Katie Langston (00:03)
And welcome to another episode of the Enter the Bible podcast where you can get answers or at least reflections on everything you wanted to know about the Bible but were afraid to ask. I'm Katie Langston.
Kathryn Schifferdecker (00:14)
And I'm Kathryn Schifferdicker. And we have again today as a very special guest, ⁓ Reverend Dr. Alan Padgett is Professor of Systematic Theology at Luther Seminary, a good friend of ours, and also relevant to the topic for today, contributor and co-editor of the Blackwell Companion to Science and Christianity. Alan is the person we turn to when we have any question from our listeners that is challenging and is particularly related to science and or philosophy and theology. That's one of those questions. But first, thank you, Alan, for joining us again today.
Alan Padgett (00:57)
It's my pleasure as always to do anything with you too. So Bible is, you know, I love the Bible. So get me on every time.
Kathryn Schifferdecker (01:05)
I do, I do.
Katie Langston (01:08)
We appreciate it
Kathryn Schifferdecker (01:08)
This is why we love having you. So our question for today comes from a listener. And as always, if listener or viewer, if you have a question, you can go to enterthebible.org and submit it. And we try to get to as many of these as we can. So the short question here is, does the Bible say anything about life on other planets? The original question is, does the Bible say anything about
alien life on other planets, is it possible that these sea spaceships are just a ploy from the devil? Now, I don't actually know what the listener means by these sea spaceships, so we're going to have to leave that and maybe they can write back and let us know what they mean. The general question, I think, is one that probably lots of people have, like, the Bible say anything about life on other planets? And how should, I think maybe a follow-up question.
How should we think about those kinds of questions as Christians? So, Alan, take it away.
Alan Padgett (02:10)
Thanks for giving me such an easy one this time. Well, I'm going to start with a no, and then go to the yes. Basically, despite what you might watch on TV or view in social media or some of the obscure portions of the digital bookstore or hopefully maybe even the brick and mortar bookstore that you
Kathryn Schifferdecker (02:18)
Okay.
Alan Padgett (02:33)
frequent. We have no evidence whatsoever of intelligent beings from other planets visiting planet Earth. It's not that there haven't been people who have looked for such evidence, but as the United States Air Force has reported over and over again, there is no such evidence. We have nothing that's public evidence available to be studied, right? Now, I recognize that some people will say, my personal experience is, you know, I was abducted by aliens or something. Or I watched this really compelling video by a friend of mine and it shows that, you know, there's aliens from other planets. But the thing is, like, if you imagine you're in a court of law, right, what one person says they observed doesn't count. You're going to look at the total body of evidence. And you prefer something that's either confirmed by a whole bunch of people, different, you know, one event seen by many, many people, or a physical artifact of type of evidence. And there's nothing like that. There's no event seen by many, many people. There's no physical evidence at all that we've ever seen. for aliens. Space aliens or intelligent beings from other planets. And one of the problems may just be physical, that, you know, that we can only go as fast as the speed of light. And guess what? These planets are really, really, really, really far away. Or else, like the ones close to us,
Katie Langston (03:35)
Or what they're hiding in Roswell…
Alan Padgett (03:53)
have no sign of intelligent life. Maybe there's fossil evidence for tiny microbes, that would be cool. And NASA gets very excited about that on another planet like Mars or moon, but no intelligent beings in our solar system, except for us, as far as we can tell. Again, we're going by what's evidence, what's reasonable, what the science is teaching.
Kathryn Schifferdecker (04:13)
So before we started recording, were... So Katie was just joking about, except what they're hiding at Roswell, right? So there's all kinds of amateur alien hunters or whatever you think that the government is hiding things. But you were talking before we started recording about an actual scientific study, trying to look for intelligent life on other planets. Can you say a bit for our listeners?
Alan Padgett (04:42)
It's called SETI, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. And if you'd like to help out with some of your computer time at home and you're an amateur, sciencey person, you you can actually join, and they're always looking for volunteers. Basically, they have these sophisticated programs that go through all of the radio astronomy receptions that we've gotten through various wavelengths and bands of radioactive—not radioactive, but radio waves from space.
