Michael Kelly
A recently published de-classified US intelligence report revealed that dozens of mysterious unidentified flying object (UFO) sightings could not be explained and did not rule out the possibility of alien spacecraft.
So if there is alien life, could this be a difficulty for Catholics? Not so says Fr Brendan Purcell, an Irish professor of philosophy in Notre Dame, Australia. Medieval theologians and philosophers played around with the idea that there could be other beings elsewhere, but while Catholics have no problem of belief about alien life, its existence is improbable and unlikely.
Fr Purcell believes God might have drawn the line with his troublesome creation on earth. “From God’s perspective, He has enough trouble with us as it is. We fit in very neatly into a whole ‘great chain of being’, it used to be called,” Fr Purcell explained. “In other words, God is pure Spirit, angels are spiritual beings but they’re limited because they are created. We are spiritual and material and all other living beings are only material. You’ve got a very neat sequence going up, so if you need another example of spiritual-physical life somewhere else, honestly I don’t think it’s likely.”
But would the Church need to convert aliens if discovered? Dr Gaven Kerr* of St Patrick’s College, Maynooth believes so. “Christ as the saviour of all from sin would need to be preached to such non-human rational beings” if they were discovered.“From the point of view of salvation”, the lecturer in philosophy speculated, “Christ’s salvific works is for the eradication of all sin”. This means, Dr Kerr argued, that “all rational natures are redeemed through his salvific work”, including potential alien life.
Fr Purcell disagrees. “We don’t know the nature of the “other beings”, who may not have fallen and so wouldn’t require a saviour.
“They could be like the first Adam and Eve before the fall,” he continued. “It’s the mystery of salvation, there could be other created beings and so on, but they wouldn’t by any means necessarily have fallen so therefore they wouldn’t need a drama and salvation.”
* Dr Kerr has asked us to point out that his comments were in an informal manner in the context of setting the scene for some of the wider speculation that has gone on in relation to the subject, rather than his considered theological opinion which, in fact, they are not.
Read more by David Quinn – Converting the aliens