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Underground > Books, Criticism & Writing >

The Relationship between Science Fiction and God

  
 
matthew.
00:03 / 30.03.06
Inspired by this thread and post, I wondered about the history of the relationship between science fiction and the organized religions, specifically Christianity.

I don't really have an agenda with this thread. I'd thought I would just link to a lot of websites for you to read, and from there, who knows?

I don't really know if religion and sci-fi can... co-exist? be co-dependent? be combined? be separated? I don't know. I think any fiction that speculates on the possibility of something other than our own existence must postulate or pontificate on a higher power in the form of God.

Also, science fiction generally attracts writers who are interested in science. These science-y people often self-identify as atheists and agnostics because they believe God can neither be proved nor disproved. Often, there is the mindset that religion and science cannot be reconciled easily. Perhaps one of sci-fi's goals should be the effective (Father/Son) atonement of faith and science....

I guess a major question to be discussed (considering two of the following links) is whether or not a Christian-identifying author can write non-Christian science fiction. And I don't mean pro-Satanism or pro-Buddhism. I mean if someone identifies as Christian, can their work be considered Christian?

Are you ready for links? Here goes:
  
 
Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
05:31 / 30.03.06
Well, look at the Madeleine L'Engle books. Those are definitely science fiction, but full of faith. And I've found them to be completely comfortable to read in that they never seem to push the ideas on you or rub your face in it. They also seem to be able to draw a link between science and religion as compatible.

There's also a Canadian book called Shiva 3000 which has some bearing as a non-Christian theology involved in sci-fi. I haven't had a chance to read it yet, though.
 
 
Crestmere
10:24 / 30.03.06
Yes and no.

But I think the trouble is that its not a yes or no question and its a question complicated by the fact that you changed between science fiction and the broader umbrella of speculative fiction more then once when you posed your question. I'm not sure if that was some deliberate manipulation on your part or an accident but the use of that muddles the question and leaves us in a position where the only possible answer is to agree with you even though you phrased what could possibly be a willfully manipulate question.

First, lets get one part out of the way. In regards to what is in practice the often-disregarded ethical component of faith, and when I speak of that I am speaking more of the ethical monotheism of Christianity and Judaism but it could apply pretty much in the same manner to any other sort of religion. In terms of this, this component absolutely has a place in any kind of fiction (I suppose how well this is handled is a separate matter though) so I'm really not going to discuss this aspect of it in this thread.

In terms of the existence of "God," a broader term that I will use for any kind of higher power unless otherwise specified, it gets tricky.

If you are writing "hard" science fiction then God would have to conform to the rules of science. And as a being that by his very nature exists outside the rules of science, it gets tricky. It gets back to teh "could god create a rock so heavy even he could not lift it" question, you either get a god that lacks infinite creative ability or infinite power but either way he isn't an all-powerful god. And by needing to treat God in this way, you risk undermining his presence entirely as well as bringing up a thousand tricky theological issues.

And in light of this, the liberal Christian would probably not have that many problems with it. It would be the conservative Christian that believes in the infallability of scripture, generally without critical analysis, that would see problems.

But there are a lot of stories that could be told with a figure that is an allegory of God.

But if you are looking at Christian mythology (because thats really what I assume you are talking about) through the broader lens of speculative fiction then all bets are off. God could be there or he couldn't. And the actual role and makeup of God could vary drastically, especially in regards to newer non-Christian or post-Christian works in the genre (loath as I am to call something as diverse as speculative fiction a genre). Maybe its a male god, maybe its a female god, maybe there's more then one, maybe they have power that is limited in some way.

In all fairness though, in regards to your other question about how a lot of science fiction is written by athiests and agnostics. Well, honestly, its because there is a much higher proportion of athiests and agnostics among scientists then the general population, and a lot of scientists also write science fiction. And, even among the scientists that do adhere to a given faith, they would likely adhere to either a more progressive or a more unorthodox variant of that faith. And, its really the same for artists in general. And the reason for it is that these are professions that will generally put up with a lot more heterodoxy because the work that you put out tends to be more important then your personal life and personality. I mean, if you're an artist of any kind and your personal life is starting to affect your sales then you're doing something thats really out there.

And, again, I think this is because those professions have a kind of tradition of letting in mavericks and eccentrics. And at the same time being kind of marginalized professions that have been open to people with more questionable backgrounds historically.
 
 
nyarlathotep's shoe horn
18:03 / 30.03.06
the closest I've come to spirituality in the genre of SF is Dan Simmons' Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion.

it caught my attention more because of its literary allusions (which don't show up in SF very often, unless you coun't Asimov's Lymericks), however, the faith shows up.

atheism is a faith in the non-existence of god.
science is a faith in knowledge gleaned from the material.
SF is an exercise in answer to the question, "what if..."

