© 1993 Merlyn Cox
© 1993 The Christian Fellowship of Students of The Urantia Book
One of the ideas that many thoughtful people find a stumbling block when they first begin reading the The Urantia Book is the question of the existence of other universe intelligences. Not only do the number and nature of this hierarchy of beings strain our comprehension, but the very idea strikes many as more than a little improbable and esoteric.
Why should anyone be inclined to believe in such things? We haven’t yet been able to establish beyond a doubt the existence of other planets like our own, let alone other beings like ourselves. And the discussion of other orders of beings sounds like the work of gnostic imagination or science fiction, something many people find very difficult to believe, if not absurd.
I would like to suggest, however, that perhaps we have it just backwards concerning what is truly absurd or impossible to believe, and I would call upon evidence from both the scientific and the religious communities to support this view.
The scientific community is rapidly accumulating evidence that life in other parts of the universe not only just might exist, but probably does exist. While the issue is not yet settled, the evidence for the formation of other solar systems and planets is increasing rapidly. Many scientists now believe that planets like our own are probably more common than we once thought. At any rate, given the absolutely staggering size of the universe that we now know exists, even the slightest odds for the possibility of life elsewhere gets multiplied into the virtually inevitable.
I would like to suggest, however, that perhaps we have it just backwards concerning what is truly absurd or impossible to believe, and I would call upon evidence from both the scientific and the religious communities to support this view.
One of the world’s leading astronomers, Fred Hoyle, argues that the processes that give rise to life simply cannot be confined to this planet. In fact, he believes that life on earth itself was seeded by contact with organic material from comets. The idea sounded wildly speculative just a few years ago, but his thesis of the presence of organic material in comets has now been clearly confirmed.
I am suggesting that we are moving toward a time when the evidence from astronomy and other sciences will push us to the point where belief in other intelligent life in the universe is not only possible, but is the only reasonable one. Not to believe so will become increasingly difficult, if not absurd.
The next step, however, is much tougher. The idea of other orders of beings, such as angels, or divine overseers, is not only quite outside the realm of scientific confirmation, but remains for many in the religious community itself a quite impossible thought. This is true even though the Judeo-Christian tradition has long assumed their existence. Both the Old and New Testaments give ample testimony of such, from the affirmation of divine visitation to Abraham to Jesus’ affirmation of the watchcare of guardian angels. From the philosophical idea of a “great chain of being” to faith affirmations of God’s gracious purposes in Creation, from Aristotle to Aquinas to Karl Barth, persons of faith and reason have affirmed the possibility and probability of other and higher orders of being.
I am suggesting that we are moving toward a time when the evidence from astronomy and other sciences will push us to the point where belief in other intelligent life in the universe is not only possible, but is the only reasonable one. Not to believe so will become increasingly difficult, if not absurd.
That such beliefs have changed for so many people in the pews, as well as the secular world in general, demonstrates how thoroughly we have bought into the philosophy of scientific materialism. Ironically, we have a situation where vast numbers of churchgoers should not allow, by their own secular philosophical assumptions, even the possibility of God, let alone that of angels, et al. Such things for them are by definition mythical and unreal. This contradiction of beliefs, I think, forces many people into a kind of religious schizophrenia in order to maintain two incompatible views of reality.
Interestingly, this is at a time when our post-modern world seems rapidly moving beyond such a constricted viewpoint, realizing the assertion that only the material world is real is itself a dogmatic assumption — a metaphysical theory in its own right that science can neither prove nor disprove.
In addition, scientists are increasingly expressing a more balanced perspective, allowing for the proper consideration of philosophy and theology in areas that science cannot adequately address — including positing the necessity of intelligence behind it all.
