“We’re part of the heavens”

Andreas Losch, Matthias Wüthrich, you are both part of the UZH Space Hub, where mainly natural scientists are working on the subjects of remote sensing, aerospace and the cosmos. In what way is the universe of interest to you as theologians?

Matthias Wüthrich: From a theological perspective, I’m interested in the question of what constitutes life, for instance, and correspondingly also the astrobiological search for extraterrestrial life. I have previously taught courses on this, together with UZH Space Hub director Oliver Ullrich. What are we searching for when we search for life in the universe? This is a circular question. In order to discover life, we have to comprehend what life is. This requires some reflection. But I’m also interested in what exactly we mean when we speak of the heavens.

Is that not self-evident?

Wüthrich: Not necessarily. The religious concept of heaven and the natural philosophical or scientific heavens, i.e. the sky, were always considered to be one and the same until the Early Modern Period. At that point they slowly began to separate. The religious heaven was increasingly marginalized by the natural sciences. But for theology it is essential. The question now is how heaven and sky can be aligned with each other in the modern context.

Andreas Losch, why did you join the UZH Space Hub?

Andreas Losch: I moved to Switzerland in 2014 and initially worked at the Center for Space and Habitability at the University of Bern, where I carried out theological research. While there, I collaborated on a project that explored the possibility of life beyond our planet from an astrobiological perspective. Later, I obtained my habilitation at UZH with a publication entitled Der gestirnte Himmel über uns. Theologie, Naturwissenschaft und Ethik (“The starry heavens above us. Theology, natural science and ethics”). And I launched my own project on planetary sustainability, as I called it, which addressed questions around sustainability on Earth and in near-Earth space. So space has been an important subject in my work since I arrived in Switzerland.

You’re both interested in the search for extraterrestrial life. In what respect is this theologically relevant?

Wüthrich: Let me go on a tangent first. In 1968, when the Apollo 8 space probe took pictures of Earth from the moon, it was the first time that humanity became fully aware of our blue planet. The image of the fragile blue marble triggered a wide range of emotions and greatly influenced the ecological movement, among others. For me, that image is also symbolic of the question of how I approach this subject. Reaching out into the cosmos prompts a look back at ourselves – at our understanding of ourselves and of the world. Whatever we’ll discover in the universe, it will have an effect on us and it will have to be interpreted and understood. So if we go looking for life out there, it inevitably has an influence on the issues we concern ourselves with here on Earth. My role as theologian isn’t just to examine how life is connected to God, but first of all to simply help clarify what exactly it is that we’re doing when we go in search of life. For instance, is “life” even a scientific term.

And, is it?

Wüthrich: I would say no. The natural sciences can describe the phenomena of life, they can compile lists of characteristics and biosignatures of life. And they can catalog and outline the functional parts of life. But as soon as we reach for a fundamental definition and say “life is…” we leave the level of scientific methodology and shift to a philosophical level. Exploring this matter is an important function of theology and ethics.

So which questions can’t be answered by the natural sciences, yet can by theology and ethics?

Losch: In order to act and decide what is good and what isn’t, we need values. Such value questions are not the subject of natural science. Theology and ethics, on the other hand, are disciplines that intensely concern themselves with these matters.

Matthias Wüthrich, you said exploring the cosmos has repercussions for us in terms of life and our understanding of ourselves on Earth. In what way would extraterrestrial life change our perspective of ourselves?

Wüthrich: It would constitute a further decentering of the human, a further “insult”, as Sigmund Freud termed it. After Copernicus, Earth and humans are no longer the center of the universe, after Darwin, humans are descended from apes, and after Freud, the human is no longer “master in its own house” because we are defined by deeper levels of our subconscious. Today – as a next step – many think we are being superseded by machines with AI. If we were to discover intelligent extraterrestrial life at some point, it would constitute a further relativization of the anthropocentric world view that has shaped Western history.

Losch: In a lecture, I once tried to radically spell out the question of what the existence of extraterrestrial life would mean for theology – for creation theology, revelation theology and redemption theology.

And what was the result?

Losch: Let’s take creation theology, for instance. It offers the easiest line of reasoning. If we assume the existence of extraterrestrial life, then somewhere in the universe there must be a second creation, a second beginning of life. “The more the merrier” you could say to this – it is good and an honor to God that there is more life beyond the planet Earth. As early as the 18th century, people were happy to engage with the idea that there is life beyond Earth. Back then, those life forms weren’t “aliens” as we would say today, instead people talked about the “inhabitants of foreign worlds”.

In the past, people also assumed that God lives in heaven, up in the sky. Today, however, we are gazing up into a godless universe. When did the scientific observation of the cosmos lose sight of God?

Wüthrich: It was a gradual process. Newton’s mechanical world view is often referred to as a turning point. But for Newton himself, religion and science still formed a unit. He still assumed a divine providence that holds together the entire cosmic expanse. But in the reception of Newton, this image of the world grew increasingly mechanistic and, you could say, God gradually disappeared. This development can’t be fixed to a particular point in time.

So the sky was gradually deprived of its mystique?

Losch: Expressed differently, you could perhaps say that God’s presence was initially seen as all-pervasive. And because of this, it was no great loss to imagine the cosmos without God. If you leave God out, the laws of nature function just the same – even without the lawmaker, so to speak.

