Science fiction is driven, not by rockets or lasers or robots, but by wonder. The vastness of space, the mystery of the shattered atom, the possibilities of technology—all push the reader to awe-struck questions: what are we, and what will we be, when the secrets are known? The Psalmist stared at the heavens and wondered that too: “What is man, that Thou art mindful of him?” Theology and science fiction offer different answers to those questions, but as Alan Gregory shows in his book Science Fiction Theology, their answers have important philosophical and historical connections, and putting these two in conversation can lead us to a better understanding of both science fiction and theology. In this episode of Christian Humanist Profiles, David Grubbs interviews the Rev. Dr. Alan Gregory, Principal of St. Augustine’s College of Theology in Canterbury, England, and author of Science Fiction Theology: Beauty and the Transformation of the Sublime (Baylor University Press, 2015).

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