Religion: Faith & Outer Space

What happens to Christianity if a traveling spaceman one day leaves his rocket ship, takes a stroll through the celestial parks, and ends up having tea with a green-bearded, triple-bellied inhabitant of outer space? In the Christian Herald, theology-centered Author C. S. (The Screwtape Letters) Lewis weighs the question, points out that it might challenge a basic tenet of Christianity-man's uniqueness. Inveterate Theologian Lewis, a Cambridge professor of literature and a convert (1930) from well-bred skepticism to the Church of England, states the problem thus: "If we find ourselves to be but one among a million races, scattered through a million spheres, how can we, without absurd arrogance, believe ourselves to have been uniquely favored?"

Having defied gravity and undertaken such theological speculation before (via his fictional trilogy: Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, That Hideous Strength), Explorer Lewis quickly comes to the heart of space theology: If man is not unique, what of Christ's human incarnation and man's redemption through him? Suggests Lewis: redemption may be possible through other means than "birth at Bethlehem, the cross on Calvary and the empty tomb . . . To different diseases, or different patients sick with the same disease, the great Physician may have applied different remedies.'' Or else outer-world species might not be fallen, hence not require redemption at all.

What would happen, asks Lewis, if space travelers from earth discover an unfallen race? "At first, to be sure, they'd have a grand time jeering at, duping and exploiting its innocence; but I doubt if our half-animal cunning would long be a match for godlike wisdom, selfless valor and perfect unanimity." Still, "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 . . . of intolerable guilt." Earth missionaries might try to force on "creatures that did not need to be saved that plan of Salvation which God has appointed for Man.'' Pleads Lewis: "You and I should resolve to stand firm against all exploitation and all theological imperialism. Our loyalty is due not to our species but to God. Those who are, or can become. His sons, are our real brothers, even if they have shells or tusks ... It is spiritual kinship that counts."