Christianity and the Vastness of the Universe By Brian Simpson
A common argument that atheistic materialists make against the idea of special creation by a creating entity, God, is: look at the vastness of the universe, humans are insignificant! And, surely with all those planets out there in just the known universe, life must exist? Thus, how can humans then be made in the image of God? An extract of this sort of thinking, in part, appeared in The Conversation.com, as below.
First, regarding the question of size, it is a logical fallacy to argue that human smallness implies lack of cosmic significance. Size, even in the human domain, does not decide mortal worth, otherwise midgets, sorry, height challenged people, would be less valuable than tall people.
Would life on other planets show that Christianity is false? Hardly. If there is non-intelligent life, I do not see that having any theological consequences. But if intelligent life exists, we would expect those beings to be Christians, as well. Thus, the Christian message would be confirmed. However, my personal view is that humans are unique, and there is no-one else out there; if there is nothing in the Bible about it, I tend to suspend belief until given hard evidence, and all the UFO stuff, I have argued in past bogs entries does not show an extra-terrestrial origin. But, either way none of this cosmology challenges Christian faith in the slightest.
“Did your optimism just fade too? That is okay, because here is the wonderful thing… we don’t have to find life to know it is out there, somewhere.
When we consider the trillions of galaxies, septillion of stars, and likely many more planets just in the observable Universe, it feels near impossible that we are alone.
We can’t fully constrain the parameters we need to estimate how many other lifeforms might be out there, as famously proposed by Frank Drake, but using our best estimates and simulations the current best answer to this is tens of thousands of possible civilisations out there.”
https://biologos.org/articles/what-would-life-beyond-earth-mean-for-christians
“We may or may not understand them, but as Christians we know they are fellow creatures. They might be friendly, indifferent, or violent toward us. But if they exist, they are creatures that God intended to create, just like life on Earth. As 20th century Christian leader Billy Graham said, “I firmly believe there are intelligent beings like us far away in space who worship God. But we have nothing to fear from these people. Like us, they are God’s creation.” (as quoted by Ted Peters in “Science, Theology, and Ethics”). The God of the Bible is the God of all life in the cosmos, and thus we should treat that life with respect and care.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20161215-if-we-made-contact-with-aliens-how-would-religions-react
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