Program / Course 22: Christian Ethics / Lesson 7.1
What you will learn
- Describe the main Christian attitudes toward technology: welcome, caution and critique.
- Explain how the doctrines of creation, fall, image of God and incarnation bear on technology.
- Identify questions that help judge a technology: its ends, its effects on persons and its effects on community.
- Compare Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant contributions and the main secular critics.
The big idea
Technology is the use of knowledge and tools to shape the world. Christians have generally held that human making is a good that reflects the creativity of God, and also that tools can be turned to pride, violence or the neglect of the neighbor. The Tower of Babel and the plowshares of Isaiah both appear in Scripture. A Christian framework asks what a technology is for, what it does to the persons and communities that use it, and who benefits and who bears the cost, without assuming that new always means better or that old always means safer.
Key terms
- Technology
- The tools, techniques and systems by which people extend their powers, from the plow and the printing press to the internet.
- Techne
- A Greek word for craft or skill, the root of the word technology.
- Instrumental view
- The view that technologies are neutral tools whose moral quality depends on how they are used.
- Technological determinism
- The view that technology drives history and society along a path that people cannot much alter.
- Technique
- A term used by the French Reformed thinker Jacques Ellul for the pursuit of efficiency in every area of life, which he thought threatened freedom.
- Transhumanism
- A movement that hopes to use technology to enhance human abilities and overcome limits such as aging and death.
- Formation
- The shaping of habits, desires and character by repeated practices. Tools form their users as well as serve them.
Background
The Bible’s first chapters show humans as makers. Cain’s descendants invent music and metalwork (Genesis 4:20-22), Noah builds an ark, and the builders of Babel attempt to make a name for themselves with a tower (Genesis 11). The tabernacle is made by skilled craftsmen, filled with the Spirit of God (Exodus 31:1-5). The prophets imagine swords turned into plowshares (Isaiah 2:4) and also condemn those who trust in chariots and idols made by hand (Isaiah 2:8; Psalm 115:4-8). Scripture thus presents human making as capable of both honor and rebellion.
Christian history shows both welcome and caution. Monasteries advanced agriculture, clocks, brewing and manuscript copying. The printing press spread the Bible, and Protestant reformers used it vigorously. The Industrial Revolution brought wealth and also factory conditions that prompted Christian reform movements and, in 1891, Rerum Novarum. In the twentieth century, nuclear weapons, mass media and biotechnology led theologians to ask more sharply about the power of technique. Today digital tools and artificial intelligence raise the questions again, as the next lessons discuss.
Step-by-step explanation
Step 1: Doctrines that frame the question
Creation teaches that the material world is good, so that working with matter is not a fall from the spiritual. Humans, made in God’s image, are called to develop creation, and many Christians see invention as a way of sharing in God’s creative work, a view stressed by Pope John Paul II in Laborem Exercens and by Protestant writers on the cultural mandate. The fall teaches that human abilities are distorted by pride, greed and violence, so that tools magnify both good and evil. The Tower of Babel stands for technological ambition that seeks self-glory.
The incarnation teaches that God took a body, so that the body and its limits are not to be despised. Some critics of enhancement technologies appeal to this, saying that human finitude is part of creation. The doctrine of redemption teaches that creation will be renewed, which some link with hope for healing technologies, and others warn against efforts to achieve by technique what only God promises. Finally, the commandment of love requires asking how technology affects neighbors, especially the poor.
Step 2: Neutral tools or formative powers
A common view holds that technologies are neutral: a knife can heal or kill. This is true in part. But many thinkers argue that technologies also shape habits and desires. Marshall McLuhan said that the medium shapes the message, and the Catholic philosopher Romano Guardini, in The End of the Modern World (1950), warned that technique tends to reorganize human life around its own logic. Jacques Ellul argued in The Technological Society (1954) that technique pursues efficiency in every domain and makes human beings servants of method. Neil Postman, an American critic, argued that new media change what a culture counts as knowledge. Albert Borgmann’s work on the device paradigm contrasts devices that give commodities easily with focal things and practices, like a family meal, that engage people.
