The Faith of Dragons and the Trust in the Stars

Sci Fi the Series

The Eternal God
Free Will and a Blue Box
Calvinism and Vincent
Faith of Dragons
Sins, Souls, and Sentience
Daughters and Gifts

The great thing about science fiction is that it encourages readers and writers to push past physical limits and ponder the "what if?" It is not confined to this world, or universe, or time, or cosmos. And sometimes it can take you in a completely different direction than you expected.

Trust in God for The Power of Faith

Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern books feature genetically engineered dragons designed to permanently bond telepathically with a human (and did so decades before Eragon). They are gentle enough to carry humans, strong enough to haul cargo, and have the ability to shift "between" and reappear at another place and time. At a particular point in the multi-book plotline, the question arises, just how much can a dragon carry? The answer: as much as they think they can. Apparently, when lifting heavy cargo, they don't merely rely on their physical prowess. They also somehow use their teleportation ability to shift mass. In this way, they were able to go into space and move the fuel cells of the colony ships into a planet that came around periodically and attacked them, thereby shifting the planet's orbit and preventing further damage.

In Matthew 17:20b, Jesus tells His disciples, "...if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you." The dragons had the ability to move something if they had faith that they could. In a similar way, we can move mountains when God is the power that moves them. We have access to a spiritual power that can do much more through us than we could ever do on our own. Far too often, I don't have that faith. I don't rely on God's power, and the mountain stays put. Like the dragons, I need to believe.

Trust in God for The Answers

"The Star" was originally a short story by Arthur C. Clarke, but I experienced it first as an episode of The Twilight Zone. In the show, an exploratory spacecraft from Earth lands on a burned-out planet. The captain and the astrophysicist/priest discover the planet was destroyed when its star went supernova. With a few calculations, they realize the star went supernova long enough ago that its light was visible around the time Jesus was born. The alien civilization was sacrificed to announce the birth of our Savior.

Looking at Wikipedia, I see the original air date was December, 1985, and that must have been the time I saw it. At the time, I went to church and read my Bible and generally did Christiany things, but I wasn't really exposed to any confluence of Christianity and science. I was extremely math and science oriented, but the two worlds didn't really mesh. Truth be told, I didn't really think about it too much, perhaps in fear that I would find some scientific fact that would outright contradict my core beliefs about God.

This show, however, broke a window into my head. I came to realize that even if I or the entire scientific community saw a contradiction between the Bible and science, it doesn't mean there isn't an answer. It just means we don't know what the answer is yet. God is worthy of our trust. God knows the answer. We are not omniscient. As great and exciting as science is, we've only scratched the surface. Evolutionists, creationists, theoretical physicists — we all try to interpret what's going on by what evidence we have. Honestly, none of us have the complete answer. Maybe the Star of Bethlehem was a supernova. Maybe it was something more supernatural. It is great to ponder and discover, as long as we do it with humility and don't insist that our speculation is absolute fact. Trust God, and trust He'll take care of the science.

But this also applies to prophesy. I've been reading a book on the prophecies found in Daniel. It talks about the coming one-world government and mentions the U.N. as a possible fit. But the book was written in 1971 — long before the European Union and the euro were in existence. There's also the theological belief of covenantalism — that the covenants God gave to Israel were passed down to the church and Israelites have no more importance in human history. This philosophy came to popularity in the latter half of the 19th century — about one hundred years before the re-formation of the nation of Israel. I'm not saying that the E.U. is the one-world government, I'm just saying that sometimes God gives us glimpses of "what might be" as a reminder that He does have a plan and He will fulfill it, even if it doesn't quite look like what we expect.

Next: Funny how man's quest for a future utopia often serves to highlight our sin.

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Published 10-5-11