Human Place in Cosmic Space - Cosmic Commons (extract)

Science’s discovery of the immensity of the cosmos can be disconcerting today when humans realize that corporeally they are cosmic minutiae. When the whole “world” was understood to be just Earth and the lights that circled it above—sun by day; moon, stars, comets, and meteors at night—humankind could comfortably consider who they were in this place. In Western religious thought and European cultural settings, people settled into what they believed to be their divinely designated place and role. They were the most intelligent life on Earth. Other life, Earth, and even the visible cosmos itself had been created as background and support for human be-ing and beings; they had been specially created by God in God’s “image.” In Christian thought, God’s solicitude prompted God to become human to save humans from themselves—their universal, endemic, and intergenerational sinfulness.

Spiritual, Psychological, and Social Dislocation

Over the centuries, scientific discoveries stimulated a significant reassessment of humans’ previous understanding of their place on Earth and in the universe. A profound sense of cosmic displacement occurred twice— through the complementary discoveries of heliocentrism (Copernicus- Kepler-Galileo, sixteenth to seventeenth century) and biological evolution (Charles Darwin, nineteenth century). Humans’ new understanding that Earth orbited around the sun effected their conceptual displacement from the center of the universe (where people had thought they were materially and spiritually created on a planet around which the material universe circled), and led to a certain philosophical disengagement with the cosmos (which people had thought was created solely to be the supportive context of human existence). Evolution, in establishing that biota evolve, diversify, and complexify, catalyzed humans’ intellectual displacement from viewing themselves as the unique created pinnacle of complex life that is served by all other life. Consequently, people began to search for new meaning in their finite personal and community existence, and a different sense of place.

The speculation about whether or not “we are alone” as intelligent life in the vast cosmos has catalyzed new reflection on the relationship among Spirit, science, and space. The ancient sacred texts of Christians and other peoples of religious faith describe in diverse ways a divine Spirit’s presence and creativity, transcendence and immanence; assume that Earth is a fixed “world” about which heavenly bodies orbit in spheres; express their authors’ belief that Earth is the center of the cosmos and the home of created beings, humans, who are superior to and above all others; and affirm the uniqueness of human intelligence and its particular personal relationship with the creating Spirit. Science subsequently established that Earth is not a cosmic center nor even a local center; that people and other biota have evolved over billions of years from a common single-celled ancestor; and that space is an immense “frontier” inviting human exploration and eventual settlement. Scientists began, too, to speculate ever more confidently that intelligent life might well have evolved elsewhere in the universe.

When integrated, the three displacements that resulted from scientific data teach humans that they are not preeminent on a planet that is the center of the universe (pre-Copernicus); a specific, unique divine creation at a singular moment in Earth time (pre-Darwin); or the only intelligent life that exists cosmically (pre-ETI). If Contact occurs, they would understand that distinct forms of life evolved independently of humankind during the 14.82-billion year history of the cosmos and became, because of their longer evolutionary history, more complex, more intelligent, and more technologically advanced than humans, and perhaps also progressed more spiritually—beyond religious institutions and doctrines to a common spiritual consciousness. They might even have evolved to some extent beyond their previous materiality. Contact—the encounter with intelligent extraterrestrial life—could alter forever human self-understanding, religious perceptions, and even ethical practices, to the extent that the latter have been based on belief in human intellectual uniqueness, humans’ evolutionary preeminence, and humans’ distinct relationship with a creating Spirit.

If people who know now that humankind is the evolutionary result of the natural processes of reproduction, diversification, and complexification of species within a long line of biological ancestors that existed over millions of centuries were to add to that knowledge understanding of a new reality—that humankind is truly not alone as an evolved thinking species in the cosmos, and that they are not the single, extraordinary “image of God” in creation—they would be stimulated to a profound realization and sense that they must not only reject past inaccurate understandings based on their previous ignorance, but explore reflectively new intellectual and spiritual territory as they explore the material universe.

Human Cosmic (Re)Location

The third cosmic displacement and dislocation, were it to occur, would provide humankind with unique opportunities: to come to a greater awareness and knowledge of the extent and complexity of divine creation; to come to a more enhanced spiritual understanding of and appreciation for the modes of divine Presence in the universe; and enlightened by the foregoing, to reflectively consider just where humans “fit” into integral cosmic being—what might be their unique evolutionary niches, their multiple places (spiritual and material) and multiple locations, each of which would have distinctive contextual interrelationships with their abiotic milieu, their biotic community, and the Spirit immanent in all.

Scientific discoveries do not force or lead peoples of religious faith to deny the existence or diminish the creativity of a divine Spirit. Divine Being continues to be understood as the origin of cosmic material being and energies, and of the scientific laws upon which geophysical and biological changes, including evolution, have occurred. Evolution, in that perspective, would be understood as an ongoing unfolding of a divine creativity that is not expressed in a single moment or individual acts of life creation, but as creation-in-process. Put simply: evolution is an autopoietic process of biotic creation as the Creator-initiated Singularity (the explosive origin of the inflating universe) unfolds in dynamic creative freedom within physical, chemical, and biological parameters; the Spirit continues to create, now indirectly, as cosmic and planetary entities and processes interact and integrate. ETI would be, in this understanding, both an example of what has been and is being wrought by divine creativity on a cosmic scale and therefore perhaps a hint of what is to come in future human experience; humankind, too, will continue to evolve into an unknown future in unseen places, adapting to each with wonder and appreciation and a sense of the Spirit to whom all are related who is present in all.

In the twentieth century, as geopolitical, ecological, economic, and population crises developed on Earth, and scientific knowledge and technological accomplishments increased, human extension into the cosmos seemed to be more inviting, and even a pressing need. Displacement from Earth and relocation elsewhere in the solar system and beyond appeared to be welcome in a material and political sense; cultural, psychological, and spiritual fears because of the experience of loss from no longer being a cosmic center, as humans had perceived their status on Earth to be, gave way to practical material considerations necessitated because of pressing survival needs.

Human journeys into space became necessary primarily, it seemed, not to extend research into and appreciation of cosmic mysteries, but to escape the negative consequences of research and technology on Earth. Harm to people and other biota (including extinction of the latter), and pollution of the air, earth, and water of their shared Earth habitat stimulated hope and efforts to find elsewhere a much-needed place, one in which useful abiotic inputs of materials and energy would be available to be used for industrial processes and products to provide for human needs and wants. As has been the case historically on Earth when nations expanded into new territory, including into places where life and even intelligent life with native ethnicities and cultures was already present, little thought was given to human impacts on and responsibilities toward other worlds’ environments and their native inhabitants—at whatever stage of evolutionary development and cultural formation they might have achieved prior to when they first discover human beings descending to their planet.

At the present moment in human history, there is no certitude about whether or not Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) have brought extraterrestrial intelligent life (ETI) into Earth’s skies. Some UAP have been assessed by scientists and military personnel to be intelligently operated, as indicated by scientific analyses of assembled data, and military evidence gathered from radar tracks and military and civilian pilots’ experiences— particularly observations of UAP’s extremely high velocity and maneuvers, including changes of direction at incredible speeds during direct aerial interactions with military aircraft from Earth nations. Readers might well have their own ideas and opinions on the matter.

Excerpt from "Cosmic Commons", written by John Hart, Professor of Christian Ethics at Boston University School of Theology. (ISBN: 978-1-61097-318-2)