These thinkers do not agree on all points, and some critics think they overstate the power of technology over people. But they raise a question that Christian formation also asks: what practices make people loving, patient and attentive, and what practices train distraction or impatience? The question applies to phones, medicine, farming and worship alike.
Step 3: Questions for judging a technology
Christian ethicists suggest practical questions. What good is this technology meant to serve, and is the good real? What does it do to the persons who use it: does it strengthen or weaken attention, love, truthfulness and self-control? What does it do to relationships and communities: does it bring people together or isolate them? Who profits and who bears the cost, especially the poor, the weak and future generations? Does it respect the dignity of persons, or treat them as data, resources or means? Does it preserve human responsibility, or let it fall into systems that no one answers for? And can it be limited, or does it make its own demands?
These are not simple tests, and answers vary. They are intended to prompt careful thought, in households, churches and public life. Some communities, such as the Amish, decide together which technologies to adopt based on their effect on the community, a practice that outsiders find strict but which shows a model of collective discernment.
Step 4: The traditions’ contributions
Catholic social teaching evaluates technology by the dignity of the person and the common good. Francis, in Laudato Si’, criticized a technocratic paradigm that treats the world as raw material, while praising the achievements of science and medicine. Orthodox theologians, including Metropolitan Kallistos Ware and Patriarch Bartholomew, speak of the human as priest of creation and warn that technology without humility harms creation and the person. Many Orthodox writers also highlight prayer and ascetic practice as a counterweight to distraction.
Protestant approaches vary. Some stress the cultural mandate and the goodness of invention, such as Reformed thinkers influenced by Kuyper. Others, following Ellul, stress the danger of technique. Evangelical writers have been active in the use of media for mission and are also now discussing digital habits. Secular thinkers, such as Hannah Arendt, Hans Jonas and Sherry Turkle, have raised comparable concerns about responsibility, the human condition and relationships with machines, and others are optimistic about the benefits of technology. The conversation is shared, and Christians have things to learn from it.
- What good is this technology meant to serve, and is it a real good?
- What habits does regular use of this technology form in a person?
- How does it affect families, churches and neighborhoods?
- Who gains and who loses, and who decides?
- Does it respect the dignity of persons or treat them as means?
- Could its use be limited, and what would that require?
Examples
The printing press
The press made Bibles and books cheap, spread the Reformation, and also spread propaganda and error. Luther praised it as a gift of God, and Catholic authorities used it too. The case shows that a technology can serve many ends and change a culture in ways its inventors did not foresee. (Historical summary.)
A family dinner
A family adopts a rule that phones stay off at the table. They find that conversation improves and that the rule is hard to keep. A priest or pastor might say this is an example of a practice that forms attention, and that it needs support from the whole household. (A constructed example.)
The Amish and the telephone
Many Amish communities allow a shared telephone in a shed away from the house, but not one in each home. The decision reflects concern that private phones might weaken face-to-face life. Others find the rule odd, yet it illustrates deliberate community decision about technology.
Different perspectives
Catholic
Catholic teaching values science and technology as expressions of human reason and creativity, which must serve the person and the common good. The church warns against a technocratic mindset and against uses that violate human dignity, such as in weapons or manipulation of embryos. Papal teaching from John Paul II to Francis speaks of the need for ethics to guide technique.
Orthodox
Orthodox theology emphasizes that creation is a gift and the human a priest, so technology should serve thanksgiving and not domination. The ascetic tradition offers practices of attention and restraint. Orthodox thinkers have been cautious about enhancement that would remake human nature, and about technologies that fragment community.
Protestant
Protestants range from enthusiastic embrace, as in the use of media for evangelism and the cultural mandate, to Ellul’s sharp critique. Reformed, Lutheran and evangelical thinkers have written on vocation and technology. Many recommend discernment, a Sabbath rest from devices and attention to the effects of tools on the church’s life.
