If life is found on Ganymede, would that discredit the Bible in any way?
Question:
NASA says new observations from the Hubble Space Telescope confirm the presence of a subsurface salty ocean on Jupiter’s largest moon, Ganymede. Jim Green, NASA’s director of Planetary space even says that the “The solar system is now looking like a pretty soggy place”. My question is, does this discredit the Bible in any way?. Assuming scientists are eventually able to discover life on other planets, would this in anyway undermine what the Bible says about the uniqueness of life on earth? Also, Does the Bible anywhere state that life (plant and animal life) appears only on Earth?
Answer:
The Bible does not say that life on the earth is unique. It does not even mention life elsewhere one way or another (that it does or that it does not exist). To the ancients, the idea of life outside the earth would have been literally incomprehensible anyway, as they conceived the earth as being the center of the universe and thought of the planets and stars as self-luminous objects circling the earth. If God had told them that there was life on other planets, this would have blown their minds, I would guess. In any case, I cannot even imagine why God would feel the need to share with those he wrote Genesis to whether life exists on other planets, especially given that they were not even aware that there were other planets similar to the earth.
The simple answer is that whatever is discovered on the moons of Jupiter is fascinating stuff. All humans will be interested in this exploration, but it will have zero impact on the Christian faith either way.
John Oakes
