Does the Apostles’ Creed have anything to do with Science Fiction? Yes, but not as much as it should.
Science Fiction is - like all fiction - a projection of the writer’s world view in the present along with any flourishes they may add as they “flesh out” their description of the future.
People who see the future positively produce optimistic Science Fiction such as the Jetsons where scientific progress is fun, the family is still basically functional, and technology serves the human good without sending humanity to the brink of extinction and the “crises” of life are of a whimsical nature. The sun always shines during the day time and the world is not on the brink of collapse. Pessimistic people produce ominous apocalypses like Blade Runner where there is never really any daylight and society is one large cesspool run amok as the setting for people trying to find some meaning amongst the chaos.
But as humans in space and time our Science Fiction can only be a projection of today’s world views that are already identifiable. For that reason, the truth claims and prognostications of Science Fiction can be tested. Science Fiction ultimately stands or falls as a predictor of the future based on how well the writer’s world view is shaped by the truth and whether that worldview reflects reality today. (Note: I’m only talking about the theological value of Science Fiction here, not its entertainment value, or the quality of dramatic effects in a particular movie!)
For example, the Star Wars view of the universe as governed by a single “force” (or is that “Force”?) with a “dark side” and a not so dark side is a projection of Hindu philosophy. To determine whether the things portrayed in “Star Wars” are possible or conceivable should be tested not by our knowledge of the future (we have none!) but by our knowledge of the past and present where the Hindu philosophy of the “force” has played itself out in the test lab of history.
Lest I be accused of Hindu bashing, I shall discuss this mode of evaluation on a more Western illustration - the “Klingon Empire” of Star Trek fame. Emerging as the Klingon’s did after World War II and during the Cold War when war movies still focused on defeating Hitler, the Klingon’s represent an evil empire more or less akin to the enemies America faced in World War II and in the rise of the Soviet Union. This space based empire of evil is now bent on conquering space, having subjected it’s home world. In other words, the Klingons were society’s worst nightmares of Nazis and Communists portrayed as barbaric animals unleashed on the future - and with phasers no less.
Their barbarity in Star Trek reached mythic proportions indeed. Barbaric rites of passage were attributed to their warriors, mating lives, and society as a whole. Seemingly there was no end in sight to their evil. But if they were really that evil and barbaric, how did they progress past the blood feud to survive long enough to enter space? There are seemingly no values such as patience, willingness to endure temporary failure for long term learning, or valuing learning over physical mastery that would explain the Klingon’s survival as a race let alone their ability to travel in space and be a threat to others. Those who ultimately value death and destruction may go out in a blaze of seeming glory as like 300 Spartans, but have not to date reached orbit. Space travel requires a level of cooperation that a culture of homicide and domination tends to discourage.
So how did their inspirations in Germany and the Soviet Union attain such technological heights to inspire our fear?
The Germanic peoples were barbarians whose relations were similar to what is portrayed by the Klingons. They were “civilized” to become the nation Hitler transformed into the Third Reich from the shambles of the Weimar republic because of a long period of Christianization (with all it’s faults, failures, warts and shortcomings) that created the social capital Hitler co-opted and, temporarily, transformed into the Nazi war machine. Much the same can be said of Russia for they too had undergone a long period of Christianization.
In other words, the barbarian types for the Klingons were apostate Christian nations.
After receiving many of Jesus Christ’s blessings for many years to one degree or another, these nations in their despair gave themselves over to promises of glory and restoration through barbarism while forgetting their Christian past.
Notably their flirtation with tyranny ended badly to say the least. Their respective ends came through devastating war as Nazi Germany saw it’s population gutted and through economic collapse as the Soviet Empire imploded. The Soviets did indeed enter space, but their plans in the event of a nuclear exchange in Europe demonstrated their cruel and paranoid alter ego. They intended to march the troops of their European vassal states across irradiated ground at all costs to fight until they dropped dead from radiation poisoning. The fall out from Chernobyl - literally and figuratively - also shows the extremes of that culture - it’s heights derived from building on it’s Christian past and whatever could be stolen from others and its constant teetering towards self-destruction.
In the test lab of history, apostate cultures collapse and the thousand year Reich ended in a few years.
They owe their brief flirtation with sanity to the entrance of Jesus Christ into history as described in the Apostles’ Creed. The breathing room any culture has to progress only comes thanks to Jesus Christ’s entrance into history to break the bonds of self-centeredness and hate that spell the demise of cultures. Even those who do not enter into the communion of the saints to receive life everlasting themselves are benefited by the fruit of Jesus Christ’s resurrection. Consider the hospital. Prior to the entrance of Christianity into the world there were none. Yet even cultures that do not acknowledge Jesus Christ now have them for at least part of their populace even when, theologically or philosophically speaking, such hospitals are superfluous frills and concessions to “Western” (i.e. Christian) ideology.
The test lab of history shows us that indeed an evil future may befall us. But history seen in light of the Apostles’ Creed reveals that there is a leaven at work in history - the transforming kingdom of Jesus Christ. Much of Science Fiction projects the future without reference to the One - Jesus Christ - whose blessings have laid the foundation for all the scientific progress upon which the fiction writers’ projections are made.
