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The 2024 Institute on Religion in an Age of Science Summer Conference at Star Island featured the future of the human race on Earth as we travel to off-Earth locations and make contact with extraterrestrial neighbors. Scholars Lucas Mix, Shoaib Ahmed Malik, and Andrew Davis provide Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science with articles that engage the space sciences with philosophical, theological, and ethical analysis along with constructive proposals.

Carl Sagan frames humanity’s future in space as a secular narrative of salvation. He aligns technical advancement with ethical growth. He presents an evolutionary epic, with humans growing up and going up to the stars, identifying space travel with species adulthood. His works Cosmos, Broca’s Brain, and Pale Blue Dot develop this theme to promote space travel and foster hope for the future. The biological terms, however, reflect outdated science, particularly theories of progressive evolution, deemed both unproductive and ethically problematic by biologists. The narrative owes more to a mythology of progress than to biology as science. Viewing it through the lens of religion helps reveal its contours and effects, allowing both proponents and opponents to understand it better. In that light, alternative metaphors, such as space travel as pilgrimage, may better serve Sagan’s aspiration of scientifically motivated beliefs.

This article explores Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s (d. 1210) theological insights on the metaphysical hierarchy of creation to address the question: Can there be extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI) superior to human intelligence? By revisiting a long-standing debate in the Islamic tradition concerning the superiority (afḍaliyyah) of angels versus humans, this article positions al-Rāzī as a pivotal case who diverges from the majority Ashʿarī stance by advocating for angelic superiority. Through a detailed analysis of al-Rāzī’s deconstruction of pro-human superiority arguments and his construction of arguments favoring angels, the article demonstrates how his framework challenges anthropocentric assumptions and broadens theological possibilities. If al-Rāzī’s arguments are deemed successful, his scripturally and rationally grounded framework provides a foundation for envisioning ETI that may surpass humanity in spiritual or intellectual rank. This article contributes uniquely by unveiling al-Rāzī’s underexplored ideas on angelic superiority and integrating them into the context of Islam and ETI, thereby advancing modern discourse on Islamic theological anthropology.

This discussion is an exercise in extraterrestrial metaphysics in both theory and practice. In theory, it stresses the nature of the metaphysical endeavor as consisting in the transplanetary exploration of those abiding and indefatigable features of reality that necessarily obtain in any and all possible worlds. In practice, it is a particular expression of extraterrestrial metaphysics on planet Earth. In dialogue with Alfred North Whitehead, Teilhard de Chardin, Charles Hartshorne, and a variety of others, I elaborate process metaphysics as a fruitful, albeit neglected, species of extraterrestrial metaphysics grounded first and foremost in human experience as an anthropocosmic fact of nature. I argue that Life, Mind, and Value are among the ultimate principles and/or categories belonging to the universe and that these principles always find embodiment within a fluid anthropocosmic ontology conceived as living, mind-full, and value-full. I also articulate some of the relevant contours of a process cosmotheology as it relates to process extraterrestrial metaphysics, including some of the metaphysical riddles it addresses and the extraterrestrial plentitude it justifies via divine benevolence. I conclude by extending an invitation to all terrestrial metaphysicians to become more deliberately extraterrestrial in both theory and practice.