And what they're looking for is any indication using very sophisticated algorithms and understandings of probability to say that these noises or this is information and not just background noise. And they use information in a computer science phrase. It doesn't have to mean anything. It just means it's not random. they have these mathematical standards for this is random, this is not random. We don't have this means anything. It could be gibberish as far as we can tell, but it's not random noises made.
Or it's not the same pattern over and over and over again, which you might get from certain astronomical bodies. So they have been looking for literally decades upon decades, and we have zero evidence of any intelligent beings anywhere in our observable space contacting us or sending off any kind of radio waves or anything else. So yeah, I think we just have to say there's no scientific, public, observable, repeatable. You know, you could repeat, you could go back and look at it again, evidence that we've been visited by aliens from other planets. But if you want to talk about other planets, well, let's talk about planets.
So, it turns out that in the biblical world, right, they didn't really know much about planets, but other people in biblical times did. So, what we call astronomy and astrology, because they were all kind of lumped together back then. ⁓ comes from the ancient Babylonians and Egyptians, and they were fascinated—well, some of them, you know, some of the elite, educated people were fascinated—by the patterns that the heavens make. And remember, they didn't have—they weren't distracted by video games or television or cinema. They didn't have lights on all the time, all night in urban areas, which block out the view of the heavens. I mean, they could see these things night after night, and so the Babylonians ⁓ observed that certain heavenly bodies move around in more random patterns than everything else, which is circular and moves around in a circle. And they called those, you the word planet comes from a word meaning wanderer. So there were people in the biblical world that understood that certain heavenly bodies, they had no concept of planet like we have, But certain observable heavenly bodies, stars, whatever, moved around in random…
And they were interested in, is there a pattern behind that? And they discovered some of the patterns behind that, and that you'd see these planets in this part of the sky at certain times of year and so forth. They knew all that stuff. But you could figure out by careful observation and recording, because it mattered, right, that they had writing, because this kind of stuff you have to write down and confirm, you know, 100 years later.
Kathryn Schifferdecker (07:55)
Is that better?
Alan Padgett (07:57)
You know, they have to write and know about writing. So they discovered actually a lot, and they knew there were these wandering things that we now call planets. But nope, the Bible has nothing, nothing about planets.
Kathryn Schifferdecker (08:10)
It does have, I'll just note, it does have various verses about stars. You said, anybody in the ancient world is going to see the stars a lot more. Many more stars than most of us see because of that lack of artificial light in the ancient world. So whenever I can quote the book of Job, I'm happy.
Alan Padgett (08:35)
Keep Schifferdecker happy by all means.
Kathryn Schifferdecker (08:37)
The book of Job, in God's speeches at the end, which is a whirlwind tour of all of creation, it includes the stars. God says to Job, can you bind the chains of the Pleiades or loose the cords of Orion? Can you lead forth the Maseroth in their season or can you guide the bearer with its children? They do see these constellations and they see them move across the sky and they see them show up at certain seasons.
But I think you're right that they don't, unlike the Babylonians, the Israelites are not astronomers in the sense of noticing the planets as distinct from the stars. So there's certainly an understanding of, or at least a basic knowledge of and noticing of the heavens, right? God is acclaimed as the creator of the heavens and the earth and the sea, right?
That all of this is under the majesty, the might, the power of the God of Israel, who is the one God, the creator of the cosmos,
Alan Padgett (09:39)
Yeah, no, absolutely. And so, in the biblical understanding of the cosmos, right, it's kind of like a multi-layered cake, you know, and I like that old King James version word, firmament, you know, so there's the farthest away part of reality is where God and the angels live, you know, and all of that. And that's the highest heaven or way, way out there from our perspective on earth. But then there's a firmament where the moon and the stars and the sun are.
That's another firmament, or the sky. And the biblical words for heaven or heavens can mean either one of those. So, you know, they knew about what we call heavenly bodies, and they could see and observe their patterns, and they had names, right, for the constellations and stuff like that. They did know all that, you're right, absolutely right. And they had a conception of the universe that was
You know, not our, my point is not our modern conception of the universe. It was an older one. They weren't stupid. Like, well, they're dumb, but it's like, no, these things develop over time. And, you know, the modern idea of the planet is pretty new, right? I mean, when I was a kid, we had nine planets. Now we only have eight. What happened to Pluto? He got kicked out of the planetary club, you know? Modern, there's a concept that's very, very new.
