What About the Aliens?

In the preceding comments, this question effectively arose: “What about the aliens?”

Well, my answer (for which I was hoping to have provided context before now) is to weigh the issue against Biblical scripture. What we find is that Scripture doesn’t say anything about aliens at all; it’s not even alluded to. This doesn’t discount their existence, but we can conclude the following: It is possible that they do not exist. If they do exist, it has no importance on how we relate to God (since this is what the Bible is about, if it were relevant, it would need to be mentioned). Or, any importance there might be is a natural extension of that which is taught in Scripture. Nam made the excellent point of whether to consider aliens as equally created in the image of God, or if they are lesser beings. The answer can have serious ramifications, but Scripture doesn’t adequately equip us to make that judgment. So aliens are not important in this regard.

Taking a more high-level approach, consider the role of humanity in the world. The Bible declares that we are created in the image of God, and note further that creation culminates with the creation of humanity. The rest of the Bible frames all of history, all of the world, and all of understanding in the context of man and God. Humans have a special importance in the world. For there to be aliens who are equal with us (or greater) would be inconsistent with the way God has revealed our relationship to Him as something special. For there to be aliens that are like plants and animals, they should have some significance to humans. Since in the present state of affairs it is doubtful this could happen, I find it highly doubtful that there is alien life.

I’ve commonly heard the argument that space is too big for there not to be aliens. Genesis 1:14-15 gives us an explanation. “And God said, ‘Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth.’ And it was so.” We see that even though the universe is much bigger than the people inhabiting it, God explains that it is not wasted after all. It has a purpose, and that purpose is for the benefit of us humans. Again, all of creation and history centers around us.

Who Is the Intelligent Designer?

I would like to return again to defining intelligent design. I mentioned “things in the universe which exhibit a kind of complexity... as though a rational agent had designed it.” So what is a rational agent that could design the world?


Is this agent personal or impersonal? I am thinking of an image which as I recall was attributed to Nietzsche: when men were “primitive,” we were subject to all kinds of impersonal dangers like floods and earthquakes and hurricanes, and there was little we could do about them; we invented the idea of a personal God in order to be able to plead with Him and have a hope of being heard.


An impersonal rational agent seems hardly any different than saying that things evolved by chance, but I think there is a fine distinction which leaves this as an option. Chance is chance, things are as they are but they could have just as easily been otherwise. An impersonal rational agent consists of orderly (rational) rules and directives such that things will happen according to these rules. The design we see is a result of the rules of existence interplaying in such a way that it is orderly. Yet even this formulation of rules seems to be a product of design.


This leads to another consideration. Is the rational agent final? Is the agent the ultimate, transcendental agent which is because it is, or is there another agent that created the first in the same way the first created us? (I mean creation loosely, that it is responsible for our design). Whatever the answer is, the same questions we ask of our creator could be plied in the same way toward the one who created him, or the one who created him, until we find the final cause.


If our immediate creator is a personal agent, we can further ask the question of whether or not there are one or many distinct beings. Not only could there be one agent who created another, but the one may have created many.


In the end it becomes clear that there are a lot of things we could reason about the intelligent designer and not many things we can reason with certainty. I would like to take a step back and consider by what means we can know anything. So far I have been starting with information that is immediately clear to us or that we observe, and using our own reason try to deduce more. We can also learn by being told by one who knows. This latter option is certainly easier, and hopefully more reliable. It seems good, then, to exhaust the possibility of direct information before we resort to unaided reason.