Would the Discovery of Aliens Undermine Scripture?

In July 2023, a retired Air Force major testified before a congressional subcommittee that the US government has been aware of “non-human” activity since the 1930s. According to the former intelligence officer’s testimony, the US government has found and attempted to reverse-engineer unidentified flying objects, or UFOs, as they are commonly known. The Pentagon has denied these claims, but lawmakers from both parties seemed to take this testimony at least somewhat seriously. (Source: The Associated Press)

Would irrefutable proof of extraterrestrial life undermine the authority of Scripture or present a challenge to faith in God? Dr. David K. Bernard responds to this question by reviewing what the Bible does (and doesn't) say about life on other planets.

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SPEAKER_01 0:00

Earlier this summer, a retired military intelligence officer testified before a United States Congressional Subcommittee that the U.S. government has been aware of alien activities since at least the 1930s. It's important to note that these claims have not been substantiated, but it does raise an important question for Christians. If alien life were discovered, would that undermine the Bible in any way? Stay tuned to hear Dr. David K. Bernard's response next. Welcome to Apostolic Life in the Twenty First Century, a podcast dedicated to helping modern-day believers live out the teachings of the first century church. This podcast is part of the teaching ministry of Dr. David K. Bernard. Dr. Bernard has dedicated his life to studying the Bible and helping believers apply its message to their daily lives. In Apostolic Life in the 21st century, Dr. Bernard answers your questions about what the Bible teaches and how those teachings apply to everyday life. Thank you for joining us for this episode. If you enjoy this podcast, we encourage you to check out Dr. David K. Bernard's books. Dr. Bernard has written more than 30 books on biblical theology and Christian living and leadership. Visit Pentecostalpublishing.com and search David Bernard for a list of available titles. Enter promo code DKB10 at checkout to save 10% on your order. That's Pentecostalpublishing.com, promo code DKB10 to save 10% at checkout. We're recording this to air on Labor Day, so hopefully everybody that's listening, if if they're listening to it on Labor Day, has a cookout planned in their near future. But I wanted to ask you about something that a news item actually that popped up earlier this summer, back in July. According to not the supermarket tabloids, but the Associated Press and other very reputable news outlets, a former military intelligence officer with the Air Force testified before a uh House subcommittee that the United States government has been aware of what he referred to as non-human activity since the 1930s. And according to this retired military intelligence officer, the U.S. actually has is in possession of unidentified flying objects or what we usually call UFOs. According to this officer, the U.S. has even tried to reverse engineer some of this, we might call it alien technology to figure out how it works. Now, I want to be clear that not surprisingly, the Pentagon has denied these uh that this program exists. But I thought it was at least noteworthy that house lawmakers did not laugh this guy out of the building. So my question for you today is would it if if tomorrow the headlines broke that we are not alone in the universe and the US government pulled out E.T.'s body and pieces of his rocket ship, what ramifications, if any, would that have for the authority of Scripture, for believers? I guess the maybe a better way to phrase this is, does the Bible leave any room for the possibility of alien life, or would that be a or would that discovery be a significant blow to Christianity?

