Can Spirituality and Aliens Coexist? Reflections from a Theoretical Physicist
“Spirituality and the frontiers of science have something in common: they both explore the unknown.”
Those words belong to Avi Loeb in an article titled: A Word of Torah About Extraterrestrials.
Loeb is a theoretical physicist heading the Galileo Project that searches for potential extraterrestrial intelligence. And here, my blog article offers my interpretation of his words.
He distinguishes spirituality from science. Apparently, an important aspect of his point are the "existential risks" entailing from the unknown, and the fact that we do not yet know if sentient life (i.e., life that uses physical senses to feel things) exists beyond Earth.
Spirituality is the one-of-a-kind, amorphous dimension of an individual's private life that makes it all worthwhile, the boundaries of which science tries to transcend, because science wants to grasp a hold of what is applicable to all cases and people.
Hence, Loeb stated:
“Science is guided by a universal experience.”
Yes. Science is objective, even though humans are not always objective in their attempt to achieve the “realization that can be shared equally by all scientists.” The outcomes for the individual personally are not shared by what the collective effort achieves.
This is why my spiritual experiences with God, along with my wonder and awe of the universe, cannot be replicated in someone else, to the extent that he/she would match every thought, feeling, and word that I had.
Hence, Loeb makes this point:
“The dialogue with God is an ‘I and Thou' experience, unique to the individual, in Martin Buber’s existential philosophy. The bending of light by clusters of galaxies implies the presence of dark matter to all scientists who adopt Albert Einstein’s theory of gravity."
Yes. Spirituality involves experience that is personal and unique to the individual, and that personal uniqueness dissolves when we enter the domain of doing science and methodological naturalism that includes tracking natural stuff upon which a group of observers agree.
Due to the nature of the human mind that subjectively and idiosyncratically experiences the world, each individual will still involve his/her unique personality in the interpretation of scientific data, thus hindering consensus, at least for an extensive period of time.
I find it interesting that spirituality would be discussed by Avi Loeb, the founding director of Harvard’s Black Hole Initiative, who is also the winner of many awards.
He is an Israeli-American who grew up on a family farm not far from Tel Aviv in Israel. At the 2021 Ignatius Forum, he expressed views on artificial intelligence, extraterrestrial intelligence, and lab-based synthetic life, all of which helps me maybe understand why he is neither defending or opposing religion.
He made the following statements in an article published by The Hill:
“In finding advanced extraterrestrial intelligence, religion might simply reflect advanced science with a twist. Traditional religions described God as the creator of the universe and life within it. They also suggested that humans were made in the image of God. But these notions are not necessarily in contradiction with science. A sufficiently advanced scientific civilization might be able to create synthetic life in its laboratories — in fact, some of our terrestrial laboratories almost reached that threshold. And with a good understanding of how to unify quantum-mechanics and gravity, an advanced scientific civilization could potentially create a baby universe in its laboratories. Therefore, an advanced scientific civilization might be a good approximation to God.”
His book titled Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth states that “a scientist must go where the evidence leads” which must involve wielding Occam’s Razor to “seek the simplest explanation” and “to be willing to abandon models that fail.”
In his book, he discusses an “interstellar visitor”, called the Oumuamua that had an external form like a “rocky cigar” and made itself available to professional study for eleven days in 2017. Though it is wished that professionals were given a longer time to study the visitor, Loeb still concludes in his introduction of his book:
“I submit that the simplest explanation for these peculiarities is that the object was created by an intelligent civilization not of this Earth.”
That is an extraordinary statement for a man of his professional acumen and accolades.
In my opinion, such a report should inspire existential questions leading to a change in the public’s ethos and perception of the supernatural and religion.
In an era of declining church attendance, why should we be open to sentient and intelligent life existing beyond Earth while still rejecting the Bible’s claims about angels and demons?
As for spirituality being a personal, unique, single experience, a few friends made some recent comments on Loeb’s article that I shared on my Facebook wall.
My friend, Phil Weingart, stated:
“Just for starters, the notion that spiritual experience is personal is ENTIRELY a 21st century anachronism. Both Torah and early Christian thinking regarded spiritual experience as a community event as much as an individual one, and in fact would hardly have made a distinction between those.”
Helen Akers stated:
“People who believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ have a shared experience. Jesus is the same to all Christians.”
I think my friends are correct to emphasize the communal aspect of Biblical spirituality.
Psalm 133:1 emphasizes unity among brethren. Colossians 3:12-13 tells us to have compassion, kindness, and patience as we bear graciously with each other.
Romans 12:4-5 states clearly:
“For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.”
Hebrews 10:25 clarifies that we should not forsake the assembly of the saints. Combine that with Romans 12, and you can find a strong emphasis on the unity of community, with some mention of individuality, but not a strong emphasis. This is a great reminder for people who want to practice spirituality consistently but separately from a regular meeting of believers, where they can receive stable and reliable encouragement.
Though communal Biblical spirituality has uncompromisable and non-negotiable importance, we should also not ignore how each individual is at different stages in their spiritual maturation, with different gifts, different missions, different challenges, different dreams, different visions, and different thoughts. God leaves none of us unequipped with all that we need to please and glorify Him (see Hebrews 13:21).
Robot Planet Moon royalty-free stock illustration—-Image credits belong to: KELLEPICS - Pixabay
The author of this blog post is Matthew Sabatine, who was born in the United States and raised as a Christian but left the faith in his early twenties. He returned to the faith midway through 2022. Matthew has some experience in the mental health field as a direct support professional, caring for people with intellectual and development disabilities and people who were in long-term residency/rehabilitation programs. Though Matthew has no formal undergraduate or graduate degree, he has experience co-facilitating therapy groups under the supervision of licensed counselors. Matthew currently works in sales/marketing by day and blogs on his free time at night.
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