I’ve mentioned Thomas O’Meara before on this blog. O’Meara is a Catholic theologian who has taken an interest in the theological implications of a genuine extraterrestrial reality. I don’t agree with certain of his positions (or perhaps it might be best to call them trajectories), but it’s nice to see someone contributing to the discussion.
O’Meara’s thoughts in seed form recently appeared on the Huffington Post. Readers can begin there and then obtain his newly-released short book (96 pp) published by Liturgical Press: Vast Universe: Extraterrestrials and Christian Revelation
Mike,
I’m reading it… So far, he uses the same material from that 1999 article you are familiar with in Vast Universe. I find his discussion of Colossians 1:15ff “Creation here means not stars but life in Christs body, the church.” (Vast Universe, Kindle Location 899) and “Far from pursuing cosmology, the subsequent verses introduce the church.” (Kindle Locations 906-907) to be pretty dubious. It seems to me that’s exactly what the passage does! It reads “all things were crested” (Aorist Passive) and yet he argues this is not speaking about the past creation rather the church?!? It seems like O’Meara does exegetical gymnastics (…well more like quoting fanciful Catholic exegesis) in order to render this earthbound or eschatological in the church.
Exegetical gymnastics is spot on (one could say it’s devoid of exegesis as well). Reading this sort of stuff is maddening if you care about getting theology from the text. It’s 90+ pages of baptized speculation. I’m almost through it. Not sure it’s even worth a review.