Without a doubt, my favourite TV show of all time is Doctor Who. I’m not shy about it, either: I even own a 12-foot scarf that I’ll don from time to time. At any rate, I’ve loved that show since I was a kid and first saw the TARDIS graced with the likes of Christopher Ecclestone and David Tennant. In my days as an atheist, I naturally interpreted the show as a humanistic project. To be fair, I don’t think I was wrong: no doubt some of the people who wrote or still write for it are atheists, or sceptics of religion in general. It was my conversion to Christianity that prompted me to reconsider my impression: is the show really as hostile to faith as I assumed?

Generally when people talk about Doctor Who in relation to Christianity, they are quick to point out many of the similarities between Jesus and the Doctor. The Doctor, in many of his adventures, fits the sacrificial saviour archetype that Jesus Christ nails to a “t”. I can think of numerous examples where the Doctor sacrifices himself to entire species. At the end of David Tennant’s run on the show, as the hellish-looking planet of Gallifrey is thrust towards Earth, the Doctor willingly opts to go “back into Hell” with Rassilon in order to save the human race from the existential horrors of the Time War. Of course, he survives, but not as the same Doctor he was. So it was with Christ when he appeared in his resurrected, glorified body to the apostles.

Strangely enough, there is also a comparison to be made in that both Jesus and the Doctor are spoke of in terms of incarnation. The Doctor, in each of his lives, is spoken of as being a certain “incarnation of the Doctor”. There is this sense, then, that the Doctor is transcendent of his human appearance, not totally unlike Christ, who is the Word made incarnate in the flesh. Of course, the Doctor is not incarnate in the same way as Jesus, who possessed more than the mere appearance of humanity, as it is in the Doctor’s case. Jesus is fully a human being. Not to mention, the Doctor’s self-sacrifice(s) do not offer the redemption of the human person in the way that Jesus sacrifice on the cross does. If, as Gregory of Nazianzus says, “what has not been assumed has not been healed,” then the Doctor heals nothing since he doesn’t assume a human nature beyond speech and appearance. That is to say, Jesus isn’t from Gallifrey, and the Doctor is not from Galilee. To compare them too deeply, therefore, is to commit a Christological heresy.

But what of these Christological comparisons? The far more interesting question is: what does Doctor Who make of faith? There’s been far too many writers over too many decades for that, but there is one episode (well, actually a two-part story) that I believe offers some unique insight. I’m speaking, of course, of The Impossible Planet and The Satan Pit, where the Doctor faces an adversary who claims that he’s the Devil. “Which one?” the Doctor asks. “All of them,” he gets in response. On the surface, this sounds like a kind of universalism, where every religion is basically saying the same thing; but while the Doctor considers that maybe this adversary is the man behind the myth (or myths, as it were), it is only when the Doctor has a conversation with Ida Scott that we get to hear more about what he really thinks. He says:

“It’s funny the things you make up—the ‘rules’. If that thing had said it had come from beyond the universe, I’d believe it. But before the universe? Impossible! Doesn’t fit my ‘rule’. Still, that’s why I keep travelling. To be proved wrong.”

The Doctor to Ida Scott

What’s impeccable about this line is its self-awareness and humility. Here, the Doctor demonstrates an awareness of what his assumptions are, and in doing so, he exemplifies the virtue of epistemic humility: he’s not saying that he is wrong but rather that he could be. In fact, it’s more than that: he is searching to be proved wrong. I’m reminded of Socrates, who is quoted in Plato’s Apology as saying, “What can he mean when he says that I am the wisest of men? … I reflected that if I could only find a man wiser than myself, then I might go to the god with a refutation in my hand.” Perhaps I’ll write up a comparison between Socrates and the Doctor at some point, but for now, suffice it to say that by encountering this creature, the Doctor seems to have encountered something that challenges his presuppositions, and rather than force his own explanation, he remains open to something beyond his ‘rule’.

I contend that this is because Doctor Who (at least at its best) doesn’t force any particular ideology: I wouldn’t impress Catholicism on it just as I don’t believe it’s right to impose atheism on it. Whatever the characters themselves may think, what is truly remarkable about Doctor Who is its potential to cultivate an appreciation for the mysteries and awesomeness of the universe. That is, I think, at the Doctor’s own heart, for as he himself says, “The day I know everything, I may as well stop.”