"The technium is not God; it is too small. It is not utopia. It is not even an entity. It is a becoming that is only a beginning. But it contains more goodness than anything else we know. The technium expands life's fundamental traits, and in so doing it expands life's fundamental goodness." - Kevin Kelly
"The Christian message cannot anticipate a future situation completely devoid of tragedy even if the demonic forces in the present situation be conquered. The authentic Christian message is never Utopian, whether through belief in progress or through faith in revolution." - Paul Tillich
MAKING THE WORLD MORE LIKE IT SHOULD BE
My view is not Christian triumphalism. I do not propose utopia. I am not naive to the struggle to make progress happen. It seems even on good days it is one step forward, one back.
Making progress is hard, and we do believe that God will complete this work someday. I think this leads many to give up, or ask "what is the point? God will do all the work for us.".
We can also ask the question "what is the point" about not sinning. In some sense, the more we sin, the more that God's grace flourishes and is on display. Paul directly address this in Romans 6:
"What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means!" - Romans 6:1
The same is true of actions in the material. Should we make the world worse so that when Christ remakes it - he gets more glory? Of course not.
It is difficult to think about working towards something our whole lives, our sin and the world, and not having the satisfaction of calling it "finished." We like to finish things, check things off. But that is not our call. Our call is higher than something check-off-able. When we try to finish what only God can, we attempt to immanentize the eschaton, we commit a heresy and usually cause a lot of pain and violence as a result. Just look at Marxism.
The Christian perspective is not that the end of history is achievable through human effort, it is that the call to the journey of the horizon of what's possible. Hope does not care about what is achievable. We work on theosis even though it is not achievable, we work in the world even though it is not achievable. We do not get to see the conclusion in this lifetime, yet we press on with the journey. We continue to seek the Kingdom.
"These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth." - Hebrews 11:13
It was said of Joseph, the man who buried Jesus' body that he was "looking for the Kingdom of God" (Luke 23:51) In the darkest moment in history, when it seemed that life itself was defeated, Joseph's faith in the horizon of what God is doing was steady.
“But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness” - Matthew 6:33
THE FIGHT AGAINST DEATH
One area where this tension arises frequently is in life extension- and is useful in analogy to understand the broad paradox of progress. As Christians, we believe that death is the enemy, that Jesus conquered death, and that in the renewed world to come - death will be done away with forever.
So how should we act now? Should we accept disease as "God's timing"? Or should we "rage rage against the dying of the light?"
If we could extend human life forever and fix genetic deformities in-utero, are we playing God? If we extend everyone's life by five very high quality years, are we also playing God?
Christians are not called to be utopic, our goal is not to finish it. It is to make progress. Everyone mourns the 5 year old child who dies of polio. We imagine all that could have been. The same is true for all of us. Through giving people longer and healthier lives, we increase their free-will and potential.
What is the Christian view of death? It is inescapable, but we can win ground against it. And we can hold that paradox because we hold it within ourselves in our own becoming. More broadly this is the Christian view of progress: We make people better through love and make the world better through technology. The poor will always be among us but we can win ground against it, and we should.
"For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." - Ephesians 2:10
TECHNOLOGICAL BECOMING
"Human Energy presents itself to our view as the term of a vast process in which the whole mass of the universe is involved. In us, the evolution of the world towards the spirit becomes conscious. From that moment, our perfection, our interest, our salvation as elements of creation can only be to press on with this evolution with all our strength. We cannot yet understand exactly where it will lead us, but it would be absurd for us to doubt that it will lead us towards some end of supreme value. From this there finally emerges in our twentieth century human consciousness, for the first time since the awakening of life on earth, the fundamental problem of Action. No longer, as in the past, for our small selves, for our small family, our small country; but for the salvation and the success of the universe, how must we, modern men, organize around us for the best, the maintenance, distribution and progress of human energy?" - Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: Building the Earth, “Human Energies” p. 67-68
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was a French idealist philosopher and Jesuit priest who trained as a paleontologist and geologist and took part in the discovery of the Peking Man. (Wikipedia)
Any theory of action should not ignore the importance of technology.
