VII: The Chief End of Man

Previous Section 

What on Earth or Uranus does Hugh Walters think he is doing?

I don’t think the God-talk can be written off as window dressing or plot machinery. You could write a perfectly good story about benevolent aliens without recourse to theology. First Contact? might work better if the Alien was an ambassador from a secular Galactic Federation, as opposed to the emissary of God Almighty. But Walters takes quite a lot of trouble to go through the religious arguments at a pace nine-year-olds will be able to keep up with. I think that the Supreme Being interests him in a way that fast than light tachyon gravity networks really don’t.

Could he be pushing back against Star Trek? The BBC's first run of the original series had come to an end in 1971. Gene Roddenbury’s humanist message was that you should always reject any being with theological pretensions. It is a far, far better thing to die in an atomic war or a plague than to acknowledge that Apollo has some claim over you. Perhaps this is why Chris Godfrey’s American friend makes the reckless decision to nuke the site from orbit? It’s exactly what James T Kirk would have done.

You can see why an Anglican writer of boys’ space-adventures might want to tell the kids that science and religion are not in conflict. But is Walters seeking to inject some spirituality into science — to say that the feelings we feel when we think of Jesus and the Angels could equally well be directed towards Aliens and flying saucers? Or is he trying to drag religion down to science’s level — by saying that all those Bible stories and Norse sagas have perfectly rational explanations?

The great attraction of Von Daniken is that he gives us permission to believe that the Bible is literally true. Ezekiel really did see a wheel in a wheel, way up in the middle of the air. A sweet chariot really did come for to carry Elijah home. But it does this at the cost of removing their specifically religious significance. The chariots of fire are really only very advanced aircraft. Angels' halos are really only space helmets. When Von Daniken asks “Was God an astronaut?” he means “Was God merely an astronaut?”

And that is the problem that Hugh Walters thinks he has solved. Advanced extraterrestrials are by definition closer to God than humans. God is the most advancedist extraterrestrial of all. If the Uranus Alien is literally an emissary of the Supreme Being, then he is as near to being an actual Angel as makes no difference. Moses and Gabriel were under-cover agents of the Supreme Being. So, presumably, was Gautama. It wouldn’t be difficult to fit J.C into the picture: maybe he’s literally the Supreme Being’s son. Or the Supreme Being travelling incognito.

Joyful all ye nations rise, God and Science reconciled.

Rev Beckwith’s God (in the Doctor Who book) is a deist demiurge whose job is to explain the complexity of the universe. Walters sees, correctly, that science has made an explanatory God redundant. In principle, you can understand how the universe works without recourse to a supernatural creator. But he also sees that a purely scientific world-view throws out the teleological star-baby with the explanatory bath-water. His Supreme Being doesn’t tell us how the Universe works, but what it is for: its purpose and objective. Rev Beckwith’s God is a moral force: he’s there to reassure us that the goodies will always beat the baddies in Episode Six. Walters’ Supreme Being is only indirectly moral. He certainly wants humans to be wise and sensible because if they blow themselves up they will stop evolving. But the Supreme Being doesn't specially want us to be good. The objective of evolution is to evolve. Walters' religion is the worship of progress per se. Walters stated several times that he wrote science fiction “to inspire the young people of today to be the scientists and technicians of tomorrow.” And it seems that this is the meaning of life: the whole purpose for which the universe was invented.

If Chris had not met the Alien, might he have decided that space-exploration was pointless and the human race might as well stagnate? After his memory was wiped, did he feel the urge to drop out of UNEXA and go and live in an arts-and-crafts commune? Walters’ has created a truly Anglican Supreme Being. He is the God Who Makes No Difference; the God who enjoins you to carry on doing exactly what you would have been doing in any case.