I'm currently re-reading Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle's Motie books "Mote in God's Eye" and "The Gripping Hand." They remind me of a report I did back in college referring to Giordano Bruno's concept of the universe. I will need to re-read some of his works since I am no longer familiar with them. I'll see what I can find on Gutenberg.org (which by the way is a wonderful resource). [Oddly enough there wasn't anything on Gutenberg.]

The main point I'm working towards here is the concept of Christ throughout the universe. I have seen it in George MacDonald's 'Lilith' (one of my favorite fantasy books, because it presents some very interesting questions that you can see sparked some of C.S. Lewis' excellent works on Christianity), and even Ted Dekker's Circle Trilogy.

One must of course discount the Lilith concept, after looking through Wikipedia.org I was able to trace more of the concept to better understand it. I'm not going to get into discussing 'Lilith' yet, recently when I re-read it again, I went through it twice simply because there is so much going on. I haven't had a chance to reflect on the notes I took at that time--in particular since I didn't have the Blog up and running yet.

The point I'm working on is that Christ died for all mankind, if there is another inhabited planet out there somewhere--unlikely, but who knows? Christ might have had to die at the same time on that other planet in order to save them too. Christ was God and therefore capable, but would He need to? But then reading C.S. Lewis' Perelandra series, the planet Venus is akin to another Garden of Eden, so I'm left postulating nonsense, and yet it's an interesting mental exercise. For an infinitely large universe that is constantly expanding, despite the rigorous requirements in order for a planet to meet the criteria for life (eloquently described in Lee Strobel's "Case for Christ"), would the 'people' on that planet already be saved because of the death of Christ here on Earth and thus not know sin, or would they know sin as we do, but know that there is salvation through Christ? That is the one major problem I have with Ted Dekker's Circle trilogy. Christ already died for us, why would He need to do it again? He conquered Death when He rose again, as He said 'It is finished.' (John 19:30)

Anyway, the point I was trying to get at, is that in the 'Motie' books, a race of aliens is discovered that must breed (they die if they don't), thus once they escape their system, how will it impact the rest of the universe? They also threw in a character--primarily restricted to the first book--who is a catholic priest, and his thoughts on how to reconcile the existence of another sentient species to Christianity. I can't say I agree with all of what they say, but it is interesting none the less. Imagine an exponentially expanding population, searching for worlds to inhabit. It also would throw a wrench in the concept of marriage, but since that is clearly defined in the Bible, I would not expect God to change His mind should He choose to create another sentient species, since God doesn't change His rules. That is the problem with trying to rectify secular fiction to Christianity, It just doesn't work. ;)

Niven did display the consequences (see 'Crashlander') of what happens to the legal concept of marriage, should the rules be opened to same sex, and multiple partner marriage. You end up with marriage contracts, terminating after a certain timeframe. Of course, he doesn't go into the emotional turmoil that would result and the further fragmentation of society as familial lines blur. Yet another reason for me to be grateful that I'm happily married and that I was able--with God's help, of course--to abstain from sex until I was married.

The thing that I like about Larry Niven is that the science in his science fiction at least sounds plausible on the surface, unlike so many of them out there. My wife absolutely loves to debunk movies when they start making up science as they go. Sad thing is, is that most people don't realize how far off the science is in most movies. That really says something about our education system.

[Oh, and for those that are curious my wife got her degree in Botany, and worked as a Plant Geneticist for a while and she has had no problem reconciling true science with her faith, as to be compared with science as its own religion. You have to ignore the basic fundamentals of science in order to further your own agenda to not follow the evidence of the world towards God. Modern science arose out of attempting to reconcile our understanding of the natural world with the word of God, not to debunk it. This is why I tend to laugh when I see people with Darwin and Science stickers on their cars, as if they are attempting to say that they are smarter than the rest of us. I guess they are attempting to say that they have access to secret or gnostic knowledge that the rest of us are unaware of--I wonder how they would react to that statement? Hmmm. Of course, I would have to explain the whole gnostic movement to them and they would get flustered and irritated long before I got to my point, but such is life.]

I'm still trying to determine if there is a point I'm trying to get at or not. We'll see as I finish up the second book here soon and get a chance to reflect on it. It's been a decade since I last read it, and definitely worth reading again in the future. For the most part here, it's just my random musings, as I contemplate God, the Universe and Everything. :D

-Jon