THE SOCIETY OF CATHOLIC SOCIAL SCIENTISTS
Friday and Saturday, October 26-27, 2007
The St. John’s University School of Law
Marie George
migphilosophy@hotmail.com
Abstracts
C.S. Lewis on Extraterrestrials
C.S. Lewis’s fictional account of an Eve on another planet who does not succumb to temptation is familiar to most who have any acquaintance with Lewis. Less well know is a serious essay he wrote on how the discovery of life on other planets would affect Christianity. My intention here is to examine a possibility that Lewis entertains, namely, that “man is the only lost sheep” among intelligent races. I argue that unfallen races of material rational beings are unlikely for five reasons: 1) Some of the angels fell, and so a fortiori more inherently fallible beings will fail; 2) Given the unstable nature of material beings, some member of a material rational race is bound to sin. 3) Evil highlights what is good, and so it seems unlikely God would create a race all of whose members would avoid evil. 4) Unfallen ETIs would have at best a tenuous relationship with Christ, to whom all of creation is ordered. 5) It seems unlikely that various ETI races can come into contact amongst themselves, and this implies a universe lacking in order.
Aquinas on Trust and our Social Nature
We tend to think of trust as something optional, and not as something that falls in the category of moral obligation. When one considers that even good people often do not come through on occasion, and that we cannot even be entirely sure of our own reliability, it makes sense to regard trusting someone as simply a matter of preference. Aquinas, however, points out that our social nature demands that we work together, and this requires that we trust one another. Similarly, if we are to live together, we must avoid harming each other, and mistrust is a form of injury. The fulfillment of our nature as social being is thus at the root of a moral obligation to trust others. The obligation to trust, however, does not dispense us from exercising caution, lest ill-placed trust lead to harm of others or of serious harm to ourselves.