Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 51:203 (Jul 1894)
Article: Sin In This And Other Worlds
Author: Archibald Eugene Thomson

BSac 51:203 (July 1894) p. 429

Sin In This And Other Worlds

Rev. A. Eugene Thomson

1. There are reasons, not lightly to be rejected, for believing that other worlds than our own are inhabited. Indeed it is very difficult not to suppose it. There does not seem a sufficient reason for the creation of so many and such mighty balls as now stud the heavens, if this world alone carries human freight. The minute pencil of light that, after some thousands of years of travel, reaches a human eye, multiplied by all the eyes that have been or will be thus lighted, does not appear to warrant the existence of such forces as combine to send that feeble ray on its long journey, while almost an infinity of light and heat is wasted in the empty realms of the skies.

The lessons these far-off globes teach of the majesty of God are of vastly more value than the light they give us, and yet without them the exhibition that we have of “his everlasting power and divinity” is far beyond our comprehension. According to all our knowledge, they must have existed countless millions of years before there was a human being on this planet to observe them; and now that they are the objects of attentive study, they give us no geological records by which we may read their past, and the knowledge that we have any prospect of acquiring concerning them is as meagre as the dim radiance that greets the eye.

The nebular hypothesis has to such a degree solved the problems of the heavens and the earth, that we have a right to regard it as in the main correct. But, if true, it must be

BSac 51:203 (July 1894) p. 430

true for the rest of the stellar universe outside our little system. In that case it is reasonable to assume that, swinging about the blazing orbs in the heavens, there are countless non-luminous bodies, many of which have reached, while many will in the future reach, the condition of temperature which our earth possesses. Yet it will be of importance in this discussion to bear in mind that the possible denizens of other worlds are not to be assumed necessarily to require such conditions of existence as we demand. We may, however, assume that some at least of these globes, if populated at all, are peopled with creatures possessing intelligence and moral agency. Such only, so far as we know, have great value in themselves. It is evident that the power of moral discrimination and choice forms the larger part of our possibility of worth; and we can but conclude that it is true in all parts of the universe, because we are ourselves made in the image of the Creator.

2. Then, if the inhabitants of other worlds have the power of moral choice, they have the power of sinning, and the question must arise, Are they not as likely to sin ...