How Sci-Fi is Theology?
Let's explore a (heterodox? heretical? totally normal? a little weird?) take on what the Bible might mean when it talks about the future.
What do we get when we take the promises of the Bible related to the “Kingdom of God” and intersect these with “Futurology” or “Future Studies”, the “study of postulating possible, probable, and preferable futures”?1
Put another way, when we use the methods of science and imagination (“science fiction”) to speculate how heaven might “come to earth”, what do we get?
The first thing I believe we get is a fresh new imaginative take on what we’re meant to be doing as human beings.
The second thing, which is a product of that, is we get an optimism about the future—something we desperately need.
Star Trek & A New Hope
(Sci-fi fans: see what I did there?)
At some stage of my life I became a Star Trek fan. I can't quite remember when, but in recent years I have to come understand why.
In our present society there is a huge amount of negativity. Negativity breeds discontent, restlessness, and creates an environment for corruption. I think hope is an important key that dispels these things. Star Trek, at its best, was always about hope. (The reason why the more modern iterations of Star Trek suck, such as the Discovery series, is they prey on the negativity of our world, rather than providing hope).
This has been captured so well by a recent fan-made film with William Shatner (Captain James T. Kirk, for those who don’t know). Only Trekkies familiar with the movies will recognize that the short eight-minute film (below) is about the afterlife, as Kirk (spoiler: who dies in Star Trek: Generations) and his lifelong friend, Spock, are once again united. The film hints at "Project Genesis"—a technology that appeared in Star Trek II and Star Trek III which was able to terraform planets and create life. In the movies, it is how Spock is resurrected from death. So the short movie (entitled 765874 - Unification and posted below) shows the two characters reuniting in bodily form in the afterlife, looking at the dawn of something new.
Science fiction gives us a way of imagining the future and becoming it. I really believe that this genre has been instrumental in forming the world we live in today, and it will continue to be instrumental going forward.
I also think it’s a fantastic medium for exploring how the Bible’s promises about resurrection and eternity may actually look in the future in the material universe.
And I do think the Bible is clear that the future Kingdom of God, the end result of all of history, is something that takes place in a material universe. This is precisely one of the profound things about Jesus having a bodily resurrection, and the Church in its various theologies has always recognized that the resurrection is material—that the end-game of the promises of God is a new, material, heavens and earth.
“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.” - Revelation 21:1
How literally one views this scripture, even if you view it somewhat metaphorically (for example, many think ‘the sea’ refers to ‘chaos’, as that is a frequent Old Testament motif) you pretty much are forced to come to the conclusion that a ‘new heavens and earth’ is still an actual heavens and earth; that there is a materialism to this passage and its promise.
With this, the promise of the Bible’s ‘end-game’ is that all of mankind will be resurrected. Corinthians 15:21–22 shows us this is a bodily, material resurrection, just as Jesus’s resurrection was material and bodily (so Jesus is still a man today).
This idea of a bodily resurrection has always been one of Christianity’s controversial ideas, because back in the New Testament times, the philosophers of the day thought it was pretty dumb. (See Acts 17.) A great deal of philosophy still thinks it’s dumb. Some atheists materialists have often thought it was dumb too, until we started finding out that we could very possibly one day recreate an entire human from a single strand of DNA. It turns out this dumb idea may in fact be a very possible one. While not possible with existing technology, there’s very little reason to think it wouldn’t be possible sometime in the future. It’s a scary prospect, if done unethically of course, yet it also points to the fact that a physical resurrection may not be some fantastical idea after all but well within the realm of science.
I think that’s important. What it needs, however, to be ethical and done right is for God to be involved in its coming to pass, which I believe he is as he is involved in all of human history. In other words, it needs to be guided by a specific framework and worldview for it to become a blessing rather than a curse.
If it’s achievable, it’s also remarkable that the Bible predicted it in a philosophical and religious and cultural environment which was set against it and thought it impossible, which points further in the direction that God is not only real but has, indeed, always involved himself in the affairs of humankind, just as the Bible claims: over history he has been pushing us toward the promises of His Kingdom in the Bible—promises of a bright future where humanity will no longer suffer death and all injustice will finally be put right. A new dawn is coming and we will finally be united, just as we see in the short film above.
Even more, the enemies that prevent us from experiencing this now will be defeated—death being the last enemy (1 Corinthians 15:26), but also any other enemies, such as our collective tendency toward corruption (sin); power struggles and wars, fueled by the former tendency; and even including (as the Bible claims) sentient entities (“spiritual powers / Satan and demons”) that have always been trying to set humanity on a self-destructive path. (It’s entirely possible that in such a large universe as ours, we may not be the only intelligent life. It’s only that “first contact” may have happened a long time ago already.)
All this is a very interesting thought experiment, because I think all you need to do is think of familiar Biblical concepts in a different way to realize that, perhaps, after all, the Scriptures have always been pointing us to something a lot more than angels playing harps in the clouds in some ethereal existence (truth be told, the scriptures don’t teach that anywhere, and neither has Christian theology). The scriptures are, in essence, giving us an imagination and a moral, and ethical framework for the future that we ought to work towards. (That ethical framework includes a message of grace, justice, and sacrifice.)
A Vision to Set the Right Trajectory
What I think is important is all this speculation leads us toward seeing a vision for humanity and our own lives that is worth living (and dying) for. The Bible, I think, provides us the right vision. It claims that every aspect of our work on this earth is toward this “Kingdom of God” coming to light, and it is a Kingdom we receive now through faith (trust) in the already-resurrected man, Jesus, who through his death connects us to the source of all life (God the Holy Spirit) so that we might move forward with what God’s intention for us was all along—an eternity with no death; an eternity of peace, prosperity, and right relationships; an eternity of justice and grace and self-sacrifice. (How we are connected to this through the death and resurrection of Jesus requires some explanation, and I’ll go through that in a future post.)
