The Vast Universe

Originally published in the Catholic Times, Feb. 10 issue

Ohio Dominican University celebrated the feast of Saint Thomas Aquinas with their annual Convocation in this year featuring a lecture by theologian Fr. Thomas F. O’Meara, OP titled “Vast Universe: Extraterrestrials and Christian Revelation” (Also the title of his latest book). O’Meara’s presentation treated those attending with the opportunity to stretch their minds and understanding of Christian revelation here on earth by considering the possibility of free, intelligent extraterrestrial life sharing with human beings a capacity for relationship with God, the Creator of all.

He began with a quick review of the growing body of scientific knowledge of the universe gathered in part from increasingly powerful telescopes that probe its vast expanse. Scientists estimate the existence of about 125 billion galaxies each holding billions of stars. The Drake Equation that looks at probabilities of the existence of intelligent life on other planets, suggests that in our galaxy alone, the possibility lies anywhere from one thousand to one million intelligent civilizations.

In his lecture, O’Meara moved into considering how this speculation impacts Christian understanding of Jesus of Nazareth as the revelation of God.

No problem, I thought as I scribbled notes in my journal, having long entertained the probability of intelligent creatures existing somewhere in the universe. How could they not? Two favorite authors came to mind: Madeleine L’Engle, in the book “A Wrinkle in Time,” shows her young protagonists meeting Centaur-like creatures on planet Uriel, their first stop along a cosmic journey battling evil. These creatures exist in what we might call a “Garden of Eden” state, always filled with light and love. At a later point in the story, gentle sightless creatures who live on planet Ixchel healed the space travelers from an encounter with evil.

I also remembered a conversation between Aslan, the Great Lion of C. S. Lewis’s “Narnia Chronicles,” and Lucy, as she was preparing to return to Earth in “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader:” Grieving that she will not meet Alsan back on earth, he reassures her that she will. On earth Aslan says, “…I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little while you may know me better there.”

There must be many names.

O’Meara continued by listing three topics, basic to all religions, that could be used to explore the topic of extraterrestrials and God: A knowing person; a person’s special relationship to God, and sin and evil.

On other planets, life would take different forms. Freedom and intelligence, not appearance would be important. Fr. O’Meara referred to the importance of story to human beings and commented that “story” might not be an element of other beings relationships with the Divine. The relationship might be pure Presence. I thought again of L’Engle’s inhabitants of Uriel, existing in love as their way of being.

I was intrigued by the notion of grace O’Meara connected with the topic of relationship with God, recognizing “grace” as an activity of God. Christian faith is about God touching people in a special way, he said. How might other beings experience “grace?” As Thomas Aquinas thought, God created out of the generosity of goodness. Incarnation on earth is but one activity of a dynamic God.

And what about evil and sin? Does the existence of intelligence mean that evil must be present? It is part of our story. Might civilizations exist without it?

As O’Meara pointed out, theological thought on extraterrestrial life is not new, and he quoted Franciscan, Guillaume de Vaurouillon (1392-1463), who wrote that “Infinite worlds, more perfect than this one, lie hid in the mind of God.”

O’Meara also mentioned twentieth century theologian Jesuit Karl Rahner’s openness to the idea of intelligent life on other planets and the conviction that God’s self communication would be offered to them.

Reminding me of Aslan’s comment to Lucy in “The Dawn Treader,” O’Meara quoted a few lines from the poem, “Christ in the Universe,” by British poet, Alice Meynell: “But in the eternities,/ Doubtless we shall compare together, hear/ A million alien Gospels, in what guise/ He trod the Pleiades, the Lyre, the Bear./ O, be prepared, my soul!/ To read the inconceivable, to scan/ The million forms of God those stars unroll/ When, in our turn, we show to them a Man.”

Dr. Barbara Finan, friend and colleague of O’Meara, offered in her response to the lecture, “I learned a lot about who God is not from Tom O’Meara. Perhaps that is the most we can hope for…God is more than we can imagine.”

True. But for forty minutes, we enjoyed trying.

Photo by: NASA