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We are not alone. The biological basis for the
existence of partners elsewhere in the universe, who share at least the
possibility of life forms like ours, does exist elsewhere. This fact is
of enormous importance. Its impact on our self-consciousness has already
been significant in this century, even before it was validated scientifically
-- in our science fiction and in our popular and academic philosophical
speculations. The prospect of peers in the universe alters our entire worldview:
in exciting ways if they are friendly and cooperative, in fearful ways,
if they are hostile and actually threaten our existence. The Mars discoveries
do not, of course, tell us about intelligent life.
- Life is a basic element in the development of
the universe. We have known for some time that cosmic evolution goes about
its work in producing subatomic particles and elements (hydrogen, nitrogen,
oxygen, and the like), just as we have learned that the formation of galaxies,
stars, and planets is basic to how nature works. We have not been certain
that life is also an integral feature of evolution beyond our own planet.
Knowledgeable scientists have argued both sides of this question. If life
were only an occurrence on planet earth, then no matter how fully this
occurrence could be explained by scientific hypotheses, life still remained
an eccentric occurrence, a "sport" in the universe--at least as far as
our solid knowledge is concerned.
This is now changed (or will be when the Mars
discoveries are validated by still more research, in the next few years).
It is now not intellectually possible to question that life occurs elsewhere.
This discovery will become a fact that appears in basic school texts, just
as 2+2=4 appears in those texts. The force of this bare facticity should
not be overlooked as a major consequence of the Mars discoveries.
On the one hand, the discoveries will lend
an "ordinariness" to our status as living beings, and this should enhance
our sense of belonging to nature and the universe. However, on the other
hand, this ordinariness carries with it a relativizing impact. For people
and groups who have invested deeply in earth's evolution as unique, and
in living things as unique, in human life as the capstone of creation--for
these persons, the Mars discoveries may be a blow. Copernicus took earth
out of the center of the solar system. Darwin removed the human species
from the center of the evolution of life. Harlow Shapley discovered that
our solar system is on the periphery of its galaxy, just as contemporary
cosmology is emphatic that there is no center , as such, to the universe.
If life is an almost ordinary part of the universe's evolving, then we
are truly "de-centered" creatures. For some, this will not be good news.
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The life on Mars is life that became extinct.
This, too, is sobering news. The fact that the emergence of life is thrilling--a
marvelous intensification of the complexity and possibility of cosmic evolution--does
not carry with it a promise of everlastingness, no immunity from extinction.
The species of life that emerged on Mars did not live to see the future
of their own development. This raises the question that Loren Eiseley put
so poignantly: "What future of our development is it that we shall never
see?" In our case, it is possible that we will make ourselves extinct through
ecological catastrophe or war or disease. Or an extra-terrestrial collision
might do it.
We have known for a long time that, in our
own sun's evolution toward the phase of Red Giant, we would go extinct,
unless we are able to migrate elsewhere in the universe. The Mars' discovery
underscores the fragility of life and also its episodic character.
We, and all living creatures, wherever they
are, are most likely a phase of evolution and not its goal or endpoint.
Add to this the fact that universe is still in its youth, according to
the scientific cosmologists. Speaking metaphorically, we will not be here
when the Last Trumpet Blows. What sort of meaning can we see for our lives,
individually and as a species, if we are a phase of evolution, rather than
its endpoint? What values systems make sense to us? What destiny can we
see for ourselves?
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These considerations challenge all persons, whether
they are religious believers or secular humanist thinkers. For the Christian
community and its theologians, specific questions arise: What is God's
will and plan for life? What does God intend for us as humans on planet
earth? What does it mean for God be redemptively active in the creation?
Christians will not flinch from these questions. They welcome the new vistas
that the Mars discoveries open up for our understanding of God and God's
creation, as well for discerning the shape God's gracious intention for
the creation will take.
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