I think the Fantasy genre is the branch of SF that tackles the notion of divinity and spirituality - not necessarily well, but nevertheless...

It strikes me that SF evolved as a branch of literature out of the sciences, moreso than out of other genres of literature. Scientists learning to write instead of Writers learning about science.

--Not Jack
 
 
Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
03:49 / 31.03.06
I'll be reading Shiva 3000 shortly - have it on hold for me at work - by a man named Jensen. James or Jan Lars Jensen. Either way, I'll read it and be able to make some commentary with regard to its religious (dare I say theometric?) implications.
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
17:28 / 31.03.06
What about the 'Left Behind' books? The Rapture is presented in near-SF terms, or would you argue that's more fantasy instead?
 
 
Nocturne
18:31 / 03.04.06
The 'Left Bhind' books?... It's been awhile, but one of the reasons I put the books down was the lack of science in their 'science fiction'. There wasn't enough to hold my interest. In all fairness, there wasn't enough plot to hold my interest, so I wasn't paying close attention. (Something's wrong when you can skip an entire chapter and still understand everything that's going on.)

SF is an exercise in answer to the question, "what if..."

Has anyone here read C.S.Lewis' Cosmic Trilogy? The books are more fantasy than sci-fi, but they are "what if" books about Christian theology.

English literature is completely saturated with references to Shakespeare and (through him or otherwise) scriptural references. Sci-fi has not escaped this; there are often Messianic figures who save the world, there is often some type of tyrant who could be considered the anti-Christ.

I mean if someone identifies as Christian, can their work be considered Christian?
By whom?

For example, suppose Jane is a Christian. Jane writes a book, which contains Christian elements but is not explicitly Christian.

Now imagine Barb. Barb is a more traditional Christian. From Barb's perspective, Jane is not a Christian (maybe Jane doesn't wear the right clothes, read a King James Bible, whatever). According to Barb, Jane's book may not be considered Christian at all. The book would have to have faith as one of the central themes for Barb to consider it "Christian".

But what about Sue, who is an athiest? She may see the underlying Christian aspects of the book as mere literary devices, such as the themes used by Shakespeare and everyone else. Or she may say that the book wasn't truly science fiction because she believes that science fiction and faith cannot be reconciled, and so to her the book is Christian.

I dunno.
 
 
grant
20:30 / 03.04.06
Actually, I think most robot stories from their earliest beginnings have been about theology in some way -- think of Frankenstein, one of the contenders for First Science Fiction Novel Ever.

The 60s were just *loaded* with religious themes and, what, "spirituality-fiction." Heinlein -- a hard science dude -- wrote Stranger in a Strange Land; there was the whole cult/mysticism/bloody Messiah business in Frank Herbert's Dune books; and the more interesting stuff in a few of Robert Silverberg's novels, like Downward to the Earth and The Feast of St. Dionysus (a novella about an astronaut who joins a monastery that may or may not be real).

Dan Simmons' Endymion books (the sequels to the Hyperion books) tread into theological territory, but are more like the Eppy Thatcher sequence of Matt Wagner's Grendel comics or the Golden Age sci-fi classic A Canticle for Leibowitz -- speculative fiction about the future of religion, specifically the future of the Catholic church. Sociological fiction.

I'm also really not sure why you'd make the assumption in the abstract: these scientific-y people are often atheists or agnostics. Given all those charming quotes from Einstein about God and dice. Scientists tend not be be fundamentalists or any sort of absolutist in matters of faith, but relativists can be believers, too.

Isn't 2001: A Space Odyssey about humanity meeting God?
 
 
Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
20:38 / 03.04.06
grant:
Isn't 2001: A Space Odyssey about humanity meeting God?

Originally, yeah, but didn't it turn out to be really advanced space aliens in the later books?

Shiva 3000 is pretty good so far. There's a casual fashion in which the gods are references, because a lot of them just seem to be walking around doing whatever, destroying whole cities with their giant wooden footsteps...almost makes me think of a future for the Vinamarama world...
 
 
matthew.
20:51 / 03.04.06
Perhaps I should have said that science-y people tend to be generally rationalists. Some famous rationalists include Darwin, Freud, Jimi Hendrix, Plato, Heinlein, Roddenberry, Leibniz, Plato and lots more. Rationalists tend to think that knowledge comes from experience, fact, research, etc, as opposed to faith, dogma, or belief.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
23:42 / 03.04.06
Let's also not forget PKD's post-1974 work, which was thoroughly mired in Christianity.
 
