Why the Existence of Extraterrestrials is Implausible: A Theological Argument

Apr 20, 2024 by Dave Doveton

By Robert Lazu Kmita, European Conservative.

Stimulated by the hearings in the American Congress that took place last year, to which the voices of well-known media personalities like Tucker Carlson were added, the debate about UFOs and the existence of extraterrestrials has reached cosmic proportions. For a Christian, the issue is just as acute as it is for any other inhabitant of these times of great confusion. Because the crucial question, uttered by so many mouths, on so many media channels, cannot be avoided: do extraterrestrials exist? In order to introduce my argument, I propose a slightly more nuanced reformulation: could extraterrestrials exist?

Before responding to such a challenging question, we must clarify what we understand by ‘extraterrestrials.’ Usually, those who discuss such a possibility refer to rational beings, similar to us, living in the same physical universe as our own. So, by ‘extraterrestrials,’ we mean physical beings–not angels or demons. Of course, I’m not saying that the so-called UFOs could not be supernatural (or, more precisely, preternatural) manifestations of angels or demons. Although this hypothesis is also worthy of attention, I will set it aside in this article. What I will discuss here strictly pertains to the possibility of the existence of rational, physically embodied beings somewhere in the cosmos–meaning within the limits of the same physical universe in which we, humans, live.

If that is the case, then the answer to the question posed above—‘could extraterrestrials exist?’—is negative: no, in this physical cosmos, there cannot be other rational beings besides humans. I emphasize that I am strictly referring to non-human beings that we, as humans, could directly know, much like we can know a tribe of natives in Papua New Guinea or the Amazon rainforest. Therefore, such beings cannot exist on other planets within our universe. The rationale for my answer is not empirical or experimental in nature. It derives from certain teachings of the Christian supernatural Revelation, which provides us with knowledge beyond what we can access through our ordinary faculties of understanding.

Read here.