Science Fiction: A New Kind of Theology?

When I came across Holy Sci-Fi! How Religion and Science Fiction Intersect by Paul J. Nahin and published on Springer in 2014, I thought I had found a historical, in-depth study on the subject of how and why science fiction and religion intersect. That is was not quite the case, however.

The Ruminations of a Polite Atheist

In the beginning, Nahin states that he does not believe in God, or in a Creator, and that he is an agnostic, that is, a "polite atheist". He explains that his book "is a 'what-if book, a book in 'experimental imagination,' if you will, and not a 'you'd better believe it or you are going to go straight to Hell' book."

Next, we learn that the book is about "metaphysical speculation," and that that is where the subtitle of the book comes from – because "it is in the genre of SF [...] that we find, among alle the various literary forms, the most complete unschackling of constraints on imagination."

Then we are told that the science fiction genre is often neglected by serious students of theology because it can be seen as undermining the truth of the Bible, since the genre often treats the stories of the Bible as made up. All this is a bit confusing as to what the aim of the book is, and what its theoretical underpinnings might be.

Stories That Make You Think

Yet, later on Nahin explains that science fiction is actually a lot more serious in its treatment of various existential issues than it is often given due and things become a bit clearer when Nahin qoutes Loren Ghiglione (professor of media ethics at Northwestern University):

"Contemporary science fiction is often negative towards religion... However, it is an ideal form to deal with religious themes because it is, by nature, more interested in ideas such as the future of mankind or the ethical implications of science than many other genres. It is thus a natural type of literature to speculate about religion on other planets or in the future."

Sci fi tales "will make you think" and eventually the book will make the reader realize "just how many SF writers have thoughtfully treated a wide spectrum of religious themes [...]." Reading Nahin's book, one will realize "just how many SF writers have thoughtfully treated a wide spectrum of religious themes."

Science Fiction As a Substitute For Religion

A still clearer picture of the book's raison d´être emerges when Nahin explains that one of the things that motivated him to write his book was a fascination with the question of the veracity of the historical existence of Jesus, and that another motivating force emanated from the debates of theologians.

It is, however, when Nahin finds an explanation of the conundrum why "two such seemingly distinclty diffent patterns of thought – SF and religion – can be connected" in a statement by the science fiction author Robert Silverberg, that the aim of the book and its theoretical underpinnings are finally explained:

"When the world turns incomprehensible, it makes sense to look for answers from some other world. In former times it was sufficient to look no furter than the Church: God was there, emanating love and security, offering the hope of passing onward from this vale of tears to the true life beyond. One of the difficulties of [modern] life is that most of us have lost the option of using religious faith as a consolation. It may be that science fiction has evolved into a sort of substitute: a body of texts of an examination of absolute values and the hypothetical construction of alternative modes of living." ("The Science Fiction Hall of Fame" in Beyond the Safe Zone, Donald I Fine, inc., 1986)

Thus, Holy Sci-Fi! sets out to demonstrate that science fiction is a serious literary genre that often deals with mankind's most profound existential questions. And the book really delivers on this with a great number of sci-fi stories retold by Nahin dealing with religious, or theological as Nahin likes to call them, issues. And that is all well and good.

A Profound Lack of Contextualisation

What the book lacks is historical and theoretical contextualisation. Having the draping of an academic book, published on the serious Springer publishing house, I would have expected the book to engage with the wide range of research already conducted in the area of science fiction and its relation to religion.

What about, for example, Frederick Kreuziger's two important works, Apocalypse and Science Fiction: A Dialectic of Religous and Secular Soterioligies (1982) and The Religion of Science Fiction (1986)? And what about studies that deal with the connections between technology, spaceflight, and religion, such as David Noble's classic The Religion of Technology: The Divinity of Man and the Spirit of Invention (1997) and Erik Davis' Techgnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information (1998)?

Likewise, when Nahin touches upon science fiction stories dealing with God and the complicated theological questions of His possible connections to a plurality of world (has Christ redeemed only Mankind, or also other extraterrestrial species, etc.?), he doesn't mention the two groundbreaking historical studies dealing with this theme: Steven J. Dick's Plurality of Worlds: The Origins of the Extraterrestrial Life Debate from Democritus to Kant (1982) and Michael J. Crowe's The Extraterrestrial Life Debate, 1750-1900 (1986).

Barking Up the Wrong Tree?

Nahin's book almost reads as if nothing on the subject of the intersection between science fiction and religion has ever been written before. His presentations of science fiction stories dealing with theological or religious issues thus stands out more like anecdotal paraphrasings by a semi-humorous, somewhat quirky natural scientist, more engaged by questions of whether the stories he paraphrases present scientific facts correctly, than by actually deepening our understanding of the theme of his book. 

Holy Sci-fi! is part of the Springer series "Science and Fiction", which, according to the publishers is a "collection of entertaining and thought-provoking books [that] will appeal equally to science buffs, scientists and science-fiction fans." So, maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree with my critique of Nahin's book, as the target audience of the series does not include historians, literary critics, or historians of religion. 

The book is entertaining at times and it does provide a wide range of science fiction stories that deal with "absolute values" in more or less explicitly religious (or "theological") terms. And for that I'll commend the book. But if you're is looking for an in-depth, serious, theoretically informed, and historically contextualized study of how and why science fiction and religion intersect, this book should not be on the top of your list.