In a lecture in October of 2015, Dr. Carolyn Porco, Imaging Team Leader for the Cassini Mission to Saturn, said, regarding the chance of life on Enceladus:

Should we ever make such a discovery, if we ever, anywhere, find that there has been a second, independent genesis in our Solar System, then I think that at that point the spell is broken. The existence theorem has been proven. And we could safely infer from that, that life is commonplace; that it is not a bug but a feature of the universe in which we live and that it has occurred a staggering number of times throughout the 13.7 billion years of the history of the cosmos. And I think that that might be the kind of discovery that could change a great many things.

Maybe I'm just curmudgeonly contrarian, but the discovery of extraterrestrial life would not impress me.

Keep in mind that I'm talking about bacteria in the seas of Enceladus; or even little fishes. Leave aside, for the moment, those greymen in their saucers.

It is wrong to say that life on Enceladus would necessarily be independent of life on Earth. Despite the self-assurance of our scientists, no one knows how life arose. Clearly this Solar System began with the ingredients for life. Earth and Enceladus, however they formed, formed from the same stuff. Strictly speaking, Enceladus is but a distant continent; and especially if its life uses familiar DNA, Occam's razor — that fave principle! — would suggest that life on both worlds had a single genesis.

If, on the other hand, Enceladan life uses an unfamiliar DNA, with unprecedented nucleobases or a triple helix or the like, then one could speak more soundly of an independent genesis. Still, it is a leap to say that one System disposed to life — even multiple threads of life — implies life has occurred a "staggering" number of times elsewhere.

To be sure, on what grounds do I set a special boundary on our System? If I am unwilling to grant a fundamental separation of Earth and Enceladus, what right have I to separate this System from the Milky Way? Clearly, by my standards, this Galaxy began with the ingredients for life. Yes? Indeed this Universe began with the ingredients for life!

Life here implies life everywhere.

But that conclusion doesn't sit right with anyone. Why do you suppose we keep looking for proof of life far from Earth?

Just as we know that the abundance of life on Earth does not imply an abundance in the Universe, another instance of life in our System would not imply another instance anywhere else in the Universe.

Life on Enceladus would, at most, make life not unique to Earth. But why does that matter? Why does that prospect excite Dr. Porco?

It excites her because she thinks we — not she; but you and I — are under a spell.

We think Earth is special. That we are special.

To Porco, this is a delusion. A spell that must be broken. To her, there is — or rather, must be — nothing special about our world. More to the point, nothing special about us. Thinking ourselves special smacks of... ugh... religion... and other icky, unscientific things. Porco is literally a disciple of none other than Carl Sagan; and if anything thrilled Carl Sagan, it was smothering the significance of mankind under billions and billions of stars.

Sagan's deepest hope was that the greymen are indeed out there. I suspect Porco's deepest hope is the same. I'm not saying she's a UFO enthusiast. I'm saying she's a Darwinian. To a Darwinian a man is just an especially complicated bacterium. If we find extraterrestrial bacteria, we will surely find extraterrestrial men; for between the two is a Darwinian straight line.

And that is the true goal. When E.T. is found, religion will be humiliated. Science will win, once and for all.

You may think I am (unfairly) imputing a lot to Dr. Porco. But she is a type. When I hear about spells being broken, I know the type is present. She has also said:

All the atoms of our bodies will be blown into space in the disintegration of the solar system, to live on forever as mass or energy. That's what we should be teaching our children, not fairy tales about angels and seeing Grandma in Heaven.

That's Dr. Porco for you: a conventional secular nihilist; and a woman you should never employ as a babysitter.

But I didn't come here to bury Dr. Porco. My point is only that the discovery of extraterrestrial life will break no spell. Life, in some ways, is trivial. Whether it exists under the ice of Enceladus or in the fumes of the Marianas Trench, it's just life. You can certainly marvel at its variety and dispersion. I'd never deny the wonder of it all. Indeed, be excited by the vitality of Creation! But life is already commonplace. And whenever was it dogma that only Earth possessed any life? It has in fact been a naive presumption, among God-fearing and godless alike, that where there is ground to walk on, there will be creatures. And even if turns out that terrestrial life does not encompass all life, that would not mean mankind is not a special case. God would still favor us.

I am not under a spell. I am not misled. There is nothing in the Creed or the Magisterium that says, "There can be no life on Enceladus." Should fishes be revealed in the environs of Saturn, my worldview will not shift.

Ah. But what if the greymen were revealed? Well, that is a category difference. The discovery of greymen would impress me. The hype would be justified.

You see, I am not a Darwinian. I know it is not possible for rational minds to arise from material processes. I would surely be jarred by the existence of fully rational aliens.

Would Sagan and Porco therefore have their victory? Would my spell be broken? Hardly. The Faith does not preclude non-human rational beings — think of angels, after all. What would jar me, what would give me pause, would be the novel mystery:

Where do aliens fit in the economy of salvation?

Aliens, being rational, would by definition be made in the image of God. They would presumably be free-willed. They would likely be sinners. So did our Christ die for them, too? Or are there two Christs in Heaven? The human Christ — fully divine; fully human — and the alien Christ — fully divine; fully alien?

Well, mysterious as that situation might be, it is perhaps no more mysterious than the Trinity or the one Incarnation we know about. And in any event, pace Dr. Porco, I would remain just as stupidly deluded about the existence of God and the significance of mankind.

We religious folk are obstinate, sometimes. Metaphysical truths can steel a person, that way.

P.S. At the risk of being one of those authors who tactlessly plugs his books at the end of every article, blog post, and tweet, I will mention that my excellent novel The Giant's Walk wonders about the salvation of rational non-humans...