The unresolved question of whether life exists on other planets continues to spark curiosity from the public and the interest of scientists — but one Catholic physicist working on missions to search for potential life also recognises it as an opportunity to see the glory of God. Source: CNA.
Jonathan Lunine, a convert to the Catholic faith and the chief scientist for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, spoke to about 100 Catholic scientists about the subject at an event in Washington, DC, on Friday.
Dr Lunine — whose work at NASA has involved the search for the possibility of unintelligent microbial life on Jupiter’s moon Europa and Saturn’s moons Enceladus and Titan — said that as a scientist, “this has been a wonderful journey, being able to participate in these missions.”
As a Catholic scientist, he said he sees “the gift of the mind” as a gift that “God has given us to … understand the glory of God’s creation.”
Microbial life on other planets, if it were to be found, he said, would be a “manifestation of the order that is baked into the universal design that God created when he created the universe” and created so that “beauty might shine forth from that very order”.
Dr Lunine said those three moons are the most likely locations to have the conditions to sustain life that we have the ability to reach, particularly due to the prevalence of water.
If microbial life were to be discovered on any of those moons, he said, it would show us that there are “other places beyond the Earth where life began”.
Dr Lunine said more theological questions would be raised if the search for life on other planets develops into a search for intelligent and self-aware life that developed on another planet.
This would lead to questions like “Are they saved?” or “Are they fallen?”, he said.
He said it would also create questions such as “did Christ come to their world in a separate incarnation” to save them, and how humanity would “be the central pivot point of cosmic history”.
The Catholic Church holds no official position on whether intelligent life exists on other planets.
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Catholic NASA scientist delves into investigation of potential life on other planets (By Tyler Arnold, CNA)
