CS Lewis' aliens are sinless and in touch with God.
James Blish's Lithians are sinless without reference to God.
Poul Anderson's many aliens are sinful; some are religious.
Observations:
(i) These three authors seem to cover all the possibilities?
(ii) Anderson of course presents a more complex picture. Ythrian and Merseian monotheisms differ from each other and also from Terrestrial versions. Physical conditions on much of Ikrananka generate an entirely negative view of supernatural entities. Van Rijn's company will find it easier to trade with those Ikranankans whose environment enables them to formulate more familiar beliefs in death and resurrection and in a deity who is able to overcome a demon. Two Wodenites convert to Terrestrial religions. The one who becomes a Jerusalem Catholic priest seeks not a sinless race but an extraterrestrial Incarnation - and we would like to know more about this quest.
Consolmagno and Mueller, writing not fiction but popular science and theology, will have to consider every possibility or so I imagine, not having read very far into the relevant chapter yet. I think that I am familiar with all the possibilities but will be interested to learn whether they present anything new.
Later: The authors present a wide-ranging discussion and find the right answer to their question. These are the kinds of thoughts that Anderson's Fr Axor would be thinking while traveling among human beings and other aliens.
6 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Except, on the planet Ikrananka, Old Nick would prefer to deal with the largest civilized state on that world: the Katandaran Empire. To quote from "The Troubletwisters," page 167 of the 1966 Doubleday edition: "No. Rangakora was small and isolated. It simply hadn't the capability of empire. And, with the factions and wild raiders on this planet, van Rijn would deal with nothing less than an empire." Falkayn did believe Rangakora would be a steadying influence if some kind of compromise could be worked out between Katandara, Rangakora, and the descendants of the humans marooned on the planet.
Yes, steadily worsening conditions on the side of Ikrananka facing its sun had instilled in the minds of the people of Katandara a paranoid outlook on life. While the opposite was the case with Rangakora, existing on the borderlands between the sunlit and dark sides of the planet.
In my essay "God and Alien in Anderson's Technic Civilization," I quoted a Catholic source which said the question of whether non human rational beings could be baptized was so important that the Pope would probably have to convoke an ecumenical council to debate and decide on a final answer. But, that source did say that, pending such a decision, a dying alien who requested baptism might be conditionally baptized.
Did Consolmagno/Mueller come to a somewhat different answer to that question in their book? I wrote that essay before I read WOULD YOU BAPTIZE AN EXTRATERRESTRIAL? If so, it would be an example of how Catholic theologians discuss problems and propose possible answers to questions on matters the Church had not yet definitively ruled on in a binding way.
Sean
Kaor, Paul!
And, in "The Three Cornered Wheel" and "The Season of Forgiveness," both set on the planet Ivanhoe in Anderson's Technic Civilization series, we see another alien race as interested as humans in philosophical and theological questions.
Sean
Indeed, one of the things I loved about "The Season of Forgiveness" was how the realization that humans HAD religious beliefs -- that we weren't all atheists -- abruptly made the locals willing to accept human advice ... because atheists would be just TOO weird to be trustworthy, even if the advice seemed reasonable.
"They should have special wisdom, now in the season of their Prince of Peace."
By the way, "The Fire Balloons" by Ray Bradbury (alternate title: "In This Sign") is another tale that I believe falls into the first category. I particularly liked how the senior Christian priest, before learning that, fashioned a glowing crystal globe resembling the extraterrestrials, to convey the message that being made in God's image wasn't a matter of humanoid body....
Sean,
The two Jesuits discuss the issue from many angles but basically say that the Church would have to decide.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Iow, basically what the source I quoted in my article said. I really should have reread the chapter "Would You Baptize An Extraterrestrial?" in the book of the same name. And I will. Thanks!
Sean
Hi, David!
Now, that's an interesting nuance I never thought of before, that the Ivanhoans in "The Season of Forgiveness" distrusted the humans because of thinking them atheists. I can see how that have happened, altho Thomas Overbeck himself Juan Hernandez had more quickly realized the error the boss had made: by stressing they had only pragmatic, this worldly, materialistic motives for being present in Dahia and the nearby Wildnerness, they seemed too strange and alien for the Ivanhoans to trust. Yes, I can see how that would seem crassly atheistic to a pious people.
I think I might have read the Bradbury story you cited, but I'm not sure. I have read more than once Anthony Boucher's admirable story "Balaam," In that story a Catholic priest and Jewish rabbi discussed how and in what way a human being, any intelligent being, could be said to have been made in the image of God. Fr. Malloy responded by quoting a catechism used in his childhood: "Man is a creature composed of body and soul, and made in the image and likeness of God..." Going on to add: "This likeness to God is chiefly in the soul." Then, after saying plants and animals' resemblance to God lay in them having life, Malloy continued quoting: "but none of these creatures is made in the image and likeness of God. Plants and animals do not have a rational soul, such as man has, by which they might know and love God." Finally, Fr. Malloy quoted: "How is the soul like God?...The soul is like God because it is a spirit having understanding and free will and is destined..."
Rabbi Acosta agreed with all of this, concluding that no matter how different their bodies are, rational beings of all species have certain things in common, like understanding and free will. And, Acosta even alluded to C.S. Lewis' Ransom trilogy and to "hnaus."
Sean
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