Katie Langston (11:01)
Thanks
Alan Padgett (11:04)
you know? And the Bible doesn't have that concept, and it couldn't have that concept, however inspired, it is inspired by the Holy Spirit, but the Holy Spirit used the language and culture and concepts of the humans who were inspired to write those things and edit those things. And so, they didn't have anything about planets in the Bible. There just isn't. Not in the sense that we mean the modern word planet. I mean, there's plenty about the earth and the stars and the moon and the heavens and—know nothing about planets. Okay, so what then about… Okay, so there's no alien's life that's ever visited earth that we can say is based on any reasonable evidence or available public evidence, and they didn't know anything about planets in the biblical world. But one thing from the biblical worldview that you mentioned, Kathryn, that is important is that whatever exists in whatever heaven that lives in is created by God.
Kathryn Schifferdecker (12:00)
Right, right.
Alan Padgett (12:01)
So God is the creator of the universe, and this—and God is a lawgiver. This is hugely important in the whole development of the history of science. We would not have modern science if people didn't believe there's one God who's like eternal, omniscient, knows everything, lives forever, doesn't have a creator, and who's a lawgiver and gives laws to the world, then that's where the order and structure and sets the boundaries of reality.
Kathryn Schifferdecker (12:36)
That's the stars in their courses, right?
Alan Padgett (12:41)
That is still true, by the way. The understanding of what the stars and planets are on the earth, those may change, but that God is the one who upholds the universe and creates the laws and principles of the natural world, and is a creator of everything that's not God and has no creator. Intrinsically, it's impossible for God to have a creator being who God is. That is still true, even though the details of science are rather different.
So now we get to the point that we've discovered other planets right not just though Nine or eight depending on how you define planet You're a little planetoid and the only reason we saw you is you got a little buddy that series that keeps orbiting you
Katie Langston (13:34)
We wouldn’t have even known you existed, Pluto.
Alan Padgett (13:37)
So, the planets are…there's lots of planets. And one thing I think, and this is interpretation, philosophical interpretation, it's not straight-up science, although close, is I think the universe is bio-friendly. That is to say that the universe is not just vast and cold and dark and meaningless. mean, the universe seems to have a structure and order that makes life possible, evolution of life on Earth.
Earth is the only planet we know of that has life, that we've discovered life on, of any significant source. We might be able to find, you know, the fossils of microbes on Mars or something. There's nothing alive on Mars now. Right. And if there are, it would be fossil evidence of tiny, you know, mold or something like that. And I'm not saying that mold is an unimportant part of our ecosystem, but I mean, yeah.
If we're looking for advanced intelligent life, we're the only ones that we've discovered. But think about this, if there is intelligent life on other planets, and I think there probably is just because I think the universe is set up for evolution to happen, that the laws of biology and chemistry and physics and astronomy, the structures that are there, and even some of the fine-tuning that's gone on over the structural evolution of the cosmos since the Big Bang.
All these things seem to suggest that life is meant to happen. That's about all you can say. And that's just saying probably, you know, more probably than not or something, know, than not proof or anything like that. So once you realize that and you suddenly realize, hey, we are discovering billions and billions of remote little shadows that are probably “gi-hugic” planets that are just huge enough that we can observe them with these deep space telescopes and stuff. Otherwise, wouldn't have seen them. Pluto, give me a break. Just a not-even-planet. These huge planets that leave little shadows that we can discover and say, hey, that looks like a planet. There's probably other life on planets beyond Earth. I mean, why would we think that God doesn't create other beings?
Other worlds, other life, other where. But see how the Bible is written by humans and it's mostly about humans, it's about earth. So there's all these things we can learn about outer space from science and from scientists. if what you want to know is does God love me, does God want to have a personal relationship with me, if there is a God, is God—
just a judge or does God forgive us and try to heal us and make the world a better place? You need to know the Bible for that stuff. You need to know the Bible for that. You're not going to find that through the study of science or biology or speculation about space aliens. It's not where you're going to find that kind of stuff, out. For that, you need Scripture. So I'm not saying, you know, the Bible is no good or crummy or just made up or anything dumb like that.