Secular and scholarly
Philosophers of technology debate neutrality, determinism and the role of design. Some, such as Langdon Winner, argue that artifacts have politics. Others emphasize benefits, noting the reduction of disease and poverty through technology. Sociologists study the effects of social media and digital devices, with findings that are debated. These studies inform Christian reflection but do not replace it.
Why it matters
Every Christian lives with technology, from the printed Bible to the phone in a pocket, and each generation must decide how to use it. The framework in this lesson helps a person ask better questions than simply whether a tool is good or bad, and prepares for the specific issues of artificial intelligence that follow. It also shows that suspicion of technology and enthusiasm for it both have roots in the tradition.
Common misunderstandings
Misunderstanding: Christianity is opposed to technology and science.
Correction: The major traditions affirm science and technology as gifts of reason and have promoted them, as in medicine, universities and agriculture. They warn against misuse and idolatry, which is different from opposition.
Misunderstanding: Technology is morally neutral, so only the user matters.
Correction: Tools can be used well or badly, but they also shape habits, relationships and what is possible. The design and social setting of a tool carry moral weight.
Misunderstanding: Babel shows that all human achievement is sinful.
Correction: The story criticizes a project of self-glorification and uniformity. Elsewhere Scripture honors craft and skill. The text calls for humility, not abandoning building.
Misunderstanding: New technologies are always a threat to faith.
Correction: Christians have often used new tools well, such as the printing press, and also have sometimes been harmed by them. Each case needs discernment.
Knowledge check
How do creation and fall bear on technology?
Creation teaches that matter is good and that humans, made in God’s image, may develop the world with skill. The fall teaches that human power is distorted by pride and greed, so that tools magnify both good and evil. Together they support welcoming technology while asking careful questions about its use.
What is the difference between an instrumental and a formative view of technology?
The instrumental view says tools are neutral and only their use matters. The formative view holds that tools also shape habits, attention and relationships, so that regular use changes the user. Thinkers such as Ellul, Guardini and Postman defended forms of the formative view.
Give three questions a Christian might ask about a technology.
Examples are what good it is meant to serve, what habits it forms in its users, how it affects relationships and community, who benefits and who bears the costs, whether it respects human dignity and whether it can be limited. Any three are acceptable.
What does the Amish practice illustrate?
It illustrates a community deciding together which technologies to adopt, based on their effects on community life and faith. It does not prove their rules are right for others, but it shows that deliberate discernment about technology is possible.
Think it through
- What technology do you use most? What habits has it formed in you?
- Which of the framing doctrines, creation, fall, incarnation or redemption, seems most useful to you for thinking about technology?
- Would you adopt any rule for your household about technology? Why?
- How could a church help its members think about technology without just condemning it?
Independent assignment
Evaluating a tool
In your notebook, write 400 to 600 words. Choose one technology you use daily. Apply the questions from Step 3: its purpose, its effects on habits, relationships and the vulnerable, and its limits. Then state what a Catholic, an Orthodox and a Protestant source might say, using the lesson as a guide. End with one practical decision you will make about how you use it. Do not send this to anyone or post it anywhere.
Further study
- Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World Read for the Orthodox view of the world as a gift to be received with thanksgiving.
- Catholic Church, Catechism of the Catholic Church Read the passages on human work and on science and technology in the section on the seventh commandment.
- Benedict of Nursia, The Rule of St. Benedict Read chapter 48 on daily manual labor, as an example of ordered work.
- Thomas a Kempis, The Imitation of Christ Read selectively for warnings about distraction and the cultivation of inward attention.
- Genesis 11:4 The tower of Babel.
- Exodus 31:3 Bezalel filled with the Spirit for craftsmanship.
- Isaiah 2:4 Swords into plowshares.
- Psalm 115:4 Idols the work of men’s hands.