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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Incarnation and an infinite universe
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que sais-je
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# 17185
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Posted
A while ago the Vatican astronomer* said that the RCC's views on cosmology were in accord with science's: there are billions of galaxies each with billions of stars. There were probably, he assumed, many places where intelligent life had evolved and the love of God would have reached all of them. The interviewer asked, if so would God had been incarnated on all of them them. Definitely not, said the priest insisting there had only been one incarnation. "The Church knows this", he concluded.
Recently, on an Horizon programme, I heard cosmologists discussing the possibility that our Universe is just a 'local phenomena' in an infinite cosmos containing an infinite number of galaxies. There seem to be some 'hints' of this in the primordial microwave radiation distribution.
If true, and if the RC view on incarnation is correct, this surely makes Earth the most sinful place out of possibly an infinite number of planets. The only one where God had to take human form to save it's inhabitants.
What are your views? I can imagine more sinful worlds, indeed find it hard to believe there aren't lots of them. Our sins seem fairly pathetic albeit ubiquitous, on a cosmological scale. Alternatively what status would you give to alien religions and their avatars?
* I didn't know there was an Vatican astronomer but it was on Radio 4's "Sunday" programme so it must be true! I don't remember his name but the Vatican Observatory site has lots of interesting stuff including pictures. The Coordinator for Public Relations (Br. Guy Consolmagno SJ) would get my vote in the "Beards only need apply" - if he were a bishop and an Anglican.
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"controversies, disputes, and argumentations, both in philosophy and in divinity, if they meet with discreet and peaceable natures, do not infringe the laws of charity" (Thomas Browne)
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Martin60
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# 368
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Posted
If the universe is infinite then it COULD be eternal. If it were uncreated then it WOULD be. It can't be if there has only been one incarnation.
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Love wins
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Anglican_Brat
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# 12349
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
If the universe is infinite then it COULD be eternal. If it were uncreated then it WOULD be. It can't be if there has only been one incarnation.
Strictly speaking the notion that the universe is eternal is heretical as I recall from a Christian perspective, because it suggests that creation shares a property that God has, namely eternity.
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Martin60
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# 368
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Posted
Aye, it would mean it is an attribute of Him. That He has always HAD to do universes. And if He had then there has been an eternity of creations without the incarnation. Which is absurd. In which case He would have HAD to incarnate in all. As a logical-ish rhetorical walk.
So no, He ain't done creations forever. And no, there's no point in an infinite decaying, attenuating, entropic sketch with only one dot of colour so far. Although a sketch 10^78 LY across and 10^46 LY in radius (yeah, go on) is pret-teeee redundant (and possibly ISN'T); practically infinite looking.
So, if life emerges from the material then the universe teems with older, smarter beings. But none know [a] Jesus.
Which is absurd.
So it doesn't.
We're it.
Until we detect more than trace oxygen in an extrasolar planetary atmosphere.
Then it gets ... interesting.
As there IS only one incarnation, economically.
Ineffably, we know nowt.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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egg
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# 3982
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by que sais-je:
A while ago the Vatican astronomer* said that the RCC's views on cosmology were in accord with science's: there are billions of galaxies each with billions of stars. There were probably, he assumed, many places where intelligent life had evolved and the love of God would have reached all of them. The interviewer asked, if so would God had been incarnated on all of them them. Definitely not, said the priest insisting there had only been one incarnation. "The Church knows this", he concluded.
One can only suppose that, by the word “incarnation”, the Church means “assuming on earth human flesh of the kind that exists on earth”. In that sense it is possible for the Church to know that there has only been one incarnation.
But if one gives the word “incarnation” a more natural meaning in the context of “assuming a form of life of the same character as that of the assumed intelligent beings on the assumed planet”, the Church cannot “know” that there have not been countless incarnations. Given that the love of God has reached every world in which there is intelligent life capable of appreciating the love of God which has been shown to it, which I would accept, and given the probability that evolution has taken the same form on at least some of the other planets, which almost inevitably leads to self-centredness and the probability that some specimens of the assumed intelligent life have been guilty of what we call sin, I see no reason why God should not have shown his love for those intelligent beings whom He loves by an incarnation in a form similar to theirs. At any rate, I cannot accept that “the Church knows” that this has not happened, possibly many many times; and I think the Pope must accept that his infallible powers do not extend to such other worlds.
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egg
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Martin60
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# 368
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Posted
This is perfectly valid, subjective Jungian knowing. We all do it.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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shamwari
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# 15556
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Posted
What about this
"Christ in the Universe" The end of a poem by Alice Meynell
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But in the eternities,
Doubtless we shall compare together, hear
A million alien Gospels, in what guise
He trod the Pleiades, the Lyre, the Bear.