SPEAKER_00 3:25

Well, first of all, I tend to be skeptical of reports like this. However, to answer your question directly, no, I don't think the Bible explicitly excludes the possibility of alien life or other um intelligent or non-intelligent life in the physical universe. And you could argue, of course, that the Bible explicitly says there is intelligent life beyond the human, that is angels and demons. So let's let's let's break this down a little bit. Um, according to evolutionary theory, um, you know, life just evolved. And so with the trillions of stars and trillions of planets, evolutionists say, well, it's inevitable that there must be other life somewhere because it's just a natural process. Of course, I would challenge that. In my book, Anchor Points, I talk about creation evolution and say that even if evolution is uh accurate or a factor, uh, it would have to be intelligent design because the probability of all these random events just falling into place to result in intelligent life are incredibly small. So even if you had millions and billions and trillions of planets, the likelihood uh that human life would evolve by random chance is non-existent. So I disagree with the fundamental premise that an atheist or an evolutionist or maybe even a lot of scientists would say that, well, surely there must be life out there somewhere. Because no, unless God intentionally designed it and created it, no, there's not going to be uh intelligent life elsewhere, alien life elsewhere. Uh so I disagree with that fundamental idea that surely there must be, you know, some other life out there somewhere. We're not alone. Of course, if you just read the Bible, you might get the idea that we are alone. Certainly, humans are unique in God's apex creation. Uh, but you could say that's with regard to planet Earth, that's regard to our knowledge. Uh the Bible is not a scientific textbook. It doesn't tell us everything we want to know, it tells us what we need to know. So could God have uh done something similar on another planet in another part of the universe, or could could there be a different universe, or could he have done something 10 billion years ago uh with another race of created beings? Well, the Bible doesn't explicitly deny that. What would be quite interesting is if there actually was intelligent human life that we could interact with and communicate with some in some way. And there are a lot of big ifs all along the way. I mean, if there is extraterrestrial life, would it be intelligent? Uh would we be capable of discerning it? Would we be capable of communicating? Um, and if they have been coming since the 30s, why haven't they communicated with us? What are they doing? Why are they hiding in the depths of the ocean or in the atmosphere? You know, there are just a lot of questions that come up. But let's just say uh it would be interesting to see if they have a concept of God. I would think they would probably somewhere they would. But of course, the ones we meet might be like our atheist. Then another interesting question would be: did they sin and would they need a savior, or did they avoid sin? It's interesting. Uh C.S. Lewis actually did um, of course, he's he was a well-known theologian, theological writer, but he did write some science fiction fantasy, the Chronicles of Nornia, but he wrote the space trilogy, where he imagined there could be another race of beings that didn't fall into sin, and therefore they had a relationship with God, but they didn't need to be saved from sin. So that that would be intriguing, certainly. Uh, I will have to say that I've tended to think the various reports over the years of UFOs, aliens, et cetera, et cetera, as I said, there's no concrete, objective, clear evidence. It just seems strange that it would be in all these mysterious, spooky ways over the years, and kind of like a conspiratorial ways.

SPEAKER_01 7:45

But they always seem to get in contact with the U.S. government somehow. Yes, some other governments.

SPEAKER_00 7:50

But I tend to think that these stories can usually be explained by natural phenomena, unusual natural phenomena, like atmospheric conditions. Uh there are some incredible, I mean, clouds and and the northern lights and uh you know various unusual atmospheric conditions, or um psychological phenomena. So it may have been sincere, uh sincere experience, but it might have been dream, psychosis, uh, you know, other internal phenomena and phenomena. And then um third, uh there can be uh there is the possibility of of secret technology, uh especially with the U.S. government and uh uh with military technology that you know they might not want us to be aware of, but so some things can and and some things just things like weather balloons and other things that aren't necessarily secret, but the average person wouldn't uh know about them, wouldn't think about them. So I I do believe the vast majority of reports are can be explained by some of those. But maybe there's some reports that aren't explained, and more likely than there's some extraterrestrial intelligent life, I would say demonic activity could be very real. So we do believe in spirit beings created by God who are angels, and we believe a certain percentage fell into sin, which I believe that's the origin of the demons. So there are angelic spirits that can manifest themselves according in the Bible in human form, and presumably uh other forms. Uh, demons likewise presumably could manifest themselves in a human form or some other type of form. So could it be, I don't know that angels would uh, you know, the Bible talks about angels appearing to God's people at different occasions, but they would appear honestly as angelic beings, we'd probably recognize them as such. Uh, could it be that an unbeliever could somehow see angelic activity? Or more likely, could could demons be responsible for creating chaos, confusion, maybe supporting narratives of atheism and evolutionism and and and uh you know uh Jesus did speak of the end time. There would be various signs. He said signs in the heavens. So whether that's poetic or whether it's referring to atmospheric events, or maybe even UFOs could be part of that, that part of the chaos of our day and part of the fear and confusion of the end time could be all kinds of strange, unidentified, mysterious signs, including signs in the sky caused by demonic activity. To me, that would be plausible in accordance with our view of scripture. So I'm not going to totally discount that there could be these unexplained phenomena that could have extraterrestrial causes, but I would be more likely to relegate that to demonic activity.

SPEAKER_01 10:53

Thank you for listening to this episode of Apostolic Life in the Twenty First Century. If you enjoy this podcast, please take a moment to give us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. We also appreciate it when you share apostolic life in the 21st century with a friend or family member. And make plans to join us again next time as we look at how the Bible applies to everyday life.