 
Crestmere
21:10 / 04.04.06
So are we considering Christian THEMES or just the existence of God and other religious figures?

Its two different debates then.
 
 
Axolotl
19:13 / 05.04.06
I think there's a large seam to be worked (though it may have been done) about the nature of God and it's relation to humanity using established theology. Stuff like is the Fall a uniquely human situation, would aliens suffer from Original Sin? If not what would that make them in relation to us, if not did God send a jesus analogy to die to save them from their sins? What other theological questions would arise from another intelligent species? I don't know if that just interests me, but there you go for what it's worth
It's all a bit "Twilight Zone"-y, but there's an old Arthur C. Clarke (iirc) story about a Jesuit biologist on an space ship exploring the galaxy when they come across the remains of an intelligent species which wiped out when their star went 'nova. The crew are all amazed at the beauty of this society's remains and their potential. The astrographer works out that the nova (and here's the twilight zone twist) would have been the star that led the wise men to Bethlehem, leaving the Jesuit questioning his faith.
 
 
Crestmere
14:45 / 10.04.06
Wouldn't the existance of alien life radically affect theology?

Or would it just be seen as a paralell creation?

Or would it actually be a substantial effort towards taking the specialness away from mankind?

Would we be looking at this in temrs fo expanding the Christian religion to include people that weren't originally from the region and revising it or would it need to be substantially revised as an alien from the planet Zorlax would write it off as being 'just some dead human who isn't relevent to my life?'



I'm still of the opinion that if we are talking "hard" science fiction that God would need to play by the rules. if we are talking about the slightly softer genre that most of sci fi is in right now, its okay to have some leeway.

Or, to play the devil's advocate here, this could be seen as another example of Christians wanting God to be legitimated by science but then not actually wanting to play by the rules of science.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
11:49 / 11.04.06
Wouldn't the existance of alien life radically affect theology?

Or would it just be seen as a paralell creation?

Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow deals with missionaries to an alien planet, and kind of brings this up.

See, I'm trying to think of examples, but I don't think religious (Christian, specifically) SF would need to fudge the science- if you can be a Christian physicist, I don't see why you can't be a Christian sf writer.
 
 
Axolotl
16:44 / 11.04.06
Well I was thinking more taking christian (probably catholic, as it tends to be more defined, or at least codified) and examining the ramifications caused by the introduction of another species, in the same way that a "hard" science fiction author might look at neutronium or cheap ftl travel and theorise about its ramifications on society.
Kind of your standard first contact story but instead of looking at invasions or technological transfer look at the religous side. Then you've no need to fudge the science.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
18:28 / 11.04.06
Sorry, I wasn't relating the points to each other- didn't make muself very clear.
 
 
foolish fat finger
21:31 / 16.04.06
I really don't know... my only strong point of reference is Philip K Dick... in one of his short stories, he describes an Orwellian big brother figure, who eventually turns out to be a malign and sinister God... which reminded me somehow of the terrible vision of God that Arjuna has in the Baghavad-Gita- the destroyer of worlds...

I don't remember the story exactly, it was at the back of the 'minority report' compilation.

I remember a quote from Dick where he says (something like) 'I used to think the universe was an unfriendly place- I no longer believe that.' I think this story was written before he changed his beliefs.

I am gonna stop writing because I just don't know enough to comment. for the record, I have spiritual beliefs, and a belief in God...
 
 
Leidan
21:21 / 23.04.06
Yeah, I also don't know K. Dick very well, but alot of his works involve heavily religious themes, from an ambiguous-to-positive perspective. In 'A Maze of Death' there are God-worlds to which you can send actual electronic prayers - which sometimes get answered - divine figures with a sometimes mysterious physical connection to the universe abound. There's also a depiction of a mystic-boy who I think contacts a God we would find more familiar...

Gene Wolfe's 'The Book of the New Sun' has some amazingly beautiful religious themes in it, depicted with a subtlety C.S. Lewis could learn from - death, rebirth, time, magic, entwined in an odyssey that at times - especially in the fifth book - read like an enlightened parallel to the story of Christ. Aliens appear as ambiguously angelic figures, etc...