Hoyle asserts that, “… the result we have now arrived at, namely the logical need for intelligence in the universe, is also consistent with the tenets of most of the major religions of the world.” [1] Further, he says, “The general belief that is common to all religions is that the Universe, particularly the world of life, was created by a ‘being’ of incomprehensibly magnified human-type intelligence. It would be fair to say that the overwhelming majority of humans who have ever lived on this planet would have instinctively accepted this point of view in some form, totally and without reservation. In view of the thesis of this book, it would seem to be almost in the nature of our genes to be able to evolve a consciousness of precisely this kind, almost as if we are creatures destined to perceive the truth relating to our origins in an instinctive way.” [2]
Similarly, Paul Davies, in his recent book, The Mind of God, speaks of how extraordinary it is that human beings can look and reflect so deeply into the secrets of the universe:
…glimpsing the rules on which it runs. How we have become linked into this cosmic dimension is a mystery. Yet the linkage cannot be denied.
What does it mean? What is Man that we might be party to such privilege? I cannot believe that our existence in this universe is a mere quirk of fate, an accident of history, an incidental blip in the great cosmic drama. Our involvement is too intimate… . We are truly meant to be here. [3]
As we explore deeper and deeper into the mysteries of life, we seem increasingly forced to acknowledge the truth T. S. Elliot so well expressed: “Man is man because he can recognize supernatural realities, not because he can invent them. Either everything in man can be traced as a development from below, or something must come from above.”
Both scientists and religionists have often been guilty of ignoring the insights of the other. In a recent editorial in Sky and Telescope, astronomer and physics teacher Chet Raymo reflects on the recent papal declaration concerning the Galileo affair in 1633. Following a 13 year investigation, the church concluded it had erred in condemning Galileo, stating that this had resulted from a “tragic mutual incomprehension,” and this unfortunately became the symbol of the church’s supposed rejection of scientific progress.
Interestingly, this is at a time when our postmodern world seems rapidly moving beyond such a constricted viewpoint, realizing the assertion that only the material world is real is itself a dogmatic assumption-a metaphysical theory in its own right that science can neither prove nor disprove.
The author suggests the rejection has not been, nor is it still, just “supposed.” He relates Steven Hawking’s account of a papal audience at the Vatican when Hawking and other leading cosmologists were told it was alright to study creation after the Big Bang but not the Big Bang itself because the moment of creation was the work of God.
Raymo points out the danger of religion continuing to look for God in the gaps of science, and suggests, prophetically, I think, that it is better to identify God with our knowledge rather than our ignorance. He also points out that a photograph accompanying the story of the church’s admission of error in condemning Galileo showed the Pope:
…dressed in Renaissance garb sitting on a Renaissance throne in a Renaissance palace, surrounded by other men (nowomen) also dressed in Renaissance clothes. All that was missing was the 70-year-old man on his knees on the marble floor. The photograph is symbolic… orthodox theology and science remain essentially at odds. [3:1]
I would suggest it is also symbolic of the mind set of most religionists today, and not just the orthodox. I am convinced that someday our present view of such things, from the standpoint of either religion or science, will seem sadly quaint. We poke fun of those who still believe in a flat earth, but our own view of greater life in the universe — not only like ours and below ours, but beyond ours — is just as parochial. Our knowledge of the material universe has expanded enormously since the time of Galileo, but our spiritual cosmology remains steadfastly pre-Copernican: we view God’s spiritual domain, and therefore that of his Son, as that of the earth, and likely no where else.
I am convinced that someday our present view of such things, from the standpoint of either religion or science, will seem sadly quaint. … Our knowledge of the material universe has expanded enormously since the time of Galileo, but our spiritual cosmology remains steadfastly pre-Copernican: we view God’s spiritual domain, and therefore that of his Son, as that of the earth, and no where else.
Ironically, it may be science again that jogs us from our parochial understanding to a more prophetic one. What ever happened to Isaiah’s majestic vision of God, who numbers all the worlds and calls them by name?
I would conclude by asking again: in light of both our religious and scientific understandings, which is more possible to believe — that there is likely a vast assemblage of intelligences in the universe, or that God, having no more imagination or love or greater purpose in mind, has created an unfathomably enormous universe and limited the experiment of life to this one small planet?
I find the first quite reasonable and plausible; I find the second increasingly absurd. The appearance of The Urantia Book seems timed to deal with the inevitable force of our growing knowledge and the necessity of a greater vision of God’s plan for all Creation.