God, UFOs, and the Silent Planet

I grew up watching The X-Files, so you must forgive me if I have an unusual interest in “little green men” from outer space. When I was working on my undergraduate degree in astrophysics twenty years ago, I was always fascinated by the chapters at the end of the astronomy textbooks with titles like “Astrobiology” or “The Search for Life.” At that time, astronomers were finding the first observable evidence of planets beyond our own solar system. There were fewer than 80 verified extrasolar planets when I enrolled in my first college physics class in 2001; today, there are over 6,000 and counting.

More recently, the May 8, 2026, release of roughly 160 UAP files (formerly UFO) brought the topic to the forefront once more. The dark and troubled underworld of the internet (known as Reddit) quickly became inflamed by debates about whether proof of life on planets other than Earth would be a nail in the coffin of Christianity or even religion altogether. Regarding the UAP file release, headlines have been more about government transparency than about extraterrestrial life, and it is unlikely that any credible evidence of other life in the cosmos will be forthcoming. Still, the question remains: What would the discovery of life beyond Earth mean for the Christian faith? 

Would the existence of life beyond our planet undermine the Christian faith?

Why Aliens Matter for Atheists

First, we should note that atheists have far more at stake in this debate than do Christians. If extraterrestrials landed and said “hello” tomorrow morning, Christians would have some interesting questions to ponder (see below), but what if the Visitors never arrive? What if year after year passes and no extraterrestrial life is found?

For centuries now, some atheists have quietly hoped that the universe would be teeming with life and thereby diminish any theological significance of Earth. According to the assumptions of atheism, our planet gave rise to organic life simply as a matter of chemical necessity. The right elements in the combination and in the conditions bring simple organic life into existence, and the rest is history. However, there are something like 2000 sextillion stars in our observable universe, and presumably a fair number of them contain planets like our own. It is inconceivable that, in this unimaginably vast universe, those specific conditions and elements only happened to bring about life once in the 13.8 billion-year history of Big Bang cosmology. Or as physicist Enrico Fermi asked famously in 1950, “Where is everybody?”

To get a sense of the problem’s size, we need to do a little math, and to those of you who came here to read arithmetic-free theology, I apologize for what follows.

Consider the equation developed by Dr. Frank Drake in 1961. He proposed that you could estimate the number of alien civilizations in just our galaxy by doing some statistical math. Take the average rate of star formation in our galaxy multiplied by the fraction of stars likely to have planets multiplied by the average number of those planets that would be Earth-like enough to support life multiplied by the fraction of those planets which would in fact develop life multiplied by the fraction of those lifebearing planets that develop intelligent life multiplied by the fraction of those intelligent species which would be sufficiently advanced in technology for us to notice them multiplied by the length of time such civilizations remain detectable to us … and then Bob’s your uncle.

Still with me? The math is almost over.

The real issue with using the “Drake equation” was figuring out which percentages to use. In some sense, it became a test of your faith in the power of unguided evolution to produce life. In their earliest estimates, Drake’s team guessed that the percentage of Earth-like planets that would ultimately produce life and the percentage of those planets that would produce intelligent life were both 100%. Surely, they thought, everywhere intelligent life can happen, it does happen! As a result, they estimated that there could be as many as 50 million advanced alien civilizations in our galaxy alone.

Since the 1960s, programs related to the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) have spent hundreds of millions of dollars scanning the night sky at every conceivable wavelength, motivated by the expectation that our galactic neighborhood was full of fellow residents. The now-canceled NASA SETI program spent $10-13 million per year at its peak in search of a signal from other worlds. The results? So far, we are at exactly one intelligent species and counting - the lonely human race holding up its satellite dish to the sky in hope for answers. After Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin returned from outer space in 1961, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev famously remarked, “Gagarin flew into space, but didn’t see any god there.” What we should have noticed is that he didn’t see anyone else either.

In the years since Drake’s initial statistical work, the scientific community has been dialing down those optimistic percentages. The high estimates used today peak at around 15 million advanced civilizations, whereas more pessimistic estimates - made with the assumption that the specific conditions we see on earth are nearly unique - dip to nearly zero. However, in astronomy, we do not like words such as “unique.” One of the bedrock principles of modern astronomy is known as the “cosmological principle.” In technical terms, it states that the universe is both homogeneous and isotropic to any observer. In simpler terms, it states that the Earth does not hold a special or privileged location in the cosmos because no such privileged place exists. Everything from the distribution of matter to the laws of physics is just about the same everywhere.

To summarize the dilemma, an atheist must accept that a high number of intelligent civilizations exist in our galaxy and just can’t be bothered to return our calls, or that the Earth occupies a special place in the universe in violation of astronomy’s most sacred creed. The silence of the starry heavens does not disprove atheism, but it does complicate many of their confident assumptions about the origins of life on Earth.

