Question:

Do you believe there is life on other planets? I have never even considered this idea until recently. I have been reading a lot of C.S. Lewis’s works and he seems to believe there is life on other planets. Also, after watching a video from the book CRAZY LOVE called "Awe Factor" I just can’t imagine why God created this giant universe and we are the only life on it.

Answer:

I do not know if there is life on other planets.  The Bible is not helpful here.  Neither is science particularly helpful, although it does give us some theories to go on.  The Bible simply does not ever address the question of life elsewhere in the universe.  I have never heard of anyone so bold as to claim there are any passages which prove that there either is or is not life elsewhere in the universe.  I am sure there is someone out there prepared to make such a claim, but I believe that such a claim cannot be taken seriously.

I am confident that you are misinterpreting C. S. Lewis.  I have read a large proportion of his writing, both philosophical and fiction.  Perhaps you are referring to his trilogy, Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra and That Hidden Strength.  These fiction novels are clearly intended to be taken as fantasy.  Lewis is certainly not trying to stake a claim there is life on these planets.  Unless you can give to me reference to a specific example of something Lewis wrote which implies he believed there is life on other planets, I will continue to assume that you most likely misinterpret Lewis.  Please let me know if you have evidence to the contrary.  

I am fully with you that the universe is wonderfully awesome.  There are hundreds of billions of galaxies, with hundreds of billions of stars.  The universe is large on an unimaginably grand scale.  However, this fact alone does not prove there is life elsewhere.  To both you and I it seems strange to imagine God creating such a huge universe and only put life on one planet, but God does not do things according to our logic.  Maybe your intuition is right.  Maybe God created life elsewhere or, much less likely, that life could be spontaneously generated elsewhere.   However, the scientific evidence is not conclusive.  There is some indirect that life may have existed once on Mars, but we know from science that it is not inconceivable for life to spread between neighboring planets, so this, in and of itself does not establish whether there life "out there."  Scientists try to estimate the probability of life being created spontaneously elsewhere in the universe, but these calculations are so unreliable as to be almost meaningless.

Here is the bottom line.  There is no significant scientific or biblical evidence, either pro or con, to answer the question of whether life, or even intelligent, self-aware life exists elsewhere in the universe.  I am afraid that, as fun as it is to speculate on it, we are left simply not knowing.

John Oakes, PhD