The Most Holy Trinity

I was recently chatting with a friend who asked me if I believed in aliens. I told him that if, by aliens, he meant the intelligent, self-conscious life forms like the Wookies, Gungans and Tuskan raiders of Star Wars fame, then my answer would be no. Not a categorical “no,” but a “no” that has a lot invested in it. For, if we were to accept that there were an alien species capable of moral judgements and self-reflection, we would need to concede that God created them in God’s own image and God would need to save them, just like God saved us in Jesus Christ. If we as Christians believed that God also had to save alien people, we would have to radically alter our Trinitarian theology.

Part of what is so consequential about Trinitarian theology is that we believe that the structure of the Trinity has been determined by the course of salvation history. Imagine a gorge, similar to the Grand Canyon, where the rock face has been sculpted by the passage of the river going through it over many millennia. This gorge can be taken to represent the Trinity, for just as the shape of the rock has been determined by the river, in an analogous way, the Trinity has allowed itself to be shaped by salvation history. Salvation history, represented in this picture by the river, has coursed through the rock that is the Trinity and changed the Trinity irrevocably. As Pope Benedict XVI observed, the Ascension of Jesus as both God and man into heaven has the effect of making humanity a constituent part of the Trinity. We believe that Jesus’ incarnation, his life on earth, his death, resurrection and ascension engaged God’s eternal Being in a participation in human time in an irreversible way. It is not as if God had two sons and sent the eldest to planet Earth and plans on sending the younger son to the planet Tatooine in order to save the aliens. If this were the case, then God would not be a Trinity, but a Quinity. It is also not as if the Incarnation was part one of salvation history, and part two will see the second person of the Trinity incarnating as Gungan on planet Naboo.

When God committed Godself to humanity through Jesus Christ, we believe that God went all in and did not hold back a part of God’s self for future possible incarnations in far distant galaxies or in other multiverses. Getting to heaven and finding out that God has been speaking and communicating with alien people and saving them as well would be akin to a woman suddenly finding out that her husband of 40 years of marriage has a whole other life, wife and kids that she knew nothing about. It is of course conceivable that this is the case, but as I have already indicated, we would then have to overhaul our whole Trinitarian theology. For nothing that God has revealed about Godself thus far gives any indication that this is the case. This is why, we as Christians make the very bold assertion in faith that Jesus Christ is the fullest revelation of the Father. We believe that the Holy Spirit down through the ages has continued to help us to process this revelation and has taken us further and deeper into the mystery of who God is than Jesus could ever have taken his disciples while he was with them on Earth. This was why Jesus told his disciples that he still had many things to say to them, but they would be too much for them to bear, but when the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you to the fullness of the truth (Jn 16: 12-14). Could one of the many things that Jesus didn’t tell us be that there is an alien species out there that is also created in the image and likeness of God and that he must also save them? Possibly, but very unlikely, because nothing that the Spirit has revealed to us in 2000 years of Christianity since gives even the faintest indication of this.

On the contrary, everything that salvation history has revealed to us is that we are God’s only beloved people and that God yearns to lure us into the desert and speak tender words of love to us (Hos 2:14). The doctrine of the Trinity is a love-story between God and humanity. But before we even get to the love story between us and God, we must concede that the doctrine of the Trinity is first and foremost a love story between God and God, that love and relationship are internal to God’s very nature. Long before we were even a twinkle in God’s eye, God had a love affair internal to God’s very self. For the longest time, the three persons of the Trinity were enough for each other, until one day, they decided that what they had between themselves was too good not to be shared. So at the dawn of time, God created the universe and poured so much of Godself into creation that even without any of Revelation contained in our Scriptures, we might come to a faltering knowledge of God just by reflecting on the beauty and complexity of the natural world (Rm 1:20). Whether we sinned or not, it was always God’s plan to take on our nature and to invite us to share in the Divine Dance that the Trinity constitute. It is this invitation that Jesus came to extend to us and one which the Spirit continues to intimate to us “with groanings too deep for words” (Rm 8: 27). May we have the grace this day to respond to this invitation and delve deeper into the mystery of the Divine Dance.

Questions for Reflection

1. Are you drawn to the idea of aliens because of a fascination with the exotic? Do you feel that you have exhausted the exoticness of the created world you see around you?
2. As you contemplate the beauty of the universe and created world, how do you feel when you realize that God created all this out of love for you?