Wither Theology Then?

The Milky Way

In a news posting entitled, "Complex life better than 1-in-100 chance," reporter Stuart Gary reports on recent research, which in a nutshell indicates that "up to 1.2 per cent of stars in our galaxy could have planets with complex life."  The Wikipedia article on our galaxy (here) indicates that there are between 200 and 400 billion stars in the Milky Way, which means a whole lot of possibilities for complex life.  An online abstract of the research paper itself is available (here) and the full report is also available in an online version (here).

This means that there's the possibility of complex life existing on planets orbiting at least 2 billion-plus stars, maybe twice that many.  It is impossible to believe that there is no life out there.  It is just as impossible to think that life on some of those planets has not evolved in directions similar to life on Earth.  And the chances that there is intelligent life out there seems seriously great as well.

We cannot even begin to imagine the potential impact all of this will have on our understanding of God.  Simply coming into contact with another human culture influences our theologies even if we try to deny the influence.  How, then, will an alien culture (assuming that an alien intelligence will have something akin to culture) affect our understanding of our universe, ourselves, and our faith?  Assuming that we will find ways to communicate with alien races, how will our conceptions of God and of reality translate?  Will potential alien dialogue partners even share our set of senses?  Will they share anything with human rationality?  And how will all of this influence our conception of a personal God known to us through the person of Christ?

While it doesn't make sense to do a lot of useless speculating when we haven't found life anywhere in our solar system let alone the galaxy, it does make sense to begin to think of our theology in cosmic rather than merely global terms.  If God is truly Lord Creator of All That Is, we had better be ready to change our thinking about God in ways we can't conceive of now—which means paying continuing attention to the findings of science as we wrestle an ancient faith into radically new times.  What an exciting challenge!