Just to expand on my previous post, at 1 in 1 million planets with unicellular life, that still implies we’d have to search almost a thousand times more planets we’ve so far discovered before we’d run into one with something as “mundane” as a biofilm smattered on some rock.
Don’t get me wrong, that would still be the greatest scientific discovery in history, but I think it puts the so-called “Fermi paradox” into some proper context.
If we don’t know the probability of the origin of any form of life (and we don’t), and we don’t know the frequency with which life evolves organized multicellularity (and we don’t), and we don’t know the frequency with which such multicellular life evolves human-like intelligence capable of radioastronomy (and we don’t), then how can our not observing any so far constitute a problem, much less a paradox?
There’s a rather large range of possible frequencies in between Earth hosting life being literally unique, and intelligent life being extremely common. Life on 1 in 1 million planets would make Earth one among something like ~1021 planets in the observable universe that hosts life(assuming ~1 planet pr. star), and yet 1 in 1 million is rare enough that we might plausibly never find it.
But the only possible way to make any headway on this numbers game is to actually search for life. And life doesn’t have to be Klingons or Wookies, even finding single-celled organisms on another planet would be the most interesting discovery in human history. And we haven’t even searched our own solar system all that well.
The first part of your argument relies on the assumption that aliens would have to believe in Jesus on Earth in order to be saved. However, what rules out the Son of God also being incarnated in other distant worlds? What rules out God instituting other, parallel means of salvation in other worlds? (Think of the example of Narnia and the parallel between Jesus and Aslan. It’s a fictional story, but at the same time I don’t see anything morally or theologically threatened if the story were true in our universe.)
The second part of your argument goes like this:
God gave His Son for rational beings in the whole universe.
From 1: all rational beings in the whole universe need God’s Son.
From 2: all rational beings in the whole universe must be sinful and fallen.
The only way for rational beings to become sinful and fallen is through Adam’s sin.
Adam’s sin only affects rational beings on this planet.
From 2, 4 and 5: There must be no other rational beings in the universe.
However, there is no clear reason why I should accept proposition 5). Rational beings in other universes could become fallen through other means than the earthly Adam - perhaps they also had their own “Adam” who sinned in a similar way.
Agree except the verse as I’m interpreting it implies that God knew the fall would happen and He gave His son for the whole universe. Therefore, they may have fallen yes, but then they’d need to be able to communicate with Earth and understand what happened here. You skipped that part of my argument.
A word about that - i am somewhat familiar with the SETI program, and I used to contribute spare computer time to the SETI@Home project. This research receives little or no pubic funding, and if mostly funded from private sources and contributions. As research goes, it is also dirt cheap, as SETI typically piggyback radio antenna time with others projects, analyzing the same signal for a different purpose. SETI has made useful contributions (like the discovery of a Pulsar), but haven’t found evidence of alien civilizations yet.
I did not skip it. My first reply to that part was here:
I will also add a second reply: if aliens exist, then perhaps we are meant to find them to spread the Gospel to them. In that sense aliens would be no different than people groups all around the world right now who have not yet heard the Gospel.
Hebrews seems to rule that out. And if it wasn’t the actual sacrifice, but only a symbol they should have been able to communicate with us already.
Hebrews 9
For Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands, which are [k]copies of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us; 25 not that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood of another— 26 He then would have had to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. 27 And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, 28 so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation.
Hebrews 10:10
By that will we have been [c]sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
