If there are aliens out there, does that mean Christianity is untrue?

With recent headlines and Senate hearings in the USA reigniting the debate over extraterrestrials, Robin Barfield shows how families can help children explore big questions about the universe, faith, and what makes humanity unique in God’s eyes

Our children’s imagination stretches beyond the unseen on this planet and into the universe. They are regularly confronted in books and films with the idea that there may be life elsewhere, sparking their imagination to explore and understand the enormity of what lies beyond our galaxy. For a child to ask a question such as this is, therefore, neither unexpected nor a bad thing. I wonder how you would respond. Having had a discussion with my son, this is where we got to:

1) The universe is huge!

Astronomers and astrophysicists reckon the universe is roughly 93 billion light-years in diameter, about 5.5 trillion miles. And who am I to dispute such mind-boggling, inconceivable numbers? There are approximately 200 billion trillion stars, with, presumably, countless planets orbiting them. Is it possible that some of them contain the elements necessary for life? It certainly seems so. There may be an Earth-like planet somewhere amongst those billions.

However, as my son pointed out, God creates life; it doesn’t just come from nowhere. Therefore, if there is life out there, it’s because He decided there should be. We are told in Genesis 1 and 2 that God speaks, and life comes. In particular, He breathes life into the first man and woman. There is an intentional and deliberate act by the Creator to establish life on our planet. Genesis does not tell us that He did this elsewhere, but it also doesn’t tell us that ……