Life On Other Planets by Dr. Raymond Crownover

Dr. Raymond Crownover

Crown of Life Teaching Ministries

The Bible tells us God created the earth to sustain human life. We are also told that God was incarnated as a human and died on the cross to redeem human life. His death for sin was a once-for-all event. He will not die to save the fallen angels nor, we can be assured, any other intelligent life that might be in need of redemption. His resurrection guarantees that He is still both human and divine. His foreknowledge and eternal plan guarantees He intended to become human from before creation. Taken together, these pieces of evidence strongly suggest that there is no other intelligent life either in the universe or beyond it. Only God, humanity, and the angels possess the fully developed consciousness, self-consciousness, and spirit being that we mean when we ask about the possibility of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe.

However, there seems to be no theological or biblical reason to completely reject the idea that simple life may have been created by God on other planets. In fact, part of providing humans with actual free will (rather than the illusion of free will), would be to prepare the original creation with “both doors open.” In other words, the original unfallen creation had to sustain immortal human beings at least until some point at which they reached the stage of glorification and would no longer reproduce. Even if reproduction rates were much lower (as implied by God’s statement to Eve that her conception would be multiplied), and the earth was thousands of times more fertile before the curse, with five times as much living space before the Flood, it would seem likely that an immortal humanity would outgrow the carrying capacity of the earth within a relatively short time. Thus, it can be speculated that microbes and plants, or perhaps even animal life may have been prepared on other planets to ready them for human occupation.
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 we know that the entire universe has felt the consequences of the curse of sin. Thus, it should not cause any doubt concerning the historicity of the Bible, nor demonstrate any irrefutable evidence in favor of evolutionary theory if future probes of solar (or extra-solar) planets showed fossilized microbes, plants, or even animals.

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Of course, the Fall has limited our population and if we did reach some planet-wide population limit it would now be self-regulating through the massive human die-off that would ensue. Had God not prepared other places in the universe to be habitable, it seems that the choice to rebel and die or stay righteous and remain immortal would not be a valid choice. In order to preserve free will in actuality rather than illusion, God had to prepare as if both alternatives were viable,even though He knew beforehand which path we would choose.

Some might object that the vast distances between planets and apparently non-traversable distances between stars precludes the human use of alternative habitats. However, even if we assume that the light-speed barrier was in place in the unfallen universe, what is a trip of a hundred-thousand or a million years to individuals who a trillion years in the future would not have diminished their lifespan by a single second? This is especially true when we recognize that the monotony of such a trip would be completely relieved by the fully satisfying unhindered communion with God Himself.

But the fact is we simply do not know how the laws of physics apply in a universe that is not groaning under the curse of sin with the very fabric of physical reality unraveling like an old garment. Even in this dying and decaying universe, recent experiments in the very strange physics of quantum entanglement have succeeded in teleporting entire atoms across a laboratory instantaneously. While an atom is an amazingly small thing, it is still many orders of magnitude larger than most scientists believed was possible anytime in the near future. Would it have been possible for an unfallen human to use the uncursed laws of physics to teleport himself instantaneously across the universe?

Here on the other side of the Fall, we know that the entire universe has felt the consequences of the curse of sin. Thus, it should not cause any doubt concerning the historicity of the Bible, nor demonstrate any irrefutable evidence in favor of evolutionary theory if future probes of solar (or extra-solar) planets showed fossilized microbes, plants, or even animals. In fact, if such fossils were discovered, and found to be identical to or very similar to current or extinct earth life, this would be sufficient evidence in favor of Creation and contrary to some form of highly unlikely parallel evolution. If future evidence points to an ancient earth-like eco-system on Mars, no radical re-interpretation of the Genesis account would be warranted.

Following this line of reasoning, we must conclude that there is a possibility, however slight, that other earth-like planets with viable eco-systems once existed somewhere in the universe. It also follows that some of these alternative habitats for mankind may still be, at least to some degree viable eco-systems with at least microbial life, or at most complex animal life.

About Dr. Crownover
Crown of Life Teaching Ministries
(636) 329-1946
45 Cimmaron Drive
Saint Charles, Missouri  63304-7298
info@crownteaching.com