Of course, it's absolutely crucial knowledge for any believer and really for any human being. But the Bible is mostly interested in human beings, and then having said that, planet Earth, things that are about, you know, the planet, the plants, the animals, the land, the sea, the ocean, and the skies that are visible from planet Earth, and not a whole lot, nothing.
But notice what's interesting in all of that is the truths that the Bible reveal are meaningful even in our modern technological scientific world. The fact that there's a God and that God is the creator of everything. If there is life on other planets, God created them too. If there's advanced intelligence, symbolic thinking life on other planets like humans, God created them too. And God is their God as much as God is our God. So God's a creator of everything, man.
It's not like, well, you know, our God is just like—the God of the Bible is just for earth, and then there's other gods out there. No, there's one God, creator of everything in the universe, who's glorious and beautiful and powerful beyond our understanding.
and who has come to us by the call of Abraham and his family, by the founding of the nation of Israel, by through Moses and the prophets, and supremely, you know, we believe anyway in this space, in this little virtual space, we believe supremely and personally in Jesus Christ our Lord. And that's going to be true in whatever plan you're on.
Kathryn Schifferdecker (18:15)
Amen.
Katie Langston (18:16)
That's where I was going. That's my next question. I think there's no way to know this for sure. You know, best guess. So let's grant all that, right? There's one God and God created, I mean, that we, yes, and God created the entire universe, including possibly potentially intelligent life in other planets. that's not necessarily incompatible with the belief in the creator God. Where I get
curious or tripped up, I don't know what the right term is for it is like, know, assuming that they exist, the intelligent creatures on the other planets, like, do they need Jesus? And is God still trying to do not
Kathryn Schifferdecker (19:02)
I'm
Alan Padgett (19:03)
gotcha. You know, Katie, I hate to tell you this, but Jesus has a birthday. We call it Christmas. I know, yeah, He does. And so the Trinity existed before there was Jesus.
Kathryn Schifferdecker (19:14)
Right. Right.
Katie Langston (19:15)
Yeah.
Alan Padgett (19:16)
Jesus is name of a human being, the Son of Mary, an earthling, an earthling like us, earthlings. So, maybe let's ask a different question. The Trinity is the Trinity eternally and forever. We revealed this over a long period of time through Israel and Jesus and the early church. This was revealed, but the reality of the trying God is eternal.
Katie Langston (19:21)
Right, right, right, right, right.
It's always been there.
Kathryn Schifferdecker (19:37)
Right, right.
Alan Padgett (19:38)
So, and actually there's been some Christian science fiction about this. It's kind of an interesting question. And the first question is, okay, there's advanced intelligent life. Are they moral? Like, and the idea is probably they are. I mean, we develop morality, and I don't mean the common sort of, you might say, troop morality that you see in advanced animals like apes or dogs or whatever, where it doesn't count if the alpha male doesn't see you do it because he's not going to come over and smack you around.
I don't mean like social worries. I mean actual sense of right and wrong independent of whether anyone sees it or not or you know you did something wrong, even if there was no consequences and nobody saw. That kind of morality, do they have that? Do they have in biblical terms a sense of sin? And so you'd have to answer that. So let's say, Katie, you have a big imagination. So you say, yeah, okay, they do have morality and they do know that they're right and wrong.
Well, God will then probably heal and save them too. Why wouldn't God do that? How does God do that? You're going to need to ask the Holy Trinity that one. I have no idea. I've never created a universe. I would never have become a baby to save the universe. That makes no sense, right? From purely rational point of view, it's like, is this the right way to bring something? But God knows that, yeah, that actually is the right way, and that is how God did it, because it's the best way, the most loving way, the most...
Katie Langston (21:06)
So it's possible theoretically that God did this same thing on these other, in these other worlds possibly, or we don't know.
Alan Padgett (21:15)
I just don't know. I think the safest thing is we have no idea.
Katie Langston (21:18)
have
no idea. I think one of the more interesting questions I've heard about this, like in this topic is like, if we did meet an alien from another planet, should we evangelize them?
Alan Padgett (21:30)
No, they probably want to evangelize us. Honestly, you know, there's this old black and white movie called The Day the Earth Stood Still. Sometimes the aliens in these movies, the aliens are actually morally superior to us. And the first thing we do is shoot them.
