well...
how did lewis do it?

i guess i don't know enough about sci-fi, but is there a reason evolution (or...non-creation, i guess) must be the necessary foundation for it? i would think that if there's something inherent in the genre that demands a philosophy that is anti-god, then the genre itself would be of no use to the Christian. but if there's a way to do it and still posit, or at least not remove, God, then it could be of use.
were tolkien's worlds anti-god because Jehovah wasn't the stated god? i would say not, a. because it's fiction and b. he uses principles that are not anti-god. allegory is a nice way to sidestep the problem, too, which would make lewis happy while infuriating tolkien. :-)
there's my tentative opening comment. :-)

lewis denied his work as allegorical, but we take it as we may nowadays, i think. maybe it's postmodernism's effect on us that we decide how to interpret him. :)

i think it's possible to not side-step at all. i agree with apelles that evolution doesn't have to be the foundational assumption and that certainly the material does not need to be anti-god in order to fit the sci-fi genre. i agree that lewis and tolkien were not anti-god. i think they went farther than that, though.

i believe lewis (in his space trilogy) posited the Jehovah God of the Bible from the get-go, but that he was not trying to classify him or make direct statements about him. the primary revelation of God comes in his Word (as we are contemporarily reminded of these days with the controversy over The Passion). i think lewis goes farther, though, doing us the service of opening our eyes to just how great our God might be. he does what piper talks about when he describes MAGNIFYING God. with this kind of magnify you don't make a little thing big enough to be visible. rather, you make an already-very-big thing closer and more perceptible so that we can get an inkling of an idea of its bigness. i came away from lewis' trilogy, not necessarily believing in the malacandra and perelandra he presented, but certainly marveling at a God who is capable of creating and managing anything beyond what we could ask or think (not to mention the other benefits I received from reading the trilogy).

as for tolkien, though. his positing of God comes gradually, almost as a surprise -- we think this is a book about hobbits and rings and all that jazz until we realize (right about Gandalf's rescue from eisengard) that there is a LORD of the rings who thwarts and facilitates and reigns over all the events that transpire, good and bad (his providence embracing even the evil machinations of the wicked and the fallibilities of the righteous).

let's make a distinction here -- tolkien's rings are categorically fantasy, not sci-fi. i think fundamentally, micah, you might be asking more about the legitimacy of fiction than you realize, but if we're talking about sci-fi for now, maybe we need to make the distinction.

aha. i think i realize the dilemma that christa? and/or others might originally associate with christian attempts at sci-fi. as apelles mentioned, must evolution or anti-God presuppositions be the foundation for all sci-fi? why do christians automatically assume that? i think this is why:

many of us have bought into the mentality that there is an inherent dichotomy between science and christianity, when in fact there most certainly is not. true science will always support the truth of the Bible. all truth is God's truth, and it is more than possible to write something futuristic (hypothetical, speculative, imaginative) and scientific (techno, weirdo, etc.) without contradicting ultimate absolute truth.

where godless authors would write with a godless (and therefore pretty much anti-god unless it's accidental) worldview, a christian author in the sci-fi genre would write sci-fi with a theocentric worldview. i.e., positing God preeminently and everything else falling into place within the parameters of that God-shaped matrix.

hope that makes sense. it does to me, but i have a weird thought-train sometimes.

I think part of my problem is that not only do I want it to be perfect, but also I feel the vast responsiblity it is to represent the Lord in my work. I don't want to misrepresent Him. I appreciate your comments, and I'll try to take them to heart. This comment by no means closes this discussion. If you feel like there has been something unsaid or needs "correcting," please continue. I'll try to make a cleaner statement too, when I feel a little better.

well, if wanting it to be perfect is only part of your problem, you can give it up there. ;)

no kidding!

I agree with Joy... read Lewis, especially his Space Trilogy: Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength. They're a bit "heady", but enjoyable!

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