Wüthrich: For theology, however, the consequences of this development were quite significant. Both the Catholic and Protestant tradition were based on the idea that God resides in heaven, as do the blessed, the angels and Christ, who following his Ascension is at the right hand of God. When this concept falls away, you ask yourself: where is God now? The critical theologian David Friedrich Strauss (1808–1874) bemusedly commented: “God became homeless.” One of theology’s tasks in the modern era has been to compensate for this loss.

In your habilitation you occupied yourself with a theology of space. Can it offer a solution for God’s homelessness?

Wüthrich: I certainly think that theology should think of space in a new way, by which I mean a more relational way. We need to distinguish between a container model and a relational model of space. In the past, God was placed in a container-like, luminous, immovable, transcendental location beyond the outermost sphere of the fixed stars. When we think of space in relational terms it also enables us to reconfigure the religious heaven. Heaven is then where God is, as opposed to God being where heaven is. The religious heaven potentially becomes more “earthly”. In fact, scientific research itself made the case that we’re already in heaven while on Earth. We are a minuscule part of this universe.

Astrophysicists, among others, are exploring this universe at the UZH Space Hub. They’re conducting research on topics such as dark matter or the big bang. Are there any points of commonality with theology where you can mutually benefit from one another?

Wüthrich: The sky has always prompted notions of transcendence and still does so today, as surveys carried out with young people have shown. One of theology’s contributions to the Space Hub could for instance be to help elucidate the historic premises for such notions and for the models and metaphors in astronomy. Andreas, didn’t you once mention that the theological concept of creatio ex nihilo, creation out of nothing, was a template for the big bang theory?

Losch: I’ve always wondered whether theology can teach the natural sciences something. Then I found a historic example for it, the big bang theory. It was developed by the Belgian priest and an astrophysicist George Lemaître (1894–1966). He formulated the idea that the universe could have had a beginning. Up until that point, Aristotle’s teachings on the eternity of the world had led to the assumption that the world and the universe had always existed and would always exist. With his big bang theory, inspired by the biblical creation story, Lemaître formulated a scientific theory for the origins of the universe that is still accepted today.

Wüthrich: It’s worth adding that the creatio ex nihilo isn’t in fact a biblical doctrine, but a later reformulation of an ancient Hebrew concept of creation that presumed the existence of something like matter and so in that sense didn’t represent a creation out of nothing. But the example illustrates how intellectual history has frequently produced ideas which then gradually flow into scientific concepts and public discourse. This also applies to the theologically informed term of the integrity of creation, which has become established even in the secular context.

Losch: For scientists, it could be interesting to reflect on their preconceptions anew in the light of existing humanistic concepts. As the big bang example indicates, this could contribute to scientific breakthroughs.

You’ve said that the natural sciences can’t produce any meaning. Their findings have to be placed within a greater context and interpreted. What can you as theologians offer here?

Wüthrich: It is part of our remit to link scientific findings with the essential questions that concern us. Theology always does this also against the background of biblically informed narratives and their wide impact history. We explore this history and continue to write it.

Can you elaborate on this?

Wüthrich: There are religious narratives that have been handed down. Religion relies on people inhabiting these stories that provide meaning and purpose, it relies on people mapping their own life within them and interpreting life within the horizon of these stories. Theology tries to understand these narratives, to interpret them and make them fertile for the present age, but also to criticize them. Within these narratives there are potentials for meaning that can be applied to scientific findings. The modern field of discourse where such applications are scientifically reflected on is called "Science and Religion".

Andreas Losch, your work is focused on planetary sustainability. In this context you advocate for an eighteenth UN sustainability goal for outer space. Could you explain what the aim is here?

Losch: The term “sustainable” has its origins in the World Council of Churches. It was then adopted in the report Our Common Future published by the World Commission on Environment and Development in 1987. Since then, it has been a permanent feature of public discussion. I was of the opinion that sustainability should also be a concern in outer space. When I then looked at the UN sustainability goals, I wondered: where in this is the universe? We have the planetary limits of which we say they mustn’t be exceeded. Perhaps we should also define such limits for the universe.

What sustainability issues do you see emerging in outer space?

Losch: There are the satellites that are orbiting Earth in ever greater numbers. What happens to the moon if we carry out space mining there? Also, how do the human activities in outer space affect our night sky? If we keep launching more and more satellites into Earth’s orbit, we also need to think about how we dispose of them later. For many years, it was thought that the problem with the decommissioned satellites would resolve itself because they slowly glide down to Earth and burn up. But when this happens, they don’t simply vanish, of course, they leave behind particles in the sensitive layers of the atmosphere. How this affects and changes the atmosphere hasn’t been explored yet.

Is sustainability even a subject for space enthusiasts?

Losch: Absolutely, but it’s certainly not at the top of their list of priorities. In 2018 I was invited to the United Nations conference on outer space, as hardly anyone was working on this subject back then. Today I see it as my task to incorporate this aspect into projects and conventions, including the UZH Space Hub.

Is it conceivable that the UN formulates an 18th sustainability goal?

Losch: It has been suggested to the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space multiple times. The question is what will happen with the sustainability goals in 2030. Will they be reformulated or will there be a successor model. The sustainability goals are themselves a successor to the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals. I think outer space will certainly feature, but it’s not clear whether a specific goal will be defined for it.