How should a Christian view the idea of Mars colonization?

Man attempts to accomplish many ambitious projects, such as he has in mind now, of sending manned space flights to Mars. But he has not been able to establish a civilization even on the moon. How will he do so on Mars?

Though men are often determined to get away from the presence of God, this is a hopeless pursuit. An airplane may take them off the surface of the earth for a brief time, and some have reached the moon, only briefly too. Now they want to get to Mars! But they forget that God made Mars too, and this would be only a very short trip into the nearby heavens, but God is there also to limit their aspirations as He sees fit (v. 8).

What’s the way out? Subterranean cities? Colonies in space? Interstellar travel? A space station as a kind of intergalactic ark? Enormous sums are spent on space programmes and great feats have been made – but no real solution is in sight (neither a habitable planet nor a way of getting there).

Men were united in their desires, and in their endeavours, but it was not to seek the glory of God or to give Him pleasure; He was not in all their thoughts. Their own security, advancement and pride of achievement completely filled their minds and hearts, from which God was excluded. Men have learned much since that day. They know that they can never reach to heaven with a tower of bricks, but they are still occupied with securing peace without God, in advancing their own interests, and priding themselves on their achievements. Instead of seeking to reach heaven with bricks, they are using great rockets to escape from the influence of the earth and to search the vault of heaven. Are they not inviting, as did the builders of Babel, the judgment of God on their works and on themselves?

Sustainability is still important. There is no reason to spoil God’s creation, to waste scarce resources or to damage the environment through pollution.

The actual dominion was a consequence; but it was one, "and let him have dominion." Innocent Adam would ascribe all to God; fallen - ransack and overwhelm the world, to subdue it and be a centre, with the desire of empire, the Babylon of his creation.

Man's Sovereignty Over the Earth.

I have translated "hold in subjection." (v. 26.) The word (radah) is literally "tread down," and connects plainly in thought with the subduing" of the earth in the twenty-eighth verse. There is, in fact, a certain plasticity of nature in man's hand which marks, in a peculiar way, his sovereignty. The fruits of the earth, under his cultivation, mellow and throw off even poisonous qualities, developing in a multitude of varieties, from which he chooses, retaining or rejecting according to his will. The domestic animals, as the dog, similarly develop, in a single species, what might well seem generic differences. Ignorance of the meaning of this fact has favored the modern theories of evolution. But if man does not hold nature in subjection, it soon re-asserts its independence, and the forms thus produced are merged into the uniformity of the wild condition.}

Then comes the proclamation of the rule assigned them by God. Not only were they, like others, to multiply and fill the earth, they were to subdue, or bring it into subjection. Next He adds as before, "and have dominion over fish of the sea and over bird of the heavens, and over every living thing that creeps on the earth." Thus from the outset was man, even when enumerated as a being fresh from God, set apart essentially. None other was to subdue the earth. He alone had the God-given capacity. He alone was called to have dominion. Development in the Darwinian sense is not only an illusion, but at plain issue with the word of God. A striking and practical proof of the reality of this dominion as far as every beast and every bird was given to Adam (Gen. 2:19) when Jehovah Elohim brought them to see what their lord would call them; and whatever he called each living soul (or, creature), that was its name: a fact full of interest otherwise on which some remark will fall in its season. He was owned by God in that place of authority which entitled him to give each subject creature its name.

The first point to which I would solicit attention is this, that while God, the everlasting King, unquestionably reigns uncontrolled over all the works of His hands, visible and invisible, overruling by His power even the rage and rebellion of His enemies, it has pleased Him, at various periods for the display of His glory as King, to delegate His authority over a certain sphere, putting those entrusted with it under responsibility to Himself to exercise their delegated power and rule according to His will. Adam, for instance, was made ruler over all the lower parts of creation, as we read (Gen. 1:26), "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth." The fulfilment of this we see in verse 28. The whole passage is referred to in Ps. 8:4-8, which is again quoted by the apostle in Heb. 2:6-9 as a prediction of the future dominion of Christ, the Son of man, the second Adam, the Lord from heaven.

Next, the Apostle shows that the order of God in Creation has never been revoked. God's purpose is that man as 'the image ... of God' will act representatively for Him in the administration of His affairs on the earth. The man to do so we now know is Christ (Eph. 1:10), but the principle laid down in Genesis 1 and 2 still applies, although in Him it will extend to the whole universe. Read Psalm 8 and see it in the light of Hebrews 2:5-9. Man as the 'glory of God' is to show a moral correspondence with Him (Gen. 1:26).