There Are No Space Alien!: Twelve Biblical Points Disproving Space Aliens, by David J. Gonzalez

[Note: This book was provided free of charge by the author in exchange for an honest book review.]

There is always an element of risk in reading a self-published book about the subject of aliens. To its credit, the book does at least attempt to address the fascination with aliens in public culture (although some of the references could have been updated in the book itself to make it more relevant). In many ways, the wide interest in aliens is due to an absence of faith, and a feeling that we cannot be all alone in a universe so massive. Likewise, although we would have no reason to expect aliens to be similar enough for us to relate to or intermarry, our science fiction tends to portray aliens as very close to human, even to the point of being part of the same species, suggesting some sort of common designer without entirely recognizing. Although this book does not mention it, some elite scientists [1] have proposed the theory of directed panspermia as a way to circumvent the unfriendly odds of undirected evolution on earth, positing that the earth was seeded by extraterrestrial life that had evolved in friendlier circumstances. Here again we see the connection between our longings and our faith, whatever that consists in.

Despite the fact that this book deals with a very worthy subject, it was not a very enjoyable book to read. In reading this book, I was struck by its extremely dogmatic tone, in viewing that his interpretation is the only one that is valid, by virtue of his own assumptions and often unexamined premises. As a book whose hermeneutics are wrong and which is a tragic example of a Greek mind totally mishandling the Hebrew scriptures and painting himself as far more knowledgeable than he is about such matters as prophecy and angelology, it is hard to appreciate this book even if it does correctly understand the roots of Hebrew words while totally neglecting the rich and multifacted and poetic aspects of the Hebrew language.

As might be expected, some of the arguments in this book are better than others. Some of the arguments are laughably weak, such as saying that Satan could not travel to other worlds because the statement that he fell “like lightning” meant that his speed was limited to light or sublight speeds, and therefore he would be unable to travel to other planets. Likewise, the book also equivocates on the meaning of cosmos, talking about the inhabited world as well as the universe (of course, it has both meanings, depending on the context, and other meanings besides those). Other arguments about the relationship between the imaginary Trinity and the supposed tripartite division of mankind similarly fail to hold water. Worse, at times this book, like others [2], reads more like a fluff piece of marketing than it does a serious biblical work, and confuses the absence of evidence in the Bible for aliens as positive evidence of absence.

This is emblematic of larger failings. The author appears to be rather unused to writing for and to audiences that may not share his presuppositions and premises, which makes his book largely of appeal to those with the same specific views of biblical interpretation, and especially fellow members of the Young Earth Creationist camp (the book tends to point to a false dilemma between so-called evolutionary creationists and young earth creationists, one of the many false dilemmas that can be found in this work). Those who share the assumptions of the author are likely to be pleased by this book and by its combative and dogmatic tone, while those who share nothing with the perspective of the author are likely to use the weaker arguments of the book as a way to discredit the argument of the book as a whole. Those of us in the middle will find some material to appreciate even while we remain critical of the tone, the approach, and the rigid interpretation at the basis of the supposed ‘proofs,’ or the temptation to want to copy-edit the book every time it fails to capitalize the name of haSatan.

[1] http://www.panspermia-theory.com/directed-panspermia/

[2] https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2013/10/12/book-review-christians-remember-your-past-lives-learn-how/