According to new reports, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) may be expecting “the big discovery” sometime soon.
NASA has enlisted the help of 24 theologians in an effort to understand how humans will react to the discovery of intelligent life on other planets.
The New York Post reports: “Between heaven and Earth, where do aliens fit in? That’s the question that NASA hopes theologians at the Center for Theological Inquiry (CTI) in Princeton, New Jersey, can answer, in a recent effort to understand how humans will react to news that intelligent life exists on other planets.”
NASA and CTI have had a history of partnership. In 2014, the space agency awarded the religious institute a $1.1 million grant “to study worshippers’ interest in and openness to scientific inquiry called the Societal Implications of Astrobiology study,” according to the New York Post.
One of the theologians is University of Cambridge religious scholar Rev. Dr. Andrew Davison, who also has a doctorate in biochemistry from Oxford.
In a recent statement published on the University of Cambridge’s Faculty of Divinity blog, Davison stated that his research so far has seen “just how frequently theology-and-astrobiology has been topic in popular writing for at least a century and a half.”
Davison has a book coming out in 2022 on the subject, entitled “Astrobiology and Christian Doctrine,” which will cover part of CTI and NASA’s joint spiritual exploration. In his statement, he says that the “most significant question” addressed in the book will be how theologians would respond to the idea “of there having been many incarnations [of Christ]” in the universe.
Studies indicate that there are links between religiosity and belief in extraterrestrial life. Research published in 2017 found that non-religious individuals with a strong desire to find meaning in life are more likely to believe that aliens exist, which may indicate that faith in either religion or extraterrestrial life may come from the same impulse, according to the study.
According to the Times UK, Davison’s book notes that a “large number of people would turn to their religions traditions for guidance” if extraterrestrial life were found, and what that means “for the standing and dignity of human life.”
“Detection [of alien life] might come in a decade or only in future centuries or perhaps never at all, but if or where it does, it will be useful to have thought through the implications in advance,” Davison writes.
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