Welcome to the Tomistic Institute podcast.

Our mission is to promote the Catholic intellectual tradition in the university, the church, and the wider public square.

The lectures on this podcast are organized by university students at Temistic Institute chapters around the world.

To learn more and to attend these events,

visit us at to mystic institute.org.

So at the moment, the question of extraterrestrial life,

let alone intelligent extraterrestrial life,

is a merely hypothetical question for Catholic theologians.

To the scientific community, however, there

are vast and diverse resources being used in this newly christened field of astrobiology,

which is an interdisciplinary approach to life in the universe. As I talked about in our earlier

remarks, astrobiology is an inherently interdisciplinary field. Oh, should I talked about in our earlier remarks. Astrobiology is an inherently

interdisciplinary field. Oh, should I have this on? Wait, no, I don't need this on because you've got that. Great.

So astrobiology incorporates scientists and findings from physics, chemistry, astronomy, geology, planetary science, microbiology, oceanic sciences,

and much more.

By expanding the questions beyond the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, astrobiology,

combines the questions of cosmology, the generation of the elements from the generation of the elements from stars,

planetary formation, with those about the conditions for the genesis of life from non-living

materials, the different possible kinds of life, the different means of detecting life on other

planets into a field rich, as a theologian, I think,

rich with significance for me and the kinds of work that a theologian does.

While there has still been no undisputed signs of non-Earth life to date, the possibility is

...