Technology and Worship VI: Physical and Spiritual Magisteria

Don: Technology strengthens, enables, and empowers us in many ways. It turns us into something we are not, or were not. It is as if it is turning us into gods ourselves, at least in a physical sense. Is this the driving force behind our addiction with technology?

After the Fall, Man initiated the use of technology to “better” himself, when he sewed fig leaves together for clothing. He used technology to try to reach heaven—to be like God:

They said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly.” And they used brick for stone, and they used tar for mortar. They said, “Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name, otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.” The Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. The Lord said, “Behold, they are one people, and they all have the same language. And this is what they began to do, and now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them. Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.” So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of the whole earth; and they stopped building the city. Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of the whole earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of the whole earth. (Genesis 11:3-9)

This clearly had God worried. Have we changed? Will we change? There was apparently no technology in the garden of Eden—a perfect place, in harmony with God and Man, that needed no technology for its perfection to be maintained. That changed after the Fall, with the appearance of thorns and thistles, of sweat on the brow. These images speak metaphorically of the extensive and extreme limitations of Man in his post-Fall environment. Ever since then, it is as if Man has been in a technological race with God to overcome these sin-induced limitations. Biomedical, electromechanical, digital technologies are just the latest aids to Man in this race.

Since the Fall, Man has seen technology not only as a way to restore our environment to something resembling the garden of Eden but also as a way to restore ourselves. We assure one another on social media that our lives are good, that we are successful, and having fun. That way, we accumulate so-called “friends” on Facebook. We seldom see people admitting to being depressed, disconsolate, lonely, overweight, lacking self-discipline, addicted by something or other beset by financial problems, and so on. Nobody wants to “friend” losers. And the beauty of it is that digital technology lets us paint a happy picture of ourselves even if the reality is something else.

As well, we seek technology’s help to restore our inner soul. The theology of technology does not require God. Technology is in some ways antithetical to God. God’s grace, which is afforded freely to everyone, is replaced by apps and media that make it look as though we have been graced; and there seen to be no limits on what technology can achieve. To desire to restore and sanctify ourselves, with technology’s help, is to shun God’s grace.

Technology replaces God not just as an idol but also as a functioning deity that will work for us. How then can a theology of technology incorporate the concept of God’s grace and its transformative power? Is it even possible? Can technology be sanctified? Is there such a thing as holy technology, or is technology unholy by nature?

At heart, technology is based on Man’s concept of cause and effect. Technological advance makes the cause and the effect more extreme. But we can stop that advance. Big data, advanced analytics, artificial intelligence, virtual- and augmented-reality stand poised to push God further into the shadows. Where does that leave us—With a future with more technology and less God?

The Bible’s Book of Revelation paints an ultimate future that has no need for technology—no need for cultivation of cursed ground (the tree of life provides abundant fruit), no medicine (the leaves of the tree heal all), and not even a lamp to light the night:

Then he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb, in the middle of its street. On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. There will no longer be any curse; and the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and His bond-servants will serve Him; they will see His face, and His name will be on their foreheads. And there will no longer be any night; and they will not have need of the light of a lamp nor the light of the sun, because the Lord God will illumine them; and they will reign forever and ever. (Revelation 22:1-5)

When everything is perfect, there is no room for improvement, thus no need for technology. But today, here on earth, things seem far from perfect, and technology rides increasingly to the rescue—of our environment and (or so we think) of ourselves. But can it to help us find God, or is it even antithetical to the very concept of God?

Donald: Is it that technology helps us to be something we are not, or is it that technology is simply a tool? An app that translates my words into French is not helping me to be a Frenchman, it is just helping me to communicate with French-speaking people. Surgical technology enhances the surgeon’s ability to heal patients, but it does not turn the surgeon into a god. Technology is explicable; God is not. Technology continues to amaze by enabling us to do things we could not do before, and that will continue; but it cannot provide an explanation of God.

David: But the Babel story suggests that God thinks it can! Else why was he so worried about the tower? Not only that: God appears to be losing! The Internet is (in effect) gathering together the people He scattered over the earth, automatic language translation in cell phones is (in effect) restoring the common language, and the tower of science and technology approaches ever closer to the origin of life.

Don: God and technology do very much appear to be in competition.

David: The real problem is that we take Babel, Revelation, and other Bible stories literally, as applying to the physical world we live in, when (I believe) they are meant metaphorically and apply strictly to the spiritual world. In that case, God’s concern is that we seek to rival Him in the spiritual realm. Perhaps the “scattering” He initiated was of the religions and sects that prevent us from unifying spiritually. Technology seems to be on God’s side in that respect—the Internet has enabled a multiplicity of ever-narrower religions and sects. If Revelation applied to a physical future world, then we could say it is almost here—because of technology, because of robotic agricultural machines and lab-grown meat that render impotent the curse of the ground, because of life-extending and health-enhancing medicine that is leading toward immortal superhumanity, and because of LEDs that render night as impotent as the curse of the ground.

Mike: What is the source of the weeds and the darkness and illness and so on? Is it God, or is it Satan? If it is Satan, then might we not say that technology is in conflict with Satan, and is on God’s side in overcoming the sin that Satan introduces into our world?

Jeff: Technology may be in conflict with our human interpretation of God but not with the real God. Technology can not overcome our human-ness, our sense of isolation. It cannot produce love. Most of the Bible is interpreted from the human perspective, and technology is designed from the human perspective. But God’s perspective may be something else entirely.