Technology is not just social media, or screen-time, or mobile phones. And technology is not a Faustian bargain where we trade our soul for entertainment.
We live in the substrate of technology and are adapted to it. We make technology, but technology also makes us. Humans invented cooking, but cooking as external digestion has also changed our bodies. We have invented sharp tools, and do not require sharp and strong claws.
We are inseparable from it. You can not remove technology from humanity. Even if you tried in the first week he would attempt to create a sharp instrument with which to dig. Technology is the number 0, it is the jar of clay.
God works in the world through humans, and humans work in the work through technology. In the same way that we practice the way of progress in ourselves, we practice the way of progress in the world through technology. We know that our task is not achievable, but it is good. We are co-creators.
"equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever." - Hebrews 13:21
Technology is in the direction of free-will. Technology enables people to have more choices, though it often doesn't mandate how to use that choice. Technology is good in that it enables man to achieve his or her highest potential. The cybernetician Heinz von Foerster called this the Ethical Imperative: "Always act so as to increase the number of choices."
“Technology can alleviate pain and suffering. It can create opportunity and access. Without technology we would be nothing, we would be dead. ‘How can technology make a person better?’ only in this way: by providing each person with chances. A chance to excel at the unique mixture of talents he or she was born with, a chance to encounter new ideas and new minds, a chance to be different from his or her parents, a chance to create something his or her own." - Kevin Kelly
What does technology represent? Humans fulfilling their mandate to fill the world and subdue it. It is the command from Genesis to arrange all atoms in useful and positive ways. Technology is how we unlock the potential in the material. It is hard to imagine us fulfilling the Biblical mandate without spade or shovel. Perhaps in the future we will think the same about fusion energy and AI.
In that way, technology is in the direction of "thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven."
We misunderstand technology. We villianize and scapegoat technology. When technology reveals the evil within us, when it reveals how weak we are: we blame it. It is easier than looking within. We otherize technology, and through doing so understand ourselves less. In the same way that the material is not the other, technology is not the other.
Each man and woman must respond to the call that God has placed on their life - and there is no higher or lower path, no space for comparison or rivalry. Yet those that create technology, who are drawn and perhaps called to it, bring a special thing. They bring a gift of opportunity.
If creating technology is in the direction of the universe, then it most certainly will be the call of some people's lives. If we believe that God is not inert, that he acts and inspires. Then we must also believe that God acts and inspires technology. For some of us, the answer to "why am I here?" is to create technology.
Will there be technology in heaven? Who can say? "They will build houses and dwell in them; they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit." (Isaiah 65:21) If we believe that the material is not going away, then it certainly seems so. In fact, it also won't end. Heaven is not the place where potential ends, but where it flourishes fully forever.
The Christian story is the opposite of the Greek myth of Prometheus. Prometheus is eternally tormented by the gods for giving fire to man. Zeus is scared of the rivalrous power of man. But the Christian God does not want to keep humanity down in the mud, He wants to raise them to the heavens.
"The day will come when, after harnessing space, the winds, the tides, and gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, we shall have discovered fire." - Pierre Teilhard De Chardin
What is the hope for humanity? The two infinite games of love and technology. The shared hope: the call to moreness, the revealing of potential, the flourishing of freedom and possibility.
Through creating technology, we as a civilization, increase the opportunity of others, and that is good. Technology is our greatest lever for human flourishing.
"The production of tools servers man's happiness: it glorifies man's infinite possibilities, it liberates him increasingly from merely mechanical functions, avoidable evils, and the power of nature over him, it makes life easier and longer for the masses of people." - Paul Tillich
Paul Tillich was a German-American Christian existentialist philosopher and Lutheran Protestant theologian who is widely regarded as one of the most influential theologians of the twentieth century. (Wikipedia)
"What Athens' heir - the technology of modernity - provides for the children of Jerusalem's covenant is the means for pursuing creativity. Technology provides the tools for world betterment, even self-improvement. Technology opens the possibilities of guided newness within the present creation, a newness that anticipates the still future creativity promised by Jerusalem's God" - Ted Peters
Ted Peters is an American Lutheran theologian and Professor of Systematic Theology at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary. In addition to his work as a theologian and educator, he is a prolific author and editor on Christian and Lutheran theology in the modern world. (Wikipedia)
Investing in science and technology is essential. It is an ethical imperative. Why are we here? To bring the future.
"Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer." - Romans 12:12
TECHNOLOGY AND EVIL
Generally the first objection to the idea that technology is bent towards good is to point out all the evil that comes from technology. Especially in the latter half of the 20th century, the gas chambers of Auschwitz and the atomic bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima remain close to our minds. Perhaps if the Cold War had not taken place, the disbelief in technology would have come into fashion much more quickly.
The endless debate, played out on bumper stickers and memes, is who kills people? Guns or people? The intention is in the person, it has been since Cain. The instrument is the lever. As is commonly pointed out in the gun control debate, mass violence using a knife is empirically harder than with a gun. Mass violence with universal access to nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons would certainly be worse.
"Does the ax raise itself above the person who swings it,
or the saw boast against the one who uses it?
As if a rod were to wield the person who lifts it up,
or a club brandish the one who is not wood!"
- Isaiah 10:15
It's too hard and would take too much time to flesh out each and every situation about where we should draw the line. It may vary by culture, by period of time, and definitely varies by personal preferences and upbringing.
The more interesting thought experiment is to ask: what are other powerful things that can be used for good or for evil and what does that teach us? I'd propose a much more powerful force than the sword is the pen. And specifically the book, and specifically one book: the Bible. When you think about the history of the world, can you point to any one object that has brought so much good? On the flip side, it has also been used in the name of much evil. Death counts are an ugly and crude way to measure scale, but for some scale: atomic fission in the atom bombs killed about 250,000 in WW2, the Holy Scriptures in the Crusades killed 1.7 million. (Let's avoid arguing about the death count from the Communist manifesto). Scientists and church leaders alike will tell you that those were a mis-application of that power. If the Bible can be used for evil, then certainly anything powerful can be used for evil. But is the Bible bent towards good? I hope you as a Christian believe so.
What should we do then with powerful things? How can we get the good out of them, the unveiling of potential and the maximization of potential and free will, without the harmful effects, the tendency for humans to use these things to exert domination and control and the removal of free will and potential over other humans?
For one, we do not outright ban them or outright give universal unlimited access to them. Which immediately plunges you into the grey area. You could regulate access to it and get it wrong, that's what the Catholic church did with the Scriptures for most of its history. You could regulate access and get it right, the banning of chemical and biological weapons in warfare has worked and hopefully will continue to work.
One thing to observe about regulation: by removing the downside you also generally remove the upside. In some cases, this is 10 to 1, sometimes 1 to 1, but other times 1 to 10, or 1 to 100. Sometimes we get these ratios right: we did not ban the Bible (in the West at least!) because it's good far outweighed its potential for bad. In other cases, I think we are getting it wrong: we have effectively banned nuclear energy development, removing the potential for meltdowns and figuring out the storage of waste, but also while likely giving up on the only good tool we have to have a cleaner and more prosperous world.
Wisdom. As much as we would like to escape its burden, we can not. But wisdom requires study, and study takes time. Do we have time anymore? The application of wisdom requires truthfulness on the side of the expert and trust on the side of everyone else. We have lost that too.
TECHNOLOGY AS THE END OF THE WORLD
It's popular today to predict the end of the world. In the 20th century it was the bomb, now we talk more about AI and climate change. Technological dystopia is magnetically attractive for some reason. We are intoxicated by the power of technology, yet we are horrified by what the access to that power enables us to do.
In serious conversations around the dinner tables of the smartest and wealthiest, grand speeches are given about the need to fix the "single point of failure" of humanity: to make humanity interplanetary and eventually interstellar. We want to spread humanity further, to increase its impact.
On the flip side, people question the ethics of child-bearing whether about the climate: "The planet is already overcrowded. Do you know the greenhouse emissions of a lifetime of human activity?" or AI: "Can I bring a child into a world of millions of autonomous lethal drones and terrorist cell developed superviruses?" Some want to make humanity smaller to decrease its impact.
