The Star Trek Philosophy

Once again it's time for another Star Trek reference. You can't get away from it. Just look at all the famous actors who appeared on the TV show or the movies. Anybody who is anybody has been on Star Trek.

For some time I have been contemplating the cultural ramifications of the show, both the original series, the movies, and the ones that would be termed the "Next Generation." What we see presented to us today in philosophy, science, culture and even religion is what I call the Star Trek Philosophy. What this philosophy entails, in a nutshell, is that mankind has been and is on an evolutionary progress. As part of that progress humanity will eventually evolve beyond the need for any supernatural Being, jettisoning that belief for strictly scientific reason.

To demonstrate that I'm not crazy and that a greater story beyond ourselves is the basis for our understanding, and how the Star Trek Philosophy really has pervaded the culture, check out the talk Every religion has a mythology.

Since I am more of a fan of the Next Generation, the two clips to follow will come from there. In the first clip from the season 1 episode "Hide and Q," Q explains to Commander Riker that humanity has the potential to advance beyond even the Q species. The scene then flashes to Captain Picard quoting Hamlet to Q. For one, Patrick Stewart quoting Hamlet is pure acting gold, but this scene also clearly reflects Gene Roddenberry's belief in human potential. One particularly interesting item is the text the Next Generation writers chose from Hamlet.

The Q see something in humans that interests and even concerns them. According to Q (yes, all the beings go by the name Q) humanity's potential is limitless. The only thing standing in the way of man is man himself, advancing even beyond the powers of the Q. As humans have advanced beyond the need for having a God to explain the universe, so it could be said that there will be an advancing beyond bodily existence.

What happens when we die? Even those in the 24th century don't know. Will those who die now see any part of this future? Who knows? (Most likely not.) But what is known is that death is a part of life and must be faced head on in the struggle called the "human condition."

While Hamlet (and one could say Shakespeare) meant the speech to be ironic concerning humanity, Picard takes it as something that will literally come to pass.  In contrast, Psalm 8 displays both a high view and praise of God (in this case I AM, the God of Israel) and a high view of man. It is important to note what the Psalmist does not say as much as what he does say.

¹O LORD, our Lord,  how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.

² Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger.

³When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,

⁴ what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?

⁵Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.

⁶You have given him dominion over the works of your hands;  you have put all things under his feet,

⁷all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field,

⁸the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

⁹O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! (ESV)

The Psalm praises God for the works of his hands but does not then go on to say, "What is this worthless worm you call man, wretched and ill-deserving of life?" (I'm sure it'd sound better in Hebrew.)  David the Psalmist is utterly amazed and humbled that in the midst of all the greatness and wonder of the heavens God is indeed mindful of humanity and cares for David as well. Great blessing and responsibility has been given to man as God has "given him dominion over the works of your hands." Man really is a great "piece of work."

How the birds of the air, the beasts of the field, and mankind came about I will not dispute here. Needless to say it would not be an unsupervised evolution. (See my post on Darwinism and evolution below.) According to Psalm 8 and the Bible as a whole the creation is sustained by One who claims to be the creator of all that is seen and unseen. In Star Trek every creature, no matter how powerful, is viewed as having evolved from something lesser to something greater. Even the Q. There is no one Being, one Mind, behind it all, who has always existed.

A tidbit about Picard's quote is that the text is a heavily disputed point in Shakespearean scholarship. The battles concern the punctuation, namely where to place the commas. Another rendering reads as so:

What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason,
how infinite in faculties, in form and moving,
how express and admirable in action, how like an angel in apprehension, how like a god!

(The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - Act II, Scene ii)

Now, this rendition does not necessarily moot Picard's point because he saw in Shakespeare's words something that confirmed what he already believed, namely that the human species would become "god-like." Hamlet asks "and yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust?," likely reflecting Genesis 3:19: "for you are dust, and to dust you shall return." Roddenberry, through Picard, declares that Hamlet's irony (and therefore Shakespeare) is wrong.

In this other clip Picard speaks his mind on rationalism and the supernatural. The Enterprise is in orbit over a plant home to the Mintakan people who are in the equivalent of the Bronze Age of cultural development. But one of them was trasported to the Enterprise, saw Picard, and now has begun to revive the previously abandoned beliefs of the Mintakans in an "Overseer." In this case, the Overseer is Picard.

There it is, straight from the horse's mouth. It does not get any clearer than that: to abandon a belief in the supernatural is considered an "achievement." To maintain it is to remain in "ignorance." We have to determine what the "supernatural being" wants because surely he/she/it is not going to reveal it. Again, the backdrop to all this is an unaided, uninhibited, unguided evolution. Reason is king and we will reason our way to a post-human age.

In his essay "What difference might Christian perspectives make?" in History and the Christian Historian, George Marsden addresses some of the inevitable conclusions and consequences of what he calls a "purely evolutionary theory" without the providential care of God.

"In purely evolutionary theory there is hardly a convincing basis for treating all person as equals or for special concerns for the weak and disadvantaged. Christian theism, on the other hand, can provide grounds for supporting moral intuitions that many academics find themselves having, despite a lack of any adequate intellectual basis. Without theism, in a world where all moral systems are seen simply as constructions of interested groups, it is diffiucult to see any way of defending the moral claims of one group verse those of another.

Ultimately, as Nietzsche long ago recognized and many postmoderns have reaffirmed, power becomes the only adequate arbiter of contested moral claims. According to Christianity, on the other hand, we should love our neighbors and even our enemeis, since we are all creatures of the same loving creator. Without such a principle, it is difficult to see how contemporary academics can defend such common beliefs as that all humans should be treated as sisters or brothers." (p. 19)

Marsden makes a point that I have been contemplating for some time. In many ways this overdose on Nietzsche's thought has affected academics. In a liberal democracy where there is the free exchange of ideas, arguments are meant to persuade, with merit found in the argument itself, that points to something beyond, a metaphysic. Instead, there is a tendency to focus on power, even brute strength, to get one's view across. Since there is no grounding in which to make arguments the winner goes to the one with the biggest microphone or the best right cross. Might makes right.

If our moral center is a result of standing on thousands of years of human wisdom, who or what determines which wisdom is correct? How do we know we didn't abandon better wisdom in the past? Who is to say that the Mintakans should not believe in an Overseer?  What is to keep my natural self-interest at bay? Why should I care for the poor, give to charity, work to make a better world? From whence does the "ought" come?

I briefly touched upon the question earlier, asking what happens to those in the Star Trek universe after death? Do previous generations get to witness this progression into "godhood"? The PC answer is "We don't know." But the answer according to the Star Trek Philosophy has to be a firm No. Death means you're gone.  Each individual plays a small part in that progress (as long as they buy into the philosophy), but, sorry Jack, you don't get to see the final trophy.  Sucks to be you.

In contrast the resurrection says that people can see the end result. All those who came before who are unknown are known by God. We forget. He does not. He is the God of the living. Humanity and history is progressing. It is progressing toward the total renewal of the human nature, not an escape from it. As Henry Van Til said in his book The Calvinistic Concept of Culture:

"History is not an endless cycle, a turning wheel, but an order of events involving progress to its God-appointed goal, namely, the realization of the kingdom of God." (p. 83)

Let the words of Paul sink into the soul: For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. -- 1 Corinthians 15:21-22

Everything sad is going to come untrue.