Life on Mars: Good News for Creationists

I feared that this group was a bunch of UFO-spotting utopians, and sent an email to the group asking (in so many words) if we could expect to hear more about crop circles than propulsion systems; more about the "face on Mars" than about the effects of long-term exposure to microgravity.

Fortunately, Maggie Zubrin, the organizer of the event, was very kind and responded to the effect that I could plan on a very technically stimulating conference.

When you teach your kids at home you have to take advantage of this kind of thing, so we decided to go. Besides, by then she would have her driver's license, so she'd enjoy splitting the driving (12 hours) with me.

Evidence for Life

About three years ago a group of scientists announced they had discovered what appeared to be the fossilized remains of microorganisms on a meteorite which was purported to have been blown off Mars 13,000 years ago, landing in Antarctica.

My initial reaction was that there was no way pieces of Mars could find themselves to Earth, and that the life forms they found were probably of terrestrial origin.

But after hearing the evidence presented at this conference, including facts that are yet to be discussed in detail in public, I now believe that it is reasonable that this rock does, in fact, contain fossils and remnants of microscopic life forms that may have originated on Mars.

The evidence is too complicated to summarize here, but can be found by anyone with access to the Internet. If you're interested, take a look around the Web (start at www.marssociety.org) then come back here.

A Threat to Creationists?

The initial reaction of Bible-believing Christians to this story is usually rejection. The Bible says nothing about life anywhere but on the earth. Most Christians feel that means there is no life (and especially no intelligent life) elsewhere. Evidence to the contrary is most likely flawed.

But I have come to believe that there is no threat here. It is worth noting that the primary line of reasoning of those who argue that these meteorites contain Martian fossils is the similarity of these fossils to terrestrial life. In fact, much of the strength of the argument is the degree to which the fossils and other evidence matches what we would expect to be left by Earth creatures.

To the Creationist, finding out that God created living creatures on other planets is not a problem. Consider that the Bible talks only about the Sun and the Moon giving light on the Earth, yet we know that other stars light other planets, and presume that other planets have moons which reflect starlight onto them. So even though the Bible only talks about the Sun and the Moon, we're not surprised to find other "suns" and other "moons." So why are we surprised that while God was creating rocks on other planets he also created bacteria?

We know that God created other intelligent beings, including angels and Satan. Why not some Martian bacteria?

The Creationist would expect that, just as God seems to have used one plan for physics, math, chemistry, etc. throughout the observable universe, that he also would use the same plan for life on other planets. We would expect (though not require) to find DNA, RNA, etc. as the chemical basis of Martian life. The Creationist would expect that we would quickly recognize "life" when we saw it, because it would look similar to life on Earth. (Just as we recognize water, mountains, gravity and light when we see it outside our own planet.)

On the other hand, if God used a different chemical plan for extraterrestrial life that wouldn't destroy the Bible. Since it's not mentioned, we're only speculating anyway.

The Threat to Evolution

Interestingly, the threat turns out not to be against Creationism, but against the evolution hypothesis! Consider the following.

Evolution proposes that life evolved slowly from non-life through a process of mutation and selection. Evolution needs lots and lots of time because the probability of life arising from non-life is so remote. (It has not been observed in the lab nor in nature.)

With enough time, it is suggested that the right combination of accidents would lead to life.

Now consider that life may have independently evolved on Mars. Like Earth, Mars seems to have produced life very suddenly after its crust hardened. Faster, perhaps, than Earth. What a coincidence that life forms that evolved on this remote planet are virtually indistinguishable from life forms on Earth. So now we not only have to accept the improbable odds of evolution, but we also have to believe that the same improbable accidents have occurred on a remote planet.

The evolutionist will counter that the Earth and Mars have exchanged materials through comet and asteroid collisions throughout their early history. This may be the case. The scientists examining the meteoric evidence have not proposed any theory to this effect.

What the evolutionists hope to discover is that Martian life is completely different that life on Earth. This would show that evolution is more probable than previously thought. While that would be convenient, it doesn't seem to be the direction the evidence is currently pointing.

Problems for Christian Theology

The most significant problem for Christians would arise if sentient life was discovered somewhere else in the universe. If this life form was morally responsible to God, then the scope of Adam's fall would come into question. That is, did Adam's fall condemn all of creation or just the Earth? If all of creation, then Adam's sin unnecessarily condemned sentient life on other planets.

I would argue that the effects of Adam's sin were limited in scope. It's clear, for example, that the Sun continued to rise and grass continued to grow after the fall. That is, not everything was negatively impacted.

In particular, animal life did not seem to be morally affected. The reason an animal is a suitable sacrifice for sin is because it is innocent. If Adam's sin had corrupted the animals, there would be no animal sacrifice suitable for the sin sacrifice. If Adam's sin did not corrupt animal life on Earth, it's not unreasonable that it did not affect sentient life on other planets.

(Animal life is interesting to look at, because the same Hebrew work translated "soul" or "living being" in Genesis 2:7 is used to describe animals in 1:24. The question of whether animals have eternal souls is an interesting one, given that both humans and animals are described in the same way.)

While Christ's sacrifice was "once for all," that is he died once to pay for the sins of the entire human race (making it unnecessary to call him down from heaven as is done in the Catholic Mass to be sacrificed again and again), there's nothing in the Bible to indicate that it extended beyond human life to cover other extraterrestrial life forms.