Kathryn Schifferdecker (21:33)
Yeah
Right, right, right, right,
Alan Padgett (21:49)
So it's like, and you think, is that what humans are like? And suddenly you go, yeah, there's a lot of humans like that. Right. So you kind of think that they would visit us and we would evangelize, and maybe they're evangelizing us. You realize that your planet is kind of screwed up. So, and it's like, yeah, we know, sorry, we're doing what we can, but it's a mess. I mean, but the thing is, we don't even know if there are any such beings. So it's kind of useless to speculate.
Katie Langston (22:19)
Of course.
Alan Padgett (22:19)
I
have the fun of making an interesting movie or something like that, know, telling them that fun's coming, whatever.
Kathryn Schifferdecker (22:26)
I think you probably meant, you referenced Christian science fiction. I don't know if you meant C.S. Lewis's science fiction trilogy.
Alan Padgett (22:33)
Yeah,
the trilogy there, the...
Kathryn Schifferdecker (22:35)
Perelandra, Out of the Silent Planet, and then the name
Alan Padgett (22:40)
We know how much you really like Lewis if you've actually read That Hideous Strength and thought it was good.
Kathryn Schifferdecker (22:47)
I have read it. I have read it and I like the other two better, but there's some good points about that. ⁓
Alan Padgett (22:54)
This one is like, this
is trying to write like Charles Williams and it's not very good.
Kathryn Schifferdecker (23:02)
Yeah, but it is, I mean, it's an interesting trilogy, right? Because it explores some of those questions that you bring up, Katie, and that our listener brought up, well, kind of our listener brought up too, right? That if there is intelligent life on other planets and if God is God of the whole cosmos, then how does God interact with those beings, right? And so one of the books retells the story of the Garden of Eden, except this time, the Adam and Eve figures actually obey God, so they're just interesting. Particularly those two books are really interesting.
Alan Padgett (23:39)
Now the paralleling is interesting because it's that question that I asked, well, are they moral? And then have they done wrong? Those are questions we would have to know the answer to.
Kathryn Schifferdecker (23:49)
Right?
But yeah, it's intellectually interesting, but I think you're right in the end, Alan. We just don't know, right? We have no idea. We affirm that God is the creator not just of Earth, but of the whole cosmos. So that if there is life on other planets, which the Bible doesn't talk about, then we know that God is the same God that creates us and creates the whole Earth as well. Now, I do want to say this. We've just passed Earth Day last week. There is
So there are some tech bros in the world, like I can think of two at the top of my head who want to colonize space and colonize Mars and you know, and I think, you know, if we take the Bible as a witness, we're called to care for this home, right? This earth. shouldn't say this earth, but earth, this planet earth as ⁓ rare in the universe, right? That it's able to support life and not just
microbes, like you were saying, Alan, but actually, you know, species and intelligent life and, you know, complicated ecosystems so that we're not called as biblical Christians to go colonize the cosmos. We're called to take care of this precious gift of earth that we are given as, you know, to tend and to keep and to guard as Genesis 2.15 says. So I just want to put that plug in there as well that we shouldn't be so fascinated with the possibility of alien life or life on other planets as so as to ignore, you know, this.
Alan Padgett (25:25)
I'm organizing other planets with earthlings. Fascinating thing, but yeah, morally what's important is that we need to clean up our own planet, and then maybe we worry about other planets. I mean, ethically that's…and the Bible talks about humans a lot, but there's a lot in Scripture about taking care of the earth and being good stewards of the world that we have been given, showing love for our neighbors in the community of creation of the whole earth.
Kathryn Schifferdecker (25:52)
Amen.
Alan Padgett (25:58)
Exactly. just neighbors in our zip code that are humans, but you know, our neighborhoods that are...
Katie Langston (26:03)
Well, and that's the promise, That's the future promises a new heaven and a new earth, a renewed, like if we believe in the resurrection, the bodily resurrection, that even that future life is going to be lived here. Which makes me bummed like in the new heaven and the new earth, well, we know more about the aliens. I want to know that, but either way, even in the next life, we're here. So.
Kathryn Schifferdecker (26:28)
Yeah.
Alan Padgett (26:29)
There is one traditional embodied person that God creates, and that's the angels. Yes. They live—now remember the biblical worldview. Angels live in the cosmos, but they live on that sphere that's way far away where God lives. But biblical authors believe that there are other persons who are intelligent and created by God that are not human beings. That's true.
