From: Michael Straight <straight@email.unc.edu>
Subject: Re: (urth) God and the Lizard People
Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1999 11:42:29 


WARNING: SPOILERS for Blish's CASE OF CONSCIENCE and Lewis's SPACE TRILOGY

On Wed, 2 Jun 1999, Dan Parmenter wrote:

> From: Michael Straight <straight@email.unc.edu>

> > A.  There is no God.
> > B.  The alien race is an illusion of Satan designed to deceive humanity.
> > C.  God exists, but his relationship to this alien race is something
> >     we don't understand.
> > 
> > Everyone in the book seems to think A and B are the only two
> > possibilities.  No one even considers C.  C seems so obvious and B so
> > far-fetched that I was unable to believe in the characters or their
> > debates.
> 
> To bring your thoughts in line with my earlier post, perhaps
> hypothesis "C" is essentially Lewis's Space Trilogy.

I don't think that really fits.  Lewis's aliens wouldn't have caused
Blish's characters any problems because they were sinless and aware of and
in communion with God, which is what Christians might expect of an
unfallen race.  

Once Ransom gets past the initial communication barrier (definitely by the
time of Perelandra) he understands the aliens' relationship to God
pretty well.  The other characters only misunderstand because their
rejection of Christianity prevents them from even considering the alien
religion might be congruent with Christianity.

Blish's problem is that the aliens seem totally unaware of God, yet also
show no signs of the sin which has caused a breach between us and our
creator.  But I can think of lots of explanations I would think would be
more convincing to the characters than the Satanic Illusion theory.  Maybe
the aliens have no souls, and glorify God as do stars, stones, and
animals.  Maybe they have rejected God in some way that we don't recognize
as sinful and their salvation has not yet been accomplished.  Maybe their
experience of God is so alien that they cannot communicate it to us.

Is there any precedent in Church history of the Church deciding that some
particular bit of evidence that seemed contrary to the faith was an
illusion?  Has anyone ever tried exorcizing the fossil record? 

-Rostrum


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