Anyway, yeah, two of the best sci-fi writers there who according to your list were Episcopalian / Catholic respectively.
 
 
Axolotl
17:07 / 03.05.06
I was at my parent's house over the bank holiday and had full access to my library and found "A Case of Conscience" by James Blish, in which a jesuit scientist ponders who created an "Eden" of a society which has no concept of God. I haven't had time to read it yet but will let you know what it's like.
 
 
Hydra vs Leviathan
16:38 / 06.05.06
Lewis's "Cosmic Trilogy" was one thing i was going to mention, but i'm not sure if it's strictly "sci-fi" at all (tho, of course, the usage-meaning of the terem "sci-fi" has changed several times, and arguably most of what is now called "sci-fi" wouldn't have been in its original sense) - yes, it involves technology and extra-terrestrial discovery, but science isn't really the point of it, and arguably it's even anti-science in implication...

it's interesting in that it uses an unashamedly Christian cosmology (which, of course, is its point, like that of everything Lewis wrote), but at the same time works in classical and Celtic myth (the Greek planetary deities, King Arthur/Merlin, etc) by identifying those characters with characters/concepts from, or finding those characters roles within, a Christian cosmological framework* - of course there are very strong parallels there with what his friend Tolkien (who, IIRC, was the "model" for Ransom, the hero of the Cosmio Trilogy) did with the Christianisation of Anglo-Saxon and other myth in the Silmarillion/LOTR mythos, and i believe i actually read somewhere that the Trilogy came out of a conversation between Lewis and Tolkien about exactly those themes...

I liked the books, but IMO they're curiosities rather than "classics". The first one (Out of the Silent Planet)pretty much does the cosmology job by itself, and also has a very funny bit where Ransom has to translate a speech by the "representing-Western-imperialistic-science" character to an "unfallen" race who have no need for or knowledge of commerce or capitalism. The second (Perelandra aka Voyage To Venus) is interesting in a fantastical way, and kind of scary in parts, but kinda misogynistic, and the third (That Hideous Strength) (which is set at an Oxford-spoofing uni, and features a Satanic science instutute performing unnatural reanimations and the return of Merlin and the Pendragon) is just really weird...

Re "twilight Zone-ish" revelations: there's a short story by Isaac Asimov (annoyingly i can't remember the name) where, basically, "Man" (sic) invents bigger and bigger computers with the intent of answering the question "Is it possible to reverse the Second Law of Thermodynamics?" (the entropy thing), and evolves into more and more advanced forms, until eventually the bodiless, unified-into-one-being spirit of "Man" merges with the beyond-imaginably-powerful computer "AC", escapes the universe as entropy leads to absolute zero, and meditates in hyperspace for eternity until ze finds the Answer: then, AC says "Let there be light"...

(i've often wondered if that story was the inspiration for Douglas Adams's "Deep Thought"/42 thing...)

I've also read (a very long time ago) a couple of sci-fi novels in which the Church evolves into new forms after humanity "conquers the stars" and comes into contact with other sentient lifeforms, creating new versions of Christianity and new "missions" to the new "unsaved", with interestingly problematic results, but annoyingly i can't remember the titles or authors at the moment... it's definitely an area worthy of exploration...

of course, it's worth drawing parallels with the DC and Marvel comics universes, in which (in the former at least) there are multiple alien races, interplanetary contacts, pantheons of "gods", aliens worshipped as gods, and beings with godlike powers, yet also there seems to be an "ultimate", genuinely omnipotent Christian-style big-G God, and associated concepts of angels, demons, heaven and hell, etc... in Marvel, it's a bit vaguer and more polytheistic, but i think there's an "ultimate omnipotent Creator" "God" there as well...

Overall i certainly think science fiction can be compatible with "faith" (as long as it's not the really crazy fundamentalist breed of "faith" where, pretty much, anything fictional is blasphemous to the big-T "Truth" of "God"), but that faith is likely to limit the ideas being explored in certain directions (which, of course, any belief/viewpoint of any writer will inevitably, and IMO rightly, do... since the whole point of fictional speculation is, at least in part, to convey some sort of ideological "judgement" (even if that's very vague and open-ended) about possible worlds). The use of religious themes doesn't necessarily mean the author is religious, if you see what i mean...

(sorry, very long and vague post which probably didn't actually make a point! there was going to be one there, honest...)

*(i particularly like, from a gnostic-ish point of view, his identification of the Greek/Roman planetary deities with the "governing angels" of each planet, and then making Earth's "planetary deity" Lucifer...)
 
  
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