Omnis Creatura Ingemescit

"All creation is groaning." This is going to involve a discussion of the intersection of Christian theology, anthropology, and soteriology, as they relate to science fiction; if that ain't your cup of tea I advise you not to stick around.

I'm re-reading Lewis's space-trilogy; I got a lot more out of it this time. It's very good—the part of the first one that's actually on Mars is some of the coolest worldbuilding ever—but I have some complaints. Minor one, first—one wonders why he insisted on the silly Aristotelian conflation of Heaven "divine abode" with Heaven "physical upper regions". I've also gone into how a little thing called "the Church" is totally absent.

Second, Perelandra: Oh, Lewis, you silly, silly Protestant. Adam and Eve were already replaced; Tor and Tinidril (I see you had Tolkien do your conlangs for you) are a needless redundancy. And given the New Eve has, among her titles, "Lady Who Crushes the Snake's Head" (Cihuapiltzin Coatlaxopeuh), I doubt very much she'd need some British philologist to protect her from the Un-man. Let us ask the Turks at Lepanto how much fun it is to fight her—and they had cannons and muskets, not just sharpened fingernails. (Also, Lewis, seriously, Ransom doesn't even try exorcising Weston?)

Third and most important, what is the deal with the whole "due to the Incarnation, all intelligent beings will look like Homo sapiens" nonsense? Hrossa and Sorns and Pfiffltriggi are men, Lewis, how come you copy Aristotle's lamebrained cosmology but not his thoroughly penetrating anthropology? "Genus, animal; difference, rational" is the definition of man, remember?

Personally, in regard to the whole question of aliens and salvation, I consider it highly doubtful that Earth is the only fallen world. Mostly because I doubt that the First Man who fell was from Earth, if Earth is not the only inhabited world. While there is a definite backward limit to how early animal life could arise, it happens to be "10 billion years" (going by the age of the oldest heavy-element rich stars), or (assuming Earth is normal in only having multicellular life show up after 2.5-3.8 billion years), 7.5-6.2 billion.

The Fall of the First Man is not passed on in the blood; it is not genetic, except in the sense that "being a person" is genetic (that is, genes do determine what species one is born into, and some species are made up of people). Original Sin is inherited not like a genetic disorder, but like a title—it is a part of the title "sapient animal", and taken on by any animal that succeeds to that title. (This, by the bye, is also why even an omnipotent God had to be incarnated to save men; omnipotence is only capable of actualizing latent potentials—which is why God can't make a square circle—and potentials are determined by natures. Until God was incarnated, took on our marred nature and then fixed it by his death and Resurrection, human potential was marred and flawed, and all omnipotence could do would be make them perfectly flawed.)

That the first possessor of the nature "Sapient Animal" (=man) fell and marred that nature for any who would take it on, also answers the question of whether Christ would have to be incarnated multiple times for multiple species. See, reincarnation follows from a species of Presocratic atomism; it's bad metaphysics. And to posit that it would only happen for Christ is, similarly, inelegant. But to posit that all men fell by the first of their kind, and were saved by God becoming one of them—being born as one, since conception and birth are the method by which one gets the nature of man—is far more elegant.

PS. It is fascinating, to me, to see people make the anti-Christian charge that "the Church" teaches that Eve seduced Adam into sin. Sure, if by "the Church" you mean "John Milton". Chesterton notes his disgust at Milton's portrayal of Adam (Milton has him basically join Eve out of compassion, rather than from the exact same sinful motives as her), and points out that if you actually read Genesis the second Adam gets caught with the fruit, he immediately tries to pass the buck—he's just as guilty as Eve, the question of which one did it first being about as relevant as in a fight between children. Milton, not really following the "plain sense of Scripture", are we, boy? (Also, the typical description of Original Sin among civilized Christians is, as Lewis himself calls it in Pilgrim's Regress, "Adam's Sin", "pecca Adae".)