From:    Gil Wilkes
Subject: Re: E.T.'s

In a message to Anyone <05-20-90 19:05> Greg Hansen wrote:

>   Is there any Biblical reason why aliens from outer space
>  cannot exist?  I was talking with a friend briefly and he
>  said they do not exist.  I wasn't able to stick around long
>  enough to understand his reasons, but they were very Bible
>  based.


Greg, interesting question, you come up with the best, -and most difficult
questions.

i ma not aware of any Biblical reasons why "aliens from outer space" cannot
exist. However, i am aware of theological reasons why contact between our
"worlds" would be prohibited and therefore not occur.

The reasoning is thus: We are a fallen race, we have fallen out of line with
our Creator, and are in the words of our Patristic Fathers, "totally
depraved." We are creatures that carry a deadly contagion: sin. Now, if we
were to come into contact with another race, they would have to be one of two
things, fallen, or unfallen. In other words, they would either have to exist
in their original state, -as we were created, innocent and in communion with
their Creator, in which case our contact with them would be deadly - for them.
Just as our contact with a fallen angel, Satan, was deadly for us, their very
innocence would make them vulnerable to our corrupting influence. We would
either consume them or corrupt them, or both, and you only need look to the
shameful history of our own race to see how hi-tech peoples have treated the
low-tech peoples they have stumbled accross.

Or, they would be fallen, like we are, and if they possessed the technical
expertise to span the vast emptiness of "outer space," than we would be
uniquely vulnerable to them! We would be subject to exploitation and
extirpation that would make the Colonial wars on the Indian nations pale by
comparison. Therefore, in referece to "aliens from outer space," most
theologians agree that if we are not unique in all of the created order, than
we are certainly, for the safety of all of us, under "quaratine" until Our
Lord's work be done and we are restored.

i hope i made that clear enough for you. There is a good book by C S Lewis
that deals with human contact with an "unfallen" race on the planet Venus, the
title escapes me, but it clearly expresses the same ideas that i tried to
express to you. peace/gvw

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