enemies of the early church.