Both sides seem to agree that doing what we are currently doing is insanity.
The Christian view is different. We take the hope, as Jesus says in Luke 21:9 "And when you hear of wars and tumults, do not be terrified, for these things must first take place, but the end will not be at once."
We do look to the stars. But not for the fear of losing this earth, but for the possibility of what lies out there. Can anything stop the plan of God to make the new heavens and the new earth? "Perfect love casts out all fear" - 1 John 4:18
We are not anti-human. On the contrary, we bring new life into this world to increase the potential of the universe through the love of others and the nurturing of their free will. Again, who can stop God? Technology can not derail his plan.
"He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again." - 2 Corinthians 1:10
TECHNOLOGY IN THE BIBLE
The Bible does not have a lot to say specifically about technology, at least directly. But we can make some observations. In this section I try to make observations without conclusions.
The very first mention of technology we have is in Genesis 3:21, where God creates clothes for naked Adam and Eve. "The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them."
One thing that this verse has going for it is that the very first time technology is mentioned, it is God inventing it and it is God using it for good. The downside of this verse is it frames technology as a response to the fall and not pre fall. How exactly Adam and Eve tended the Garden, we are not told. They certainly were asked to pour their creative intention into the Garden. And they did so without pain or hardship. So they certainly had access to some power, some strong lever to translate their intention into reality. Some scholars believe that Adam and Eve instructed angels what to do.
In the very next Chapter, Cain kills Abel. We are not told how. Did he use his hands? The jawbone of a donkey like Sampson? A spear? After God banishes Cain, we are told that he goes and builds a city. What is the link between murder and the founding of a city? It is not that the city is evil, it's that it wasn't possible before.
Cain has discovered the scapegoat mechanism that enables secular culture to effectively organize itself. A city would not be possible, it would quickly devolve into a self-destroying violent mob without it.
A group of people, even those living off of the scapegoat mechanism, yield fruit! Fairly quickly in the Biblical narrative you see the adoption of agriculture, music, and metalworking.
"Adah gave birth to Jabal; he was the father of those who live in tents and raise livestock. His brother’s name was Jubal; he was the father of all who play stringed instruments and pipes. Zillah also had a son, Tubal-Cain, who forged all kinds of tools out of bronze and iron." - Genesis 4:20-22
The first large-scale technological project in the Bible is in Genesis 6 with the creation of the Ark. This technology was God's invention, supernaturally put into the mind of Noah.
"So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. This is how you are to build it..." - Genesis 6:14-15
This technology was put in his mind to deliver him from evil. God did not use a “natural” solution: instructing Noah and his family to ascend to a high mountain, instead he gave them technology.
The first instance of a personal tool, clothing, and the first instance of a corporate tool, a ship - were directly from the mind of God.
The first personal of misuse of technology was likely in the murder of Abel, and the first corporate misuse was likely at the tower of Babel in Genesis 11. The tower starts with some basic research:
"They said to each other, ‘Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.’ They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar." - Genesis 11:3
But quickly turns into hubris and the desire to rival God:
"with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves" - Genesis 11:4
"The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them." - Genesis 11:6
It is not as though beautiful buildings are in some way intrinsically bad. Later in Scripture we see God invent the Tabernacle and invent his Temple: once again downloading the plans for exactly what he wants them to build.
And it's not as though speaking the same language is bad: at Pentecost He reintroduces tongues: a common language.
God had a plan for the world: that humans would disperse throughout, that they would embrace heterogeneity, and that they would worship Him. In this story the people are centralizing themselves, becoming all alike, and imitating each other. God, who knows the terrible runaway violence that can come through this cocktail, won't have it. He confuses their speech and disperses them.
When God is at the helm of technological development, He not only communicates the plans but also leads their hands.
