The consensus among most conservative Christians is that there are no aliens in outer space. This is an evolutionary idea that states that out of billions of stars there must be a few planets somewhere that could sustain the evolution of life. Much of what is currently driving NASA’s exploration of the solar system is a search for life. From a biblical creationist perspective, we will find no amoebas or bacteria on Jupiter’s moons. It is unlikely that we will even find water anywhere in our solar system other than on earth. God made the earth and he created a perfect biosphere that will indefinitely support the life he created.

But the question still remains. Is it possible that God could have created a planet that contains plants, animals and even sentient creatures similar to human beings? While the Bible is silent on this, I would negate the possibility of intelligent life on other planets.

Mark Twain wrote a science fiction story, “Captain Stormfield’s Visit to Heaven,” about the idea of a heaven where thousands of aliens from every inhabited planet in the universe arrive at a heaven that was so populated that it is the size of many planets. In the story, Captain Stormfield is amazed to find out that Christ has appeared on every planet in the universe to live an exemplary life and die for that planet’s sins. He is told, “The worlds He has saved are like to the gates of heaven in number – none can count them.” Twain was satirizing the Christian view of heaven in the face of the emerging evolutionary science. However, it is just as likely that a Christian view could be used to expose the impossibility of intelligent life besides ours in the universe.

This doesn’t negate, however, the possibility of worlds that have plant and animal life. It is possible that God could have created these planets on the fourth day of creation (Gen. 1:14-19). There may be worlds He created in the foreknowledge that a redeemed civilization would one day discover and colonize. Just as a millennial impulse drove the Age of Exploration in the 15th century, so a Golden Age of Christian knowledge may drive the exploration of new worlds and the settlement of new civilizations.

If the postmillennial view is correct, we can expect to one day colonize the solar system. It is likely that we will create self-sustaining biospheres – perhaps giant bubbles on the surface of the planet Mars – that will sustain life in a similar manner as on earth. It is even possible that one day we will discover a planet capable of sustaining an atmosphere and all the various species of life found on earth. Another idea is that scientists may someday be able to create a “biosphere” on another planet that would imitate the conditions on earth. Maybe a “Noah’s Ark” of future space colonists will bring the seeds of a new earth to a far distant star?

Of course this is speculation. But Christian Reconstructionists and other postmillennialists should be considering the possibilities.