Kathryn Schifferdecker (26:35)
True. ⁓
Alan Padgett (26:55)
And they're called messengers or angels, but we don't know much about them except they're not people, they're not God. What's the first thing they say? Be not afraid. The second one is don't worship me, I'm not God. So whatever they are, they're pretty awesome, but you know, they're still created by God.
Kathryn Schifferdecker (27:07)
Hey, hey, hey, hey.
Katie Langston (27:13)
Angels are aliens, people, you heard it here first.
Alan Padgett (27:16)
Yeah.
Kathryn Schifferdecker (27:17)
No, no , no. Well, technically, yeah. ⁓
Alan Padgett (27:21)
They probably are aliens. They certainly live off the planet, right? I mean, they live off the planet. The last thing I want to say though too is, and this gets back to the Bible, is there have been people who've interpreted certain of the symbolic visions in the Bible as if they were like space aliens or something like that, and just don't believe those either. You need to read some serious literature on the Bible from people that are biblical scholars like Dr. Schifferdecker about the book of Ezekiel or something like that, or Revelation. And there's no space aliens in the biblical symbols and stories.
Kathryn Schifferdecker (28:00)
Alan is referring to in the Ezekiel chapter one, those these strange visions that the prophet has of like whirling wheels and beings of sapphire that look like sapphire. even Ezekiel can't, he doesn't even have the words to describe them, right? He's like, this is the echo of the vision of the likeness of what I saw, you know, like several steps removed. But yeah, there have been some people who think about that in terms of aliens. I think it's worth noting your final point there, Alan, about angels. There is a biblical awareness of other beings, other intelligent beings that worship God that we just catch glimpses of, and we don't know much about them.
But I don't think we should equate them with aliens from another planet. But they are beings that worship, or maybe we should. mean, Lewis, think, C.S. Lewis, again, to go back to him, I think made that equation. But not aliens in the sense that we see them as science fiction, right? These are not... Yeah, these are...
Alan Padgett (29:12)
Use the word in a very weird way…
Kathryn Schifferdecker (29:15)
These are beneficent fellow creatures who worship God, right?
Alan Padgett (29:21)
Someone coming to kidnap you. The angels live a lot closer to God than we do. So, we don't know where they live, right? But they're not closer to God than us. So, they're not our idea of space, intelligent beings, and spaceship. They don't need spaceships. I was just trying to say that maybe the universe is just a lot bigger than we know, including the intelligent life.
Kathryn Schifferdecker (29:37)
Yeah, they don't need to push it.
And more mysterious, more mysterious.
Alan Padgett (29:52)
And I think God is way more creative than we normally are. we think, you know, whatever God did there, He's going to have to repeat that all over the place. God doesn't do that a whole lot. I don't know if you haven't noticed.
Kathryn Schifferdecker (30:03)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And maybe, just maybe, we're not the center of the whole cosmos.
Alan Padgett (30:09)
Oh my gosh, you're kidding me. That's the center of the cosmos, not me? Oh lord. I'm gonna have to rethink my whole life pattern now.
Kathryn Schifferdecker (30:18)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, anyway, yeah, this is a fascinating conversation. Thank you, Alan, for again, answering some of our more challenging listener questions. ⁓ We really appreciate it. And thank you. Yeah. Well, we always love having you on our, on our broadcast, Alan. And we'll have you back. One of, one of these times, maybe we'll throw you a softball question.
Alan Padgett (30:21)
Alright, well this was- IT'S LOSING
You're very
Thanks, though.
Yeah, I'm not going to wait for that. I think that'll be right about right just before the New Heaven and the New Earth. We'll have that one.
Kathryn Schifferdecker (30:52)
All right. Well, we appreciate you, Alan. So thanks for being here. All right. You too. And thank you listeners and viewers for listening to this episode of the Enter the Bible podcast. We hope this has been insightful. We encourage you to go to enterthebible.org where you can get high quality courses, commentary, resources, videos, other episodes of this podcast and reflections.
Alan Padgett (30:56)
And the-
Kathryn Schifferdecker (31:16)
If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and review us on YouTube or your favorite podcast app. And of course, as always, the best compliment you can pay us is to share this podcast with a friend. Until next time.