Why Aliens Might Matter for Christians

The dilemma for Christians is a little more nuanced. Theology would certainly be simpler if we were alone in the universe. Aquinas, working within Aristotelian cosmology, thought that since John 1:10 says that “The world was made by Him,” there must be only one ordered, life-giving world, “for it is not possible for there to be another earth than this one” (ST I.47.3). However, other notable Christian thinkers have been more open to the idea of an inhabited cosmos. Indeed, Christian theologians have long entertained the idea of other species in Creation.

Augustine came close to the question as early as 426 AD, when he wrote City of God. He did not consider the specific questions about life on other planets, but he did consider the possibility of non-human life on this planet. Could it be that the monsters of the ancient myths, such as the cyclops or tribes of feral dogmen, are real? Augustine gives the reasonably open-minded answer, “Wherefore, to conclude this question cautiously and guardedly, either these things which have been told of some races have no existence at all; or if they do exist, they are not human races; or if they are human, they are descended from Adam” (City of God XVI.8).

Furthermore, what of humans who live on the other side of the Earth? First, take a moment to be impressed that Augustine knew the Earth was round a millennium before Galileo: “although it be supposed or scientifically demonstrated that the world is of a round and spherical form, yet it does not follow that the other side of the earth is bare of water; nor even, though it be bare, does it immediately follow that it is peopled” (XVI.9). For his own part, Augustine considers the idea of these distant races to be a fable “that is on no ground credible,” but we must at least credit him for considering the thought.

A far better example comes from Nicholas of Cusa, who finished his brilliantly titled De docta ignorantia (“On Scientific Ignorance”) in 1440. He touches on a variety of cosmological topics, including treating the universe as an infinite sphere, an idea well ahead of its time. He also considers at length the idea of life and “the inhabitants of other stars - of whatever sort these inhabitants might be” (II.12). Nicholas would claim that we do not know these species: “since that entire region is unknown to us, those inhabitants remain altogether unknown.” He imagined that each region had its own life appropriate to it, some “more solar, brilliant, illustrious, and intellectual”, and that in all likelihood extraterrestrial beings “bear no comparative relationship to the inhabitants of earth.”

Several other theologians have speculated on this theme with varying results. In John Wesley’s sermon “What Is Man?” in 1787, we read that the idea of multiple inhabited worlds was “a very favourite notion with all those who deny the Christian Revelation; and for this reason, because it affords them a foundation for so plausible an objection to it.” For his part, Wesley “could not allow it without stronger proof,” but he understood the logic of the argument.

But, some of the best writing on any given topic comes from the author of Narnia.

Five Questions from Jack

In 1958, C. S. Lewis wrote a short essay titled “Will We Lose God in Outer Space?” and later retitled “Religion and Rocketry” in 1960. His first observation is that atheists complain on the one hand that the lifeless universe proves that there is no Creator who loves living things, but also complain on the other hand that we will almost certainly find more life in the universe, which will also prove there is no Creator with a special relationship to the human race. “Each new discovery, even every new theory, is held at first to have the most wide-reaching theological and philosophical consequences. It is seized by unbelievers as the basis for a new attack on Christianity. … But usually, when the popular hubbub has subsided and the novelty has been chewed over by real theologians, real scientists and real philosophers, both sides find themselves pretty much where they were before.” Still, Lewis is intrigued by the question and challenges us to consider extraterrestrial life through the lens of five important questions.

First, are there animals beyond Earth? Lewis has no interest in plant life, as it does not really change the Christian story as we know it. If a distant world had verdant forests, nothing we say about God changes in the least unless it is to say that His creation is far more glorious than we had guessed. Regarding animal life, he doubts we will ever know for sure, but if the answer turns out to be positive, then he moves to question number two.

Do any of these animals have “rational souls”? Here on Earth, we are already surrounded by a vast array of creatures to whom the story of the Scripture has no particular impact. There are no beatitudes for baboons and no redemption for ravens, so if there be the equivalent of such creatures on Mars, how would that be any different than the current situation? “We teach our sons to read but not our dogs. The dogs prefer bones.” If, however, such creatures are discovered who are “genuinely spiritual,” then we proceed to the next question.

Are any or all of these creatures like us—fallen and damaged by sin? Atheists miss this point in their deliberations completely because sin and righteousness are not the lens through which they consider the world. They assume that God sending his Son to us in the flesh somehow implies that we think we are the greatest of God’s creatures or specially privileged in some way. Quite the opposite. Says Lewis, “No creature that deserved Redemption would need to be redeemed. They that are whole need not the physician.” It may well be that the starry heavens are like the highest heavens, full of living creatures who live out their days in sinless worship, singing “Holy, Holy, Holy” to the Ancient of Days.

“Perhaps of all races we only fell. Perhaps Man is the only lost sheep; the one, therefore, whom the Shepherd came to seek.” In which case, as Lewis says, “God shield them from us!” Perhaps the reason we have not met races from the stars is that “the vast astronomical distances [are] God’s quarantine precautions. They prevent the spiritual infection of a fallen species from spreading.”

Is that so hard to imagine? “We know what our race does to strangers. Man destroys or enslaves every species he can.” Lewis suggests we ask the natives of Africa and the Americas what happens when “civilized man” visits distant shores. He “murders, enslaves, cheats, and corrupts.” Why would we think we would act differently among the stars than we have among the continents?

