So science can be a great help in our attempts to avoid falling into error. It was cruel and demented for the Roman Catholic Church to burn Giordano Bruno in 1600, for espousing Copernicus’s hypothesis amongst other things. The Church thought that the earth was the centre of the Universe, and the Church was the centre of the earth. Unfortunately when Galileo with his telescope discovered that Jupiter had four moons, it became perfectly obvious that Copernicus was right. The earth was not the centre of the Universe, but a tiny planet that circled round a medium sized star. Similarly in our day, we should not think our galaxy the Milky Way is the biggest, because our nearest neighbour the Andromeda galaxy is considerably bigger. We should accept that there are probably two billion stars in our galaxy, and two billion galaxies each with comparable numbers of stars; and although planetary systems are rare, that there are hundreds, thousands, or even millions of them in the Universe. Similarly it may be rare for a planetary system to have a planet that supports life, but it is surely unwise to assume that our earth is the only planet in the Universe that supports life? It is like assuming that the earth was the centre of the Universe in 1600. It may be that at present we do not know, and that any messages would take a long time to travel between two life-supporting planets, because they would only travel with the velocity of light. But it would be rash to say we will never know if there is another planet that supports life. Nowadays we accept experience; we do not dogmatise on what experience is possible, and what is not.
Suppose there is another planet somewhere that supports life, I cannot believe there is any hard and fast line between complicated chemicals like viruses, some of which can be crystallized, and the simplest living bacteria or cell. Nor can I see any hard and fast line between the most advanced primate and the most primitive example of homo-sapiens; I can see a huge difference in degree; but animals communicate, have emotions, sacrifice themselves and so on. So if there is another planet that supports life, my guess is that it did, or does, or will support intelligent life. Will that intelligent life not need their own Jesus, to lead them out of the cave of shadows? Will they be tempted to think of him as “The Only Begotten Son of God”? Would there then be two of them? And suppose there are many planets that support life? What then? Where does that leave the Doctrine of the Trinity?
But Jesus knew nothing of science, still less of Evolution; and if you had told the Historical Jesus that he had fulfilled Evolution, he would not have had the faintest idea of what you were talking about. That means that, if it is true that he fulfilled Evolution, you may find little or nothing in the Gospels that accurately describes that part of his achievement, or at least not describe it in a way that is readily intelligible to us today. Yet to us, who live in a world dominated by science & technology, it may be the most significant part of his achievement, other than just being himself. On the other hand, if Jesus played no part in the Evolution of the world, then his life may have no relevance to us today. It is not possible to separate one’s life into the subjective and the objective: the world within of belief, of affection, of religion as opposed to the world without of work, of science, of politics. They interrelate, even in modern science. So we could celebrate his life as a most wonderful memory, and as an example of what you can do if you have enough courage. You can create a new religion, that lasts for 2000 years, and does much good and also much harm. But one would then have to admit that the time had come to move on. Similarly if Jesus simply took us into the next stage of Evolution, then we would have to admit that Evolution did not stop with him. We would continue to revere him as a prophet, as Mohammed did, but agree with Mohammed that further revelation was necessary for mankind to progress to a different type of world from Palestine 2000 years ago. In both cases, Jesus would be left behind. Only if you say he Fulfilled evolution, can you say he is a continuing inspiration to us. Alternatively, you can split your mind into compartments, with science never entering the religious compartment, and religion never entering the scientific compartment. This was Max Plank’s attitude; but it is not a happy state of affairs.