"The Lord said to Moses, “See, I have called by name Bezalel the son of Uri, son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with ability and intelligence, with knowledge and all craftsmanship, to devise artistic designs, to work in gold, silver, and bronze, in cutting stones for setting, and in carving wood, to work in every craft." - Exodus 31:1-5
In 2 Chronicles, we read about the good King Uzziah, who is an inventor and philosopher-king:
"And all the people of Judah took Uzziah, who was sixteen years old, and made him king instead of his father Amaziah. ...And he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, according to all that his father Amaziah had done. ...He set himself to seek God in the days of Zechariah, who instructed him in the fear of God, and as long as he sought the Lord, God made him prosper… he built cities in the territory of Ashdod and elsewhere among the Philistines. ... Uzziah built towers in Jerusalem at the Corner Gate and at the Valley Gate and at the Angle, and fortified them. And he built towers in the wilderness and cut out many cisterns, for he had large herds, both in the Shephelah and in the plain, and he had farmers and vinedressers in the hills and in the fertile lands, for he loved the soil. ... And Uzziah prepared for all the army shields, spears, helmets, coats of mail, bows, and stones for slinging. In Jerusalem he made machines, invented by skillful men, to be on the towers and the corners, to shoot arrows and great stones. And his fame spread far, for he was marvelously helped, till he was strong."- Selections from 2 Chronicles 26:1-15
This is a beautiful story about a man of God who used his resources to build more abundance. But there is a warning in the next verse.
"But when he was strong, he grew proud, to his destruction. For he was unfaithful to the Lord his God and entered the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense" - 2 Chronicles 26:16
Through burning incense, Uzziah was at-best ignoring, at-worst usurping the tenuous balance of government and religion God had designed into Israel. God had designed the Levites to serve him, and the King to not be a Levite. Uzziah, like the builders at Babel, lost his humility.
If we lose God, we lose it all. Uzziah became a leper.
In the life of Jesus, we rightfully focus on his ministry in the last 3 years of his life. But we also can not forget that for most of his life he invented and crafted technology as a Teckton/builder.
TECHNOLOGY AND THE CHURCH
"Finally, then, in such a vision, the ultimate purpose of technology lies far beyond the horizon of what we have now imagined so far. Instead, from an eschatological perspective - no matter how far off a truly redeemed future might be or how slow and fragile is its dawning in our ordinary world - technology must ultimately serve as a means to express and help achieve this future, even if in a very rudimentary way." - Robert Russell
Robert Russell is founder and Director of the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences (CTNS). He is also the Ian G. Barbour Professor of Theology and Science in Residence at the Graduate Theological Union (GTU). He has written and edited a great deal on possible scientific mechanisms for the beliefs of Christianity. (Wikipedia)
One measure of the importance of something is how often it is talked about. And if you are a Christian, I'd like you to reflect on the last time that you've heard anything positive about technology from the pulpit. In fact it is in vogue to do exactly the opposite.
Beyond virtue signaling through giving a sermon summary of last weekend's NYTimes op-ed, pastors almost never speak about our responsibility as Christians to invent new technology. Jesus walked around healing people and making disciples, and we are content with hitting our goal for our new building capital campaign project.
Another measure of importance is where our resources flow. Where do tithes flow? They do not flow to creating technology. Sadly they rarely flow to those in the most immediate and dire needs either.
The Church: which is one of the best institutions ever created (by God himself!) is silent and absent in the creation of technology and in the progress of the world. The Churches: full of intelligent and hard-working parishioners, are told to care much more about organizing potlucks than organizing the development of technology. The Church: the best organization to look past profit and short term gain, the best organized to fund long and hard research: is inert.
Without works, what is faith? It's dead.
"Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God. You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone." - James 2:20-24
When everyone else is running away from difficult problems that may take decades, it is our job to run towards them. When everyone has their eyes on the next quarter, we have our eyes on eternity.
"The prophet has an admonition for us, namely, to invest our creativity in making actual today our vision of God's prophesied tomorrow where there will be no more war, no more crying or pain." - Ted Peters
We must walk the narrow path of putting our trust in God first and not our technology. Technology may have good in it, but nowhere near the goodness of God.
"Some trust in chariots and some in horses,
but we trust in the name of the Lord our God."
Psalm 20:7
The Christian view of technological progress is this: with the blessing of God work hard and long to arrange the atoms in the universe for human flourishing but do not try to end history or immanentize the eschaton.