Rev. James V. Schall, S.J., The Catholic Thing - In the end, it will turn out that all civilizations are confronted with the same issue. Are they the cause of their own existence, or were they all included in the initial plan that brought anything into existence?... In other words, it does not really matter how many planetary civilizations can be supported in this universe. What matters is whether the rational beings found on those distant planets all have the same issue presented to them individually and corporately; namely, how do we each relate to the origin of being itself?