Originally published in Creation 13, no 3 (June 1991): 51.
Although the Scriptures do not directly say that no life was created elsewhere, the suggestion that it was is not only totally unnecessary, but loaded with logical and theological problems.
People often ask, ‘If God created this enormous and awesome universe, isn’t it absurd to imagine that He placed life only on this tiny planet in an insignificant galaxy?’
The large scale of the universe has nothing to do with its complexity. The immense complexity of the human body, in so far as this is understood, is much more awesome than the array of stars. But it all depends on the way each of us views things. Relative to our human yardsticks, the large scale of the cosmos is about the same as the small scale of the microcosmos of the atom—man’s ‘order of magnitude’ seems to be somewhere in between.
Evolutionary cosmologists love to stress the insignificance of the earth in the cosmic economy, and it is easy to get caught up in this kind of reasoning without realizing that the very use of words such as ‘insignificant’ is charged with anti-biblical bias, using a totally arbitrary frame of reference for such value judgments. If we abandon the vain speculations of men and look instead to the Scriptures, we find that it is inconsistent for a Bible-believing Christian to believe in life in other parts of the universe (apart from spiritual beings such as angels).
From God’s point of view, the earth, far from being insignificant, is the crucial focus of His creative, sustaining and redemptive activity. Consider the following:
Although the Scriptures do not directly say that no life was created elsewhere, the suggestion that it was is not only totally unnecessary, but loaded with logical and theological inconsistencies and contradictions.
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