“Thus saith the LORD; if heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the LORD” (Jeremiah 31:37).

There are some things God has reserved for Himself, at least in this present age. One of these is the domain of the stars. Cosmogonic speculations and wistful searches for extraterrestrial life are basically nothing but expressions of man’s rebellion against his Creator, seeking to explain the origin and meaning of the universe without God.

God placed man in dominion over this earth (Genesis 1:26–29), telling him to “subdue it,” so science and technology are well within the divine mandate when applied to systems on the earth, or related to it, including even the use of stars for chronology and navigation (Genesis 1:14–19). But we have no jurisdiction over the heavens. “The heaven, even the heavens, are the LORD’S: but the earth hath He given to the children of men” (Psalm 115:16). “When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; What is man, that thou art mindful of him?” (Psalm 8:3,4). “God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that He is Lord of heaven and earth, . . . hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation” (Acts 17:24,26).

The study of astronomy is appropriate, of course, if dedicated to revealing the majesty of God’s creative handiwork, for: “The heavens declare the glory of God” (Psalm 19:1). But any hope of travel to distant stars, or of finding extraterrestrial life, or of devising a naturalistic evolutionary cosmogony, is blasphemously arrogant, as well as utterly foolish. HMM