Extra-Terrestrials and the Heavens in Nineteenth-Century Theology

The discoveries of late eighteenth-century astronomy bequeathed certain theological problems to nineteenth-century theologians, especially in Scotland where the Kirk’s ministers were exposed in their arts training to natural science. If other planets—as seemed likely—were inhabited, then were their populations also fallen and, if so, redeemed by Christ’s atonement on earth? Or were other divine arrangements necessary? Astronomical and soteriological questions were closely intertwined throughout the century. Scots physicists were also at the cutting edge of the new science of energy, which had implications for Christian metaphysics, including the doctrine of the afterlife. In general, however, the findings of physics and astronomy were accommodated within the existing parameters of theology. The interconnection of theology and astronomy would survive as a trope of twentieth-century Scottish literature.