O, be prepared, my soul!
To read the inconceivable, to scan
The million forms of God those stars unroll
When, in our turn, we show to them a Man.
Posts: 1914 | From: from the abyss of misunderstanding | Registered: Mar 2010
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Martin60
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# 368
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Posted
Sublime. I'd be happy if it were so. And in some way, it will be.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Nicolemr
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# 28
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Posted
Ray Bradbury wrote a beautiful poem/cantata called Christus Apollo about multiple incarnations in the universe.
Christus Apollo
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On pilgrimage in the endless realms of Cyberia, currently traveling by ship. Now with live journal!
Posts: 11803 | From: New York City "The City Carries On" | Registered: May 2001
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leo
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# 1458
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Posted
I don't see why it is heretical. If the Second Person of the Trinity is the outgoing, communicating part of the Godhead, then His nature would be to redeem wherever redemption is necessary.
Sydney Carter, in Every star shall sing a carol, mused: quote:
Who can tell what other cradle?/High above the Milky Way;/Still may rock the King of Heaven,/On another Christmas day....Who can count how many crosses?/Still to come or long ago.....Who can tell what other body?/He will hallow for his own.
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My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com
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que sais-je
Shipmate
# 17185
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
Strictly speaking the notion that the universe is eternal is heretical as I recall from a Christian perspective, because it suggests that creation shares a property that God has, namely eternity.
It doesn't have to be eternal - God could as easily produce an infinite number of big bangs (or whatever it takes) at some finite point in the past as one.
If however there were some irresistible argument that the cosmos (including our universe) were eternal presumably 'a form of words' could be found to save Christian cosmologists from heresy.
PS So many heresies, so many denominations. Has anyone made a grid showing which beliefs are held to be heretical by whom?
Wikipedia informs me that in Scientology, heresy is called squirreling (sic).
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"controversies, disputes, and argumentations, both in philosophy and in divinity, if they meet with discreet and peaceable natures, do not infringe the laws of charity" (Thomas Browne)
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Dafyd
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# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
"Christ in the Universe" The end of a poem by Alice Meynell
I was thinking of Meynell too; she was a Roman Catholic.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
I am vaguely suspecting that the reason behind that statement "The church knows" and & is that passage about God choosing "to bring together all things in heaven and on earth and under the earth" in Christ--and from that they extrapolate that the Incarnation was a one time event. Also, possibly, from Romans 6:9, "We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him." But that was written to people in this world who were not considering the question of whether other worlds might exist, might fall, might need a similar redemption; so I think it may leave the question open.
That said, I suspect that if another world did fall, did need redemption, God would find a different way of handling it. He seems to avoid repeating himself. But that's just my impression of him. And it is certain that handle it he would, however he chose to do so.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
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Dafyd
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# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
Strictly speaking the notion that the universe is eternal is heretical as I recall from a Christian perspective, because it suggests that creation shares a property that God has, namely eternity.
Thomas Aquinas argued that we can know by natural reason that God, as creator of the universe, is eternal. But we couldn't know merely by philosophical reasoning that the universe has a beginning in time.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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que sais-je
Shipmate
# 17185
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
I am vaguely suspecting that the reason behind that statement "The church knows" and & is that passage about God choosing "to bring together all things in heaven and on earth and under the earth" in Christ--and from that they extrapolate that the Incarnation was a one time event. Also, possibly, from Romans 6:9, "We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him." But that was written to people in this world who were not considering the question of whether other worlds might exist, might fall, might need a similar redemption; so I think it may leave the question open.
I was being less charitable and thinking that, if the possibility of another incarnation was accepted, the next step might be questions of whether there could be more than one on a single single planet.
[ 21. October 2012, 16:57: Message edited by: que sais-je ]
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"controversies, disputes, and argumentations, both in philosophy and in divinity, if they meet with discreet and peaceable natures, do not infringe the laws of charity" (Thomas Browne)
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif) Okay, that one hadn't occurred to me. But I really can't see the Lord doing things that way, I mean, where do you leave off? I suspect it would come to an incarnation per human being, just to make sure nobody's particular circumstances didn't get fully met.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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que sais-je
Shipmate
# 17185
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
As there IS only one incarnation, economically.
I'm not sure God has any need to behave economically but if He does his sketch 10^78 LY across and 10^46 LY in radius might be a trifle large to be considered living space for one species - uneconomic even.
