Human beings cannot live without a story. We need to believe that the events of our lives fit somewhere. We are desperate to know that the threads of joy and sorrow are being woven toward meaning. For most of history, that confidence was called providence. In this view, the world is a story still being told, and its Author is good.

Modern life keeps this structure but removes the storyteller. We speak of systems instead of purpose, of forces instead of will. What once was narrated as grace or judgment is now rendered as data. The old question – What is God doing? – has been replaced by another: What is happening? Yet both questions imply a need for meaning. We want to know that history is not random, and that someone, somewhere, is keeping the plot.

Sci-fi novels like Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series and Frank Herbert’s Dune series echo an older story.