Washington D.C., Jun 8, 2021 / 16:01 pm
Fundamental theological principles provide the framework for any doctrinal questions over the discovery of extraterrestrial beings, a theologian claimed in a lecture on June 5.
While the Church does not have any specific teachings on extraterrestrial life, theologians can speculate on the existence of these beings and their nature due to the “underlying principles” which influence Church doctrine, said Dr. Christopher Baglow, director of the Science and Religion Initiative at the University of Notre Dame’s McGrath Institute for Church Life, on Saturday.
“We have something, in a way, more essential than doctrine to guide us: What St. John Henry Newman identified as the permanent elements in the development of doctrine, the underlying principles which animate doctrines,” he said.
“According to Newman, these principles are so important that they are the very life of doctrines,” and “an even better test of heresy than doctrine,” Baglow said.