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"controversies, disputes, and argumentations, both in philosophy and in divinity, if they meet with discreet and peaceable natures, do not infringe the laws of charity" (Thomas Browne)
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PaulTH*
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# 320
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Posted
I recently saw Stephen Hawking say that time and space began with the Big Bang. I, since ten, have seen a Horizon program in which about five differnt scientists proposed five different ways in which the Big Bang needn't have been the start. This tells me that maths and physics don't yet have an answer to how the cosmos began. Nor to how likely intelligent life, capable of sin, may be in the rest of the universe.
I'm not expecting any definitive answer to this before I die, so I don't trouble myself too much about it. The Church can't know whether God has incarnated in other places. Perhaps He's incarnate to some extent in all His creatures, and I feel confient that He can and will redeem anywhere where it's needed, unless the redemption of fallen humanity is indeed cosmic enough in scope.
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Yours in Christ
Paul
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Bishops Finger
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# 5430
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Posted
I was already familiar with Alice Meynell's poem, but thanks for the link to Christus Apollo by Ray Bradbury. I think I might need to read it several times before I quite see what he's getting at, but it's powerful and moving......
Ian J.
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Our words are giants when they do us an injury, and dwarfs when they do us a service. (Wilkie Collins)
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Nicolemr
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# 28
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Posted
Your welcome, Bishop's Finger. Glad you enjoyed it.
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On pilgrimage in the endless realms of Cyberia, currently traveling by ship. Now with live journal!
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
que sais-je: There were probably, he assumed, many places where intelligent life had evolved and the love of God would have reached all of them. The interviewer asked, if so would God had been incarnated on all of them them.
I really like Breakfast Cereal's take on this ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
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Lord Jestocost
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# 12909
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Posted
Given that I'm reasonably certain God isn't bound by our notions of time and space (or certainly doesn't pay them much attention), I have no problem with the Son's once-and-for-all atoning sacrifice for sin being a one-off spiritual event but replayed multiple times in multiple incarnations.
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que sais-je
Shipmate
# 17185
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
I really like Breakfast Cereal's take on this
Thanks, me too.
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"controversies, disputes, and argumentations, both in philosophy and in divinity, if they meet with discreet and peaceable natures, do not infringe the laws of charity" (Thomas Browne)
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Freddy
Shipmate
# 365
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Posted
It may be worth noting that the word "incarnation" is not used in Scripture, except perhaps in John's reference to the "Word made flesh."
Instead Scripture refers repeatedly to "the coming of the Lord". Nor is there anything to indicate that it happens only once. Many Christians still await the promised Second Coming, so it makes no sense to assert that it can happen only once.
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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
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kankucho
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# 14318
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
If the universe is infinite then it COULD be eternal. If it were uncreated then it WOULD be. It can't be if there has only been one incarnation.
It can't be if there have only been a million incarnations either — or any other finite number you care to think of. What would be possible under such circumstances is that, as infinite cyclic reincarnations within an infinitely cyclical universe, we have all had a go at being Christ.
Did someone say heretical? ![[Devil]](graemlins/devil.gif)
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"We are a way for the cosmos to know itself" – Dr. Carl Sagan
Kankucho Bird Blues
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Freddy
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# 365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by kankucho:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
If the universe is infinite then it COULD be eternal. If it were uncreated then it WOULD be. It can't be if there has only been one incarnation.
It can't be if there have only been a million incarnations either — or any other finite number you care to think of. What would be possible under such circumstances is that, as infinite cyclic reincarnations within an infinitely cyclical universe, we have all had a go at being Christ.
Did someone say heretical?
This is a curious topic to talk about heresy over.
It is easy to read the Bible as describing numerous instances of God descending to speak to and appear to people on earth. The Bible definitely talks of at least two "comings."
Why make an issue of how many times He appears?
But there is another aspect to this whole topic. This is that while time and space separate us physically from other sentient beings in the universe, assuming they exist, the same is not true spiritually. God would be equally close to all of them. The same would be true of heaven.
So the effects of the Incarnation on one planet can be felt everywhere. Added to the idea that there are other ways for God to "come" than to be born physically there is no need to feel any limitation.
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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001
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Martin60
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# 368
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Posted
Aye que sais-je. I suspect, based on utter ignorance, whim, bias, me corns, that the universe HAS to be that absurdly vast.
I completely agree that by materialism it should be teeming with life.
But by materialism, it ain't.
Lord Jestocost. Oh yes 'e is. The apostrophe is in capitals. And I love the way that language can be constructed to look meaningful when it isn't.
God didn't need us for eternity already. That's SOME dance He's already danced.
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Love wins
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