From Human to Posthuman

Christian Theology and Technology in a Postmodern World

Brent Waters

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781317132219
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Technology is one of the dominant forces shaping the emerging postmodern world. Indeed the very fabric of daily life is dependent upon various information, communication, and transportation technologies. With anticipated advances in biotechnology, artificial intelligence, and robotics, that dependence will increase. Yet this growing dependence is accompanied with a deep ambivalence. For many technology symbolises the faith of the postmodern world, but it is an ambivalent faith encapsulating both our hopes and fears for the future. This book examines the religious foundations underlying this troubled faith in technology, as well as critically and constructively engaging particular technological developments from a theological perspective.

CHAPTER ONE

The Late Modern Landscape

The word ‘postmodern’ is invoked frequently by many contemporary intellectuals, but a precise definition proves elusive. A cottage industry has emerged to debate when (or if) postmodernity began, and when (or if) it has supplanted modernity. This lack of precision is admittedly frustrating, but the very ambiguity associated with this term captures the character of our present circumstances. There is a general perception that the beginning of the twenty-first century marks a time of significant cultural change, but little consensus regarding its causes and direction; no agreement over whether we are riding the crest of a new age or caught in the undertow of a receding one. Such semantic imprecision should not be surprising, however, for any attempt to place contemporary events within a larger flow of history is bound to be tentative and speculative.

Although I have no desire to enter the formal disputes over mapping the borders of postmodernity, I argue in this chapter that some inexact placement of the postmodern divide can be achieved by examining two overlapping cultural shifts. The first shift, beginning roughly in the seventeenth century and extending into the twenty-first with diminished momentum, corresponds with science displacing religion as the culturally dominant and formative force. The second shift, beginning roughly in the late nineteenth century and extending into the twenty-first with gathering momentum, corresponds with technology replacing science as the culturally dominant and formative influence. For the purpose of this inquiry, we may conveniently label the first transition as a shift from providence to progress, and the second as the shift from progress to process.

Some clarification of what is meant by the phrase culturally dominant and formative force is in order. Following H. Richard Niebuhr, culture is a general phenomenon that ‘comprises language, habits, ideas, beliefs, customs, social organization, inherited artifacts, technical processes, and values’ (Niebuhr, 1951, pp. 31–2). Although culture is not divorced from nature and in many respects is created to meet natural necessities, it nonetheless consists of activities that are undertaken to achieve uniquely human purposes (Gustafson, 1981, pp. 3–16). A lake, for instance, is natural while a reservoir is cultural; an angry scream is instinctual but cursing an enemy is a cultured act. Particular cultures, however, do not exist in historical vacuums. Consequently, a culture requires what may be described as an interpretive discourse, broadly conceived, that serves to preserve, reform and pass on traditions; order social and political institutions; and project future aspirations. In this respect, theology, science, or technology may serve as public types of discourse for achieving these interpretive purposes.

Two important aspects of these cultural forces need to be noted. First, the type of public discourse enjoying a privileged status changes over time. The interpretive needs and purposes of a culture do not remain static. An alternative mode of discourse may arise which more adequately meets these needs and purposes, thereby gaining an authoritative and formative status at the expense of the predecessor. Although the shift from one form of dominant cultural discourse to another may occur rapidly, the transition tends to be evolutionary rather than revolutionary, even though the cumulative effect may be dramatic (Basalla, 1988; Kuhn, 1970). A scientific culture, for instance, is markedly different to its earlier theological counterpart, but identifying the point in which the former supplanted the latter defies precise determination.

Second, the emergence of a new dominant and formative cultural force does not mean the old one is necessarily eradicated (Ferkiss, 1969, pp. 27–8). A once prevalent form of discourse may continue to be intelligible even though it no longer enjoys a privileged or authoritative status. Theologians, for example, continue to write books in a culture shaped by science even though theology is no longer regarded as a dominant cultural force. In addition, it is indicative that a cultural transition is under way when different types of discourse appeal extensively to what is perceived as the dominant form of public discourse. In the early seventeenth century, for example, scientists appealed frequently to theological doctrines to buttress the validity of their claims, while in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries theologians often appealed to science to support their arguments (Brooke, 1991). More tellingly for the purpose of this inquiry, technology was once portrayed by its most eager proponents as an applied science in order to enhance the reputation of lowly engineers and inventors. Now funding of ‘pure’ scientific research is increasingly justified by its potential to promote technological development.

With these clarifying notes in mind, we may now begin our exploration of the two cultural shifts that will help us place the postmodern divide.