Sometimes Christians have thought that this vision is unobtainable until Jesus comes back (premillennialism; some versions of amillennialism). Others have insisted that the vision is something we can achieve (post-millennialism). The “posties” (post-millennialists) however have frequently sought to achieve it through political means, leading to support of theocratic government, Christian Nationalism, and the like. I think all this is the wrong approach, even though I think the political realm does need reforming; but I think they’re right in having a positive view of where history is going and our role to get it there.
For those who are familiar with these terms, the category I fall under is a “positive ammillenialism”. I think that the book of Revelation shows us that beasts (oppressive systems) and antichrists (those who run them) will rise and fall throughout history, but the trajectory is that their time in the sun gets less and less. History I think is on my side, too. Empires don’t last as long as they used to. We can go in to this in more detail perhaps in another post.
Science, technology, philosophy
I’ve always believed that the practice of Science is, in fact, a very Christian practice. What could be more Christian than observing, studying and understanding the universe, with a view of being able to shape it for the flourishing of humanity?
There is obviously much to debate here, however. For example, what does a flourishing humanity look like? What does it mean to ‘shape’ the universe for our flourishing? Does that mean at the expense of everything else that lives here? (I would say true flourishing would mean all things flourish).
All of this thinking however makes sense of a portion of scripture like Romans 8:19-23:
19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God, 20 for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its enslavement to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning together as it suffers together the pains of labor, 23 and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.
Mankind’s redemption leads to the redemption of all of creation. There is still much to redeem when it comes to mankind, so we’re not there yet. Creation longs for us to get there because then everything will be at peace. The vision here is clear: we will get there. But we’ll only get there through embracing a specific framework, what the Bible calls the “gospel of the Kingdom”. Any other framework continues to feed into the tendency towards corruption, “power over others”, etc.—the very things that get in the way of us getting there.
Star Trek gives hope, and it’s one I think worth exploring, but it sometimes tends to do so by claiming that a purely secular, rationalistic framework is the key. (Although, its most hopeful episodes or movies tend to embrace a certain spirituality, as the movie above shows.) For its part, Christianity posits that we’ll get there through applying greater trust (faith) in the man who already got there (Jesus), the one who sent him (the Father), and the source of all life that we can be connected to through some sort of quantum entanglement (the Holy Spirit). It’s a fundamentally relational approach, as once the relationship with the Creator is sorted, then relationships with each other move in a reconciliatory direction. The ultimate vision is a united people working together for the Kingdom of God—for peace, prosperity, and ultimately resurrection and eternity.
These are spiritual ideas, sure, but they are nevertheless not necessarily unscientific. They are not necessarily mystical any more than quantum theory is mystical; or any more than black holes are in all their mind-bending theory (I mean, what does it mean to stretch time, really?). Take a look at the end of the movie Interstellar. Its message is love transcends time and space. When you think about it, it’s true, and mind-boggling. So what is true is that we just don't quite understand it all—yet.
Maybe we won’t ever, but nevertheless, we will get closer to getting there. For after all, “It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but the glory of kings is to search out a matter.” (Proverbs 25:2.)
Three angles
In a series of posts, I’m going to explore this topic from a “speculative” theological viewpoint. I’ll come at it mainly from three theological angles:
1. Sanctification. This is the theological term for ‘getting better’—the term for believers in Jesus becoming more in line with the image of God they were created in. I will note that the promises of sanctification in the Bible are more corporate in nature than individual—or at least, they start corporately and end with the individual. This means that our own journeys of ‘getting better’ rely on each other getting better. We won’t become better until everyone gets better. We therefore have work to do.
Scientifically, what if we could ‘root out’ the tendency of human beings to sin through epigenetics? This is something that many in the field are exploring. It may be that the Bible’s promises that human beings would live in holiness (meaning right relationships) are actually both ultimately corporate (for the whole human race) and eschatological (to become a reality for all as time progresses). In other words, we won’t get there until everyone changes their minds (“repents”) and embraces a proper framework for getting there, as we’ll then build societies of justice and peace.
2. The idea that the “Kingdom of God” is a big concept that incorporates everything being put right, a bodily resurrection, a renewed creation, and peace for all; and is working out in history and progressing us towards a better future (advances in medicine, I think, are proof of this).
3. The idea that all progress requires the Holy Spirit to go in the right direction—this is the key that prevents it from becoming another human failure filled with sinful attitudes, power struggles, etc. For example, transhumanism wants to get to human flourishing, but it posits that the way to get there is to become more than human (hence, ‘trans’humanism) rather than restoring humanity to what we really are. Many progressive ideas are like this. True progress, I believe, involves human beings becoming what they truly are—reaching our potential. For others, progress means human beings transcending who they are. I think the difference lies in embracing evolution as a framework as opposed to a framework of growth and maturity. We’ll unpack this later. Self improvement is certainly on my menu, but I think self-improvement is a very human thing. However, uploading our minds to a machine (as some transhumanists propose) is, as far as I’m concerned, a massive downgrade.
The intention of this series of posts is to really just have a bit of fun speculating on how the plans of God could come to fruition in a way not traditionally taught. It’s about thinking outside of the box. It’s simply asking this: What if what Jesus did was set humanity on the right trajectory toward a bright and good future? What if the gospel is, in fact, the mechanism to get us there?
Feel free to post your own comments, speculation etc.!
‘Outline of Futures Studies’. In Wikipedia, 19 October 2024. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Outline_of_futures_studies&oldid=1251997722.