Is God In Outer Space?

Posted on August 01, 2009 by Ronald T. Brown, Ph.D.

When his writing is not over my head, I really like reading C. S. Lewis. In “The Business of Heaven” – Daily readings from C. S. Lewis – he writes:

“The Russians, I am told, report that they have not found God in outer space… The conclusion some people want us to draw from the data is that God does not exist, and the corollary – Those who think they have met Him on earth are suffering from a delusion. But other conclusions might be drawn:

1) We have not yet gone far enough in space. There had been ships sailing on the Atlantic for a good time before America was discovered.
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2) God does exist, but is locally confined to this planet.

3) The Russians did find God in space without knowing it, but they lacked the requisite apparatus for detecting Him.

4) God does exist, but He is not an object which is either located in a particular part of space or diffused throughout space.

The first two conclusions do not interest me. The sort of religion for which they could be a defense would be a religion for savages: the belief in a local deity who can be contained in a particular temple, island, or grove. That, in fact, seems to be the sort of religion about which the Russians – or some Russians, and a good many people in the West – are looking for. It is not in the least disquieting that no astronauts have discovered a god of that sort. The really disquieting thing would be if they had.

Looking for God – or Heaven – by exploring space is like reading or seeing all Shakespeare’s plays in the hope that you will find Shakespeare as one of the characters… Shakespeare is in one sense present at every moment in every play. But he is never present in the same way as Falstaff or Lady Macbeth… My point is, if God does exist, He is related to the universe more as an author is related to a play… If He exists, mere movement in space will never bring you any nearer to Him, or any farther from Him, that you are at this very moment.

You can neither reach Him, nor avoid Him, by traveling to Alpha Centauri or even to other galaxies. A fish is no more, and no less, in the sea after it has swam a thousand miles than it was when it set out… Space-travel really has nothing to do with the matter. To some, God is discoverable everywhere; to others, nowhere. Those who do not find Him on earth are unlikely to find Him in space. But send a saint up in a spaceship and he’ll find God in space as he found God on earth. Much depends on the seeing eye.”