As I understand it, Adam and Eve lived a life of bliss initially. There was no suffering or death. Then they sinned and thereafter they, and everyone descended from them, had to endure suffering and death. We sinned and needed Jesus to come and save us.
If there are people on other planets, perhaps on planets around neighbouring stars or in some distant galaxy, would they be in need of salvation?
That will depend on whether or not they have sinned; if there first parents commited an original sin - or will it?
When Adam and Eve sinned they brought death into the world. Does ‘the world’ mean planet Earth or does it mean the whole of creation?
If it means the latter, imagine people living on a planet in a distant galaxy. These people had not sinned. They were living in their Garden of Eden. Two people in a distant galaxy eat an apple and all of a sudden suffering and death enter their world, they are suddenly driven out of their Garden of Eden. Imagine how perplexed they would be.
Does this notion of a people not descended from Adam and Eve suffering the consequences of our original sin seem absurd? It doesn’t if you consider the animals on Earth. They are not descended from Adam and Eve and yet suffer and die as though they were. So perhaps aliens would indeed suffer the consequences of original sin. I don’t suppose we’ll know for sure until we meet some - if they exist.
It could be, of course, that we are the aliens and that Adam and Eve lived and sinned long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away. But that then raises the question of why didn’t Jesus, who suffered and died once and for all, suffer and die on their planet instead of ours? It looks likely, then, that Adam and Eve weren’t aliens.
The discovery of an alien civilization on another planet would raise some interesting theological issues. Should we wait until such beings are found before we give it any thought, or should we prepare ourselves to meet such an eventuality by giving it some thought now?
