Arthur C. Clarke makes God "work"

(A point of order: Since I'm Catholic, my posts argue on the nature of God in science fiction. You could easily add your beliefs in substitute and the results would likely be the same.)

After my last post on how God seemed like a niche player at best in Star Trek, I immediately recalled two short stories, both written by Arthur C. Clarke, that co-starred the nature of God as part of a significant story element in two wonderful SF tales I'd read years ago.

The first, "The Nine Billion Names of God", tells the story of Tibetan monks who have a computer constructed to print out the many, many names of God, with, shall we say, interesting results. The second, "The Star", involves a Jesuit priest who suffers in his faith after he returns from a historic space mission that found a destroyed ancient civilization, killed off by their star going supernova.

Both stories totally avoid the deus ex machina problem that the supposedly-omnipotent and omniscient "Q" brought to episodes Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Voyager. In these stories, God has actually acted, but in a way we as people are used to: behind the scenes or after the fact, where our minds have to question, interpret, even fear.

Both stories illustrate a way to add God to a fictional universe as a potent force, without dogma or fire and brimstone.