From Providence to Progress

Question 27 of the Heidelberg Catechism asks: ‘What do you understand by the providence of God?’ To this the prescribed answer is: ‘The almighty and ever-present power of God whereby he still upholds, as it were by his own hand, heaven and earth together with all creatures, and rules in such a way that leaves and grass, rain and drought, fruitful and unfruitful years, food and drink, health and sickness, riches and poverty, and everything else, come to us not by chance but by his fatherly hand’ (Heidelberg Catechism, 1962, pp. 32–3). This brief answer confidently asserts that nothing occurs that is not in accordance with God’s will and purpose. The apparent vagaries of natural forces and daily life are not random events, but indications of a creation being governed by its creator. God is the sovereign Lord of nature and history.

The Catechism, however, is not content to merely assert God’s power, for the next question asks: ‘What advantage comes from acknowledging God’s creation and providence?’ The given answer is again terse: ‘We learn that we are to be patient in adversity, grateful in the midst of blessing, and to trust our faithful God and Father for the future, assured that no creature shall separate from his love, since all creatures are so completely in his hand that without his will they cannot even move’ (ibid., p. 34). The seemingly capricious series of events that humans routinely encounter is in fact a method of divine instruction. Through the unwieldy interplay of good and evil we learn the virtues of patience, gratitude and fidelity. It is only in retrospect, in God’s own good time, that we will discern the providential and orderly pattern of God’s redemptive plan. In the meantime we must remain satisfied with the assurance of God’s steadfast love.

It is striking that these sweeping claims are merely asserted instead of argued. There is no suggestion that nature could be studied and better understood in order to ameliorate human toil and misery; no hint that the justice of God’s dealings with humans might be probed, much less challenged. There is simply no effort to persuade the catechumen that the teachings are true. What is also striking to the contemporary reader is the seeming ease and credulity with which the doctrine of providence is asserted and presumably accepted. Yet it must be kept in mind that an instructional document is not meant to persuade, but to summarize what is already believed. Although the Heidelberg Catechism was published in 1563 to reconcile differences between Lutherans and Calvinists in the Palatinate, a long cultural heritage stood behind it though now expressed in a distinctly Protestant rather than Catholic dialect.

Augustine is arguably the most influential figure in shaping the principal strands of this heritage. In his City of God he offers an expansive account of God’s providential governance of creation. God has blessed humans with everything they need to survive and flourish. The utility of nature in general, and the human body in particular, have been ordered by the creator to achieve this very end. Through procreation, for example, humans perpetuate themselves from generation to generation (Augustine, 1984, pp. 1070–71). These divine gifts are not confined to the realm of natural necessity. More importantly, there are the blessings of intellect and ingenuity which make possible the formation of human culture. In effusive language Augustine describes wondrous achievements in such areas as agriculture, architecture, navigation, medicine, art and literature (ibid., pp. 1072–3). Human history has unfolded within the laws of God’s providence (ibid., p. 96), and history is itself an educational process teaching a culture about God’s enduring care (ibid., p. 392).

But it is a hard education. God’s providential care does not mean that humankind enjoys an earthly paradise, for evils originating in nature and culture conspire to form a ‘hell on earth’. According to Augustine, it is only Christ’s grace that can liberate individuals from this hell, because the source of evil is sin and not a flawed creation (ibid., p. 1068). Since God governs creation with justice, pain and misery is the fitting punishment for Adam’s fateful rebellion (ibid., p. 1073). The presence of suffering is a sign that God has not abandoned creation, but continues to be its sovereign Lord. Moreover, God’s justice is tempered by mercy. God’s goodness pervades creation, showering the world with innumerable blessings.

It is important to note, however, that these blessings are consolations, not rewards. Humans cannot use divine gifts to create a heaven on earth, but must wait for their relief and perfection in God’s own good time. A perfect peace is the promised destiny of the elect, but the way leading to this destination is circuitous (ibid., p. 1082). Invoking the Apostle Paul (Romans 11:33), Augustine reminds his readers that the ways of God are untraceable and inscrutable (Augustine, 1984, p. 896). The outlines of providence can be seen, but only vaguely as puzzling reflections in a mirror. The details of God’s providential care are mysterious and can never be known with certainty – at least this side of eternity. The perfect peace that awaits the believer is also a perfect rest; the rest of a perpetual Sabbath. It is in this rest that we shall at last embrace perfect virtue and desire, for it is only in the fullness of time that God’s blessings are given to reward rather than console. It is only from this vantage point that one can gaze back upon history and recognize the clear pattern of God’s governance (ibid., pp. 897–8).