“Against them we shall, if we can, commit all the crimes we have already committed against creatures certainly human but differing from us in features and pigmentation; and the starry heavens will become an object to which good men can look up only with feelings of intolerable guilt, agonized pity, and burning shame.” Perhaps there is a good reason that God is keeping the rest of his creatures away from us.

But what if these living beings in the sky are, in fact, fallen and sinful, as we are? If true, wouldn’t that prove that there is no all-loving God? Wouldn’t it be defeating for Christian theology to learn that there were sinners in the universe who were separated from redemption in Christ alone by the insurmountable distances of outer space?

Lewis thinks not. First, he reminds us that the Bible tells the story of God’s love for humanity, but it does not exclude the possibility of other great redemptive stories unfolding among the stars. “The eternal Son may, for all we know, have been incarnate in other worlds than earth and so saved other races than ours.” This line of reasoning reminds me of the ancient Israelites who assumed that God had only rescued them alone. Yet Amos explains, “‘Are you not like the Cushites to me, O people of Israel?’ declares the LORD. ‘Did I not bring up Israel from the land of Egypt, and the Philistines from Caphtor, and the Syrians from Kyr?” (Amos 9:7). The fact that we know the story of the Hebrew exodus from Egypt does not mean that there aren’t hundreds or thousands of other unknown stories wherein God rescued other nations. If that is true on Earth, why not in the heavens? Lewis, ever the literary scholar, quotes from a poem by Alice Meynell: “in the eternities / doubtless we shall compare together, hear / a million alien Gospels, in what guise / He trod the Pleiades, the Lyre, the Bear.”

But finally, what if there are creatures on other worlds who are rational, fallen, and denied redemption because the Son of God came only to the isolated planet Earth? What then? Doesn’t that last hypothetical defeat Christian theology? Lewis replies, “Here, of course, we ask for what is not merely unknown but, unless God should reveal it, wholly unknowable.”

Perhaps the “whole creation” is waiting for the human race to be adopted as sons of God so that each other race may be “set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Romans 8:19-23). Maybe God is waiting for us to be made right so we can take the gospel to the stars. Or maybe there's another possibility.

In truth, this last bit of speculative doubt-mongering is no different from the situation of the first century of Christianity or even of our own time. The book of Acts begins with the realization that salvation has come to all humanity through one man who lived in one place and at one time. The rest of the inhabited world might as well have been on Proxima Centauri b. The logical problem is much the same. There were people in need of saving who did not know their Savior and could not know him directly due to distance and communication constraints. Christianity has been wrestling with this question for years. What of a sinner who never hears the gospel? Can God condemn the ignorant while remaining loving? Can God arbitrarily forgive such a one without Jesus while remaining just?

The Catholic theologian might answer that a person may be saved by Christ without consciously knowing Christ due to the work of God upon their conscience through natural revelation. Perhaps like Cyrus of old, God says, “I name you, though you do not know me … I equip you, though you do not know me” (Isaiah 45:4-5). The Reformed theologian might say that sinners are not condemned because they have not heard the gospel; they are condemned rightly and justly for their sins. We should not be outraged that sinners are condemned; we should be shocked that any are saved! An Arminian theologian might reply that God’s grace is so fully at work in the world and in the universe that no person has ever lived who did not have some genuine opportunity to respond to God. In the end, God will judge each by the amount of grace he has given them. A Molinist would argue that God, in his infinite knowledge, has specifically arranged the universe so that every being that would respond to the gospel receives it.

And on and on the possibilities go.

Ask me this question, and my answer will depend a great deal on what sort of mood I am in when you ask it. I am what is called “an unsystematic theologian,” or in simpler terms, a man often confused.

The point here is not to select an answer but to notice the similarity between the questions. The issue seems to be: “If salvation comes by Christ alone, how can God be just and loving if there are people who do not know Christ due to accidents of birth and circumstance?” The question is the same whether they are on an island in the blue Pacific or in a colony on azure Neptune, and Christians have been asking and answering that question for millennia. Our answers may seem speculative to you, but so is the question! As Lewis concluded, “I think a Christian is sitting pretty if his faith never encounters more formidable difficulties than these conjectural phantoms.”

In sum, I think the Narnian would say simply this. There is nothing in the recent government document dump that compels me to believe there are living creatures on other planets. There is certainly nothing that shows me intelligent, spiritual creatures on other planets. What’s more, there is absolutely nothing that confirms the existence of intelligent, spiritual, fallen creatures on other planets. Added to that, there is nothing any government document could teach us about whether God offered salvation by some means to these hypothetical intelligent, spiritual fallen creatures on other planets. And if each of these hypothetical scenarios were true and God was intentionally preventing these intelligent, spiritual, fallen creatures from receiving salvation in Christ by separating them across the cosmos, this would pose no greater theological riddle to us today than we already face.

The hypothetical problem of taking the gospel to Saturn is not greater than the actual problem that many of us have not yet taken it across the street.