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ZEEB ROAD, ANN ARBOF;, Ml 48106 18 BEDFORD ROW, LONDON WC1R 4EJ, ENGLAND 8009307 Martin, Do n a ld Thomas RELIGIOUS DIMENSIONS OF REPRESENTATIVE SCIENCE FICTION The Ohio Slate University Ph.D . 1979 University Microfilms International300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48106 18 Bedford Row, London WC1R 4EJ, England Copyright 1980 by Martin, Donald Thomas All Rights Reserved RELIGIOUS DIMENSIONS OF REPRESENTATIVE SCIENCE FICTION DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Donald Thomas Martin, A.B., B.D. , M.A. ***** The Ohio State University 1979 Reading Committee: Approved By Dr. Don Bateman / Prof. Jane Stewart Adviser Dr. Frank Zidonis Department of Humanities Education VITA February 22, 1923 ................... Born - Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 1945 ............................................... A.B., Taylor University, Upland, Indiana 1948 ............................................... B.D., Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore, Kentucky 1948-1955 ..................................... Pastor of Various Churches in Ohio 1955-1956 ..................................... Teacher, Bellville Village Schools, Bellville, Ohio 1956-1961 ..................................... Assistant Professor of Speech and English Taylor University, Upland, Indiana 1961-1963 ..................................... Assistant Professor of English, Marion College, Marion, Indiana 1963-1965 ..................................... Assistant Professor of Speech, Huntington College, Huntington, Indiana 1965-1966 ..................................... English teacher, Huntington City Schools, Huntington, Indiana 1966-1967 ...................................... English teacher, Lucas Public Schools, Lucas, Ohio 1967-1969 ..................................... Head of the English Department, Clearfork Valley Schools, Bellville, Ohio 1969- ...................................... Assistant Professor of English, Mount Vernon Nazarene College, Mount Vernon, Ohio i i FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: English Education Dr. Wilfred Eberhart Professor Jane Stewart Dr. Don Bateman Dr. Frank Zidonis Minor Field: English Literature i i i TABLE OF CONTENTS Page VITA................................................................................................................................... ii Chapter I. THE RATIONALE FOR THE STUDY OF RELIGIOUS DIMENSIONS OF HARD SCIENCE FICTION ............................................... 1 II. GODLIKE FIGURES.......................................................................................... 17 III. THE THEME OF RESURRECTION IN SCIENCE FICTION ......................... 36 IV. THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN GOOD AND EVIL................................................ 59 V. ELEMENTS OF MORAL CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT IN SCIENCE FICTION ......................................................................................... 87 VI. SOME CLASSROOM COMPONENTS OF A UNIT ON RELIGIOUS DIMENSIONS OF SCIENCE FICTION IN A COLLEGE COURSE OF SCIENCE FICTION..........................................................................................106 VII. CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................122 BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................................................... 128 i v CHAPTER I THE RATIONALE FOR THE STUDY OF RELIGIOUS DIMENSIONS OF HARD SCIENCE FICTION Science fiction is a category of lite ra tu re which has always attracted the casual, popular reader. Projections of future scientific inventions and the adjustment of human beings to such inventions has always held the interest of multitudes of people; however, in recent years scholars in universities and colleges have become attracted to science fiction because many of the books have outstanding literary quality, because scholars such as C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien have written in this field, and because many predictions of science fiction have become scientific facts. In the preface of a recent anthology, for example, one of the editors writes: Because of the obvious correlation between yesterday's science fiction and today's fact, science fiction is finding its way into the college curriculum as a new and exciting genre for people to study and enjoy. Science fiction paperback books now outnumber westerns and mys tery stories (those perennial barometers of the reading habits of the public) on newsstands and in bookstores across the land.l * Bonnie L. Heintz, Frank Herbert, Donald A. Joos, Jane McGee, eds. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow.... (New York: Holt, Rinehart and WinstonTT p. v n . In fact, hundreds of courses are now being offered on both the high school and college level. In April of 1978 the Third Annual Conference of Teachers of Science Fiction was held a t Eastern Michigan University. Included in the information emphasized at that conference was that research into all facets of science fiction is being done today. One of the most interesting dimensions of science fiction encompasses the religious implications of the genre, especially the Christian implications. In a recent essay Theodore Sturgeon, the author of the early science fiction book, More Than Human, says: To sum up, then: religion and science fiction are no strangers to one another, and the willing ness of science fiction writers to delve into it, to invent and extrapolate and regroup ideas and concepts in this as in all other areas of human growth and change, delights me and is the source of my true love for the madbreed. 2 Although science fiction is often anti-establishment in its attitude toward religion, Christian dimensions in themes, subthemes, and assumptions of the author appear in the works perhaps because the Christianity of Western Civilization has so permeated the background of these writers that they unconsciously incorporate such dimensions in their works and perhaps because their anti-establishment attitudes must acknowledge and attack the establishment ideas. The anti-religion attitudes of some of these writers need to be examined through their 2 Theodore Sturgeon, "Science Fiction, Morals and Religion" in Bretnor, Reginald, ed. Science Fiction: Today and Tomorrow. (Balti more: Penguin Books, 1974), p. 112. 3 writings. Most of them indicate that religion is a superstition which rulers have wielded over the heads of their subjects for generations. For instance, Isaac Asimov treats religion as if it were “the opiate of the people." He looks on it as a tool to control the masses. In Foundation he has one of his characters say, "Religion is one of the great civilizing influences of history and in that respect, it's fulfilling "The religion - which the Foundation has fostered and encouraged, mind you - is built on strictly authoritarian lines. The priesthood has sole con trol of the instruments of science we have given Anacreaon, but they've learned to handle these tools only empirically. They believe in this religion entirely, and in the...uh...spiritual value of the power they handle." "The priesthood forms a hierarchy at the apex of which is the king, who is regarded as a sort of minor god. He's an absolute monarch by divine right, and the people believe it, thoroughly, and the priests, too." "The Foundation has fostered this delusion assidu ously. We've put all our scien tific backing behind the hoax. There is n 't a festival at which the king does not preside surrounded by a radioactive aura shining forth all over his body and raising itself like a coronet above his