Consequently, the end or telos of the elect is an eternal Sabbath rest. From this endpoint Augustine traces the providential history of creation back to its origin. It is a history comprising seven epochs, in which the present age is the sixth (ibid., p. 1091). It is in the impending seventh epoch that the faithful shall find true peace and rest, enjoying with God in their perfected state an eternal eighth day of creation. The destiny of creation is to share eternity with its creator, for as Augustine asks rhetorically, ‘what is our end but to reach that kingdom which has no end?’ (ibid., p. 1091)

This brief excursion into the City of God does not imply that Augustine was the only or even dominant voice forming an emerging Christian culture. His significance waxed and waned among subsequent generations of theologians. But the range and architecture of his thought cast a long and influential shadow over the developing theological, social and political thought of western Christendom (Brown, 1996, pp. 34–53). That influence remained so pronounced and enduring that he served as a convenient lightning rod for the Enlightenment’s assault against the church; to assail Augustine was synonymous with refuting a moribund Christianity (Rist, 1994, pp. 290–94). For what Augustine presented in his masterpiece was nothing less than a ‘positive and comprehensive philosophy of history, an interpretation of the entire human drama’ (Latourette, 1975, pp. 175–6). It was a drama whose beginning and end in God were certain, but the details of the providential storyline in between proved untraceable. Subsequent Catholic and Protestant editors refined and embellished the storyline, but the essentially Augustinian structure of the drama remained unaltered for over a millennium.

It is not surprising that the seemingly credulous teaching on providence could be merely asserted rather than argued in the Heidelberg Catechism. The terse answers were slogans reinforcing what a long theological and cultural tradition propounded, and what the students thereby already took for granted, namely, that although God was in control of the world and its fate, life in the meantime was tough and uncertain, inspiring a fitting response of faithful patience. What is remarkable is how rapidly following the Catechism’s publication its teaching on providence was greeted with mounting incredulity, prompting subsequent theological reformulations that would have appeared barely recognizable to its authors.

In the early eighteenth century, for example, Jonathan Edwards pondered the significance of a collapsing balcony in the Northampton church during the Sunday morning worship service.¹ Shortly after the sermon had begun the balcony crashed, covering the worshippers both sitting in and under it with shattered timbers and other heavy debris. Their rescuers feared the worst, expecting ‘to find many people dead, and dashed to pieces’ (Edwards, 1974, p. 345). To their astonishment, however, no one was killed, and although many were cut and bruised there were no broken bones or other serious injuries. Edwards is quick to attribute this good fortune to divine providence, but what is interesting to note is his detailed description of and conjecture on how the episode occurred. The building had been allowed to fall into disrepair since a new meeting house was currently under construction. The beams supporting the balcony were especially weak, and their decay had been exacerbated by a severe winter followed by an unusually warm spring. In short, the balcony was an accident waiting to happen. Yet it collapsed so quickly and in such a manner that the ‘motions of every piece of timber, and the precise place of safety where every one should sit, and fall, when none were in any capacity to care for their own preservation’ (Edwards, 1974, pp. 345–6). The event itself disclosed both God’s displeasure and protection, inspiring corresponding responses of humility and gratitude. In expounding the ‘miraculous’ nature of this providential act, Edwards did not appeal to divine intervention which suspended or violated the laws of nature. Why the balcony collapsed and why timber and bodies fell the way they did in avoiding death or injury were explicable in terms of what was known about the nature of decaying wood and the physics of moving objects. What was genuinely miraculous was that God had ordered a series of events to occur in such a way that the collapsing balcony would have the greatest effect upon the faithful of Northampton. Edwards used the best science of his day to explicate the doctrine of providence revealed in this particular incident, and it was an explication that would not have seemed foreign to his Protestant forbears.

This easy recognition, however, faded in the following century. Horace Bushnell, for example, chides phrenology (a respectable science in his day) for its vain attempt to locate the physical situation of various thoughts within the human brain that could then be subsequently mapped. Presumably this mapping would offer insight into the workings of the soul or psyche. Bushnell is confident that the effort will fail because only poetry can lead the way to a true and complete science of humankind (Bushnell, 1849, p. 73). What this curt dismissal reflects is not a keen ability to discern bad science, but hostility directed against science’s growing influence on theology. A turn toward science corrupts religious faith, because theology cannot be understood or expressed in scientific terms (ibid., pp. 93–4, 310–13). Doctrine expresses opinions (ibid., pp. 304–5), and the attempt to cloak them in the mantel of science only perpetuates the decline of Christianity (ibid., pp. 321–2). Bushnell, then, is not anti-science but is opposed to dogmatic theologians who turn to science in constructing their stultifying arguments. This is the case because religious faith in general and Christian faith in particular can only be understood through subjective experience, and this experience can only be expressed in poetic or artistic terms (ibid., pp. 203–4). It is dogma masquerading as, or distorted by, science that restricts this subjective encounter and expression. Consequently, Bushnell feels no need to invoke science in promulgating his doctrine of providence, because he simply has no use for any doctrine. Religion is a matter of the heart, not the head.

Bushnell’s dismissive attitude toward doctrine, however, is not entirely representative. Many theologians still believed that religion encompassed both head and heart. James McCosh, Bushnell’s contemporary, for instance, wrote a systematic treatise on the methods of divine government.² The purpose of his treatise was to portray providence and conscience respectively as the external and internal indications of God’s governance (McCosh, 1882, p. 16). McCosh asserts that anyone observing nature can and should conclude that it has been designed by a ‘higher intelligence’ (ibid., p. 3). Science confirms this observation, although revelation is needed to obtain a full knowledge of God; the external signs of providence must be combined with the internal witness of conscience. In explicating his doctrine of providence, McCosh spends a great deal of time discussing the intricacies of the latest scientific theories, especially in the areas of geology and biology. The purported purpose of his lengthy excursions into the realm of science is to confirm God’s orderly governance of the natural world, but the tone is defensive and apologetic. McCosh simultaneously tries to refute the atheistic and pantheistic implications of recent discoveries (ibid., pp. 207–13), while also making traditional Christian claims explicable in scientific terms. He employs Taylor’s words, for example, in insisting that ‘the great miracle of providence’ is ‘that no miracles are needed to accomplish its purposes’ (ibid., p. 178). McCosh’s account of providence reflects a great deal of scientific sophistication, but in the end God appears to be more a decorative ornament than a necessary governor. In turning to the conscience, the tone becomes less defensive and more confident, while the references to science are more cursory and oblique. Seemingly, even if science should call into question the evidence of God’s governance of the physical world, the province of the soul is a dependable bulwark for exhibiting the moral need for divine involvement in human life.

These succinct summaries may be used to plot an important trajectory that emerged in theological thinking following the promulgation of the Heidelberg Catechism. Edwards could confidently reassert the theological claims underlying the Catechism’s teaching on providence, and used science to explain God’s providential care. Presumably this enriched explanation reinforced the religious responses of humility and gratitude. For Bushnell, however, science impedes genuine religious impulses, because they are grounded in experience rather than rationality. Science is not so much bad as it is used badly by theologians to construct doctrines that ignore the experiential basis of faith. Theologians should concentrate on the spiritual dimensions of the human heart which can only be expressed in poetry and art, rather than attempting to explain God’s handiwork in rationalistic and scientific terms. Consequently, there is no reason to address whether science confirms or challenges the doctrine of providence, because there is no compelling reason to propound the doctrine in the first place. At first glance it appears that McCosh employs Edwards’s strategy in a more sophisticated manner. Yet, unlike Edwards, McCosh must first defend providence against objections raised by new scientific theories. More importantly, the resulting doctrinal account must be couched in categories that are scientifically intelligible. Although McCosh contends that the inward world of faith and morality mirrors that of the external world, and therefore both are subject to divine governance, the former is clearly more secure and superior to the latter. Thus he shares with Bushnell the belief that the heart is the premier source of faith through which God asserts his moral governance. Moreover, McCosh is confident that the workings of the human psyche will remain an opaque mystery, resisting any definitive inquiries that science might launch. More tellingly, his defensive tone intimates that science has already effectively displaced theology as the dominant form of public discourse.

How may we account for this trajectory plotted by these three Protestant theologians? In order to answer this question, we must return to the sixteenth century and the rise of modern science. A new breed of scientists was gaining greater knowledge about the details of nature and history that had remained impenetrable to theologians. A growing body of scientific knowledge not only enriched intellectual pursuits, but was also applied to improving the health and material well-being of the general population. It was not the human lot to endure misery and suffering to the extent presumed by earlier doctrines of providence. Nor was this transition the aftermath of a so-called paradigmatic revolution. Theology was not shaken simply in reaction to the sun replacing the earth as the center of the universe, but as the result of the increasing ability of science to explain the workings of nature and history which had previously seemed beyond comprehension. The idea of progress fuelled by scientific discovery emerged as a more captivating cultural icon than that offered by an inscrutable providence. An exhaustive examination of how science came to displace theology as the dominant intellectual force is beyond the scope of this chapter, but some revealing points can be noted for plotting the course of this shift.

The antecedents of modern science can be conveniently placed with the recovery of Aristotle in the great medieval universities. This recovery enabled natural philo...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Dedication
• Introduction
• 1 The Late Modern Landscape
• 2 A Postmodern World
• 3 Postmodern Technologies
• 4 Postmodern Theology
• 5 An Alternative Theological Framework
• 6 Remaining Creaturely
• Bibliography
• Index