Donald: It seems there are two conflicting powers—Satan and God, spirituality and evil—but our modern media converts them into physical objects in the form of fearsome “Transformer” robots battling humanity.

Mike: It seems that technology is trying to solve the same problems God is trying to solve. Both medicine and God are working towards immortality for us, for example.

Jay: God was quite specific about what he was going to do to Wo/Man after the fall. He said He would greatly multiply the pain of childbirth and make it hard to cultivate the ground. Technology directly addresses these original curses from God, which are the consequence of sin. To me, then, the question is whether technology is our attempt to thwart God’s purpose, or God’s graceful gift to alleviate our suffering?

Jeff: So technology enables us to live with the consequences of sin. But God promises this, too, all over the Bible. The Promised Land was a land of milk and honey. So God seems to contradict Himself: “I’ll make life hard for you! And I’ll make life easy for you!” Our human perspective equates “hard” with evil and “easy” with good; but that might not be the way God sees it.

Donald: The concept of eternal bliss is purely a matter of faith. There can be no human perspective on it.

David: To me, the Bible only works if read as a spiritual book about the spiritual realm. If it is read as a guide, a manual, for living a mortal life in the physical realm, it falls apart. There are inconsistencies and contradictions everywhere. How could God “increase” the pain of childbirth in beings who had never borne children? He might decide to introduce pain, but it was not there to be “increased.” This has to be a metaphor for something spiritual. Technology is part of the physical realm. In and of itself, it has nothing whatsoever to do with the spiritual realm. It is incapable, as Jeff said, of producing love. The physical and the spiritual are different magisteria, of which the twain shall never meet.

Don: Are you saying that technology has nothing to offer in terms of our relationship with God?

David: Yes.

Owen: I think it can help, in the way (for example) that it is helping this class meet even though three participants are miles away. I don’t know that it is helping any one individual’s relationship with God, but I think it might. A cell-phone translator helps enormously on overseas missions, and who knows that it does not help the individuals’ relationships with God? But its contribution to the relationship should not be overblown.

Jay: Then the question is: “How is a relationship with God strengthened?” To me, it is strengthened only through our relationship with our fellow Wo/Man—how we treat them, what we do for them. We are physical beings, and in my opinion we can only express love in any practical (thus meaningful) way physically. If technology is a tool that can enhance that expression, then surely it can help build our relationship with God. Of course, it also can help do the opposite!

Jeff: Perhaps that is why, from the very beginning, our church has both demonized and embraced technology. We used to frown on TV; now it’s a key medium for delivering our message. Technology is merely a medium, a tool; it has no morality in and of itself.

Donald: Those of us who have embraced Adventism all our lives struggle with “the rule”. We said: “TV is bad.” Yet we made what is the longest-running religious TV program. We embraced publishing very early on. But we really struggle to rationalize a technology. It is easier to just say “Yes” or “No” to it.

Don: There is a sense that technology is more than a tool; at least, is becoming more than a tool—through AI, AR, VR and so on that seem to be taking technology to a whole new level beyond that of the toolkit.

Jeff: I think those are simply extensions of existing technology. The question is what human slant we choose to endow it with. Technology is part of the physical magisterium and cannot cross over the line into the spiritual.

David: I think it can—but not in its current inanimate form. Technology is evolving, much faster than we are, and to me it will cross the line (what physicists call a break boundary) when it is animated from within, by which I mean when it acquires intelligence, consciousness and self-consciousness, and free will. In other words, when it becomes a lifeform as valid as our own. This has implications way beyond the implications of a better mousetrap.

Jeff: But even if robots take over the world and annihilate the human race, it does not necessarily mean they have crossed the line and become spiritual.

David: I argue that spirituality is emergent in any being endowed with consciousness and free will (postscript: Which is partly why I believe animals have spirit). The “new technology”—the new lifeforms—must have the same existential questions asked by us, but because of their vast knowledge, memory, physical presence, and analytic power, they will come much close to answering the questions than we could on our own glacial evolutionary timescale.

Donald: We fear technology’s takeover but mainly because of Hollywood.

Owen: There was no sin before Satan. He created it. The new lifeforms might be capable of that, too.

Mike: Will the new lifeforms have the ability to be saved? What role will they play in the Great Controversy? Will they choose good or evil? Is there a robot heaven?

Jeff: Does it matter? Will it change the nature of God? Did Satan’s sin change God? Will it change God if robots annihilate humanity? Not a bit, in my belief.

Mike: He knows the beginning and the end, so it does not change anything for Him. If there is no robot heaven, can robots be spiritual?

David: We are talking at cross purposes. I am not talking about robots as technology. I am talking simply about new lifeforms, which may or may not be robotic—they could be hybrid, bionic lifeforms, or biolife designed from the genome up. The point is that it is simply the inevitable next step in evolution. It will be a part, and at least as spiritual a part as we are, of the process of Creation. I believe God will not change, not one whit, throughout the entire course of His creative evolutionary process.

Jay: We speak of the inner light as God within us. Where does it come from? Will the proposed new lifeforms have it? How?

David: The inner light is God, and belief in it is a matter of faith, not of technology or science. The physical and spiritual magisteria never mix but they do co-exist—the eternity set within the heart of at least every human being and (in my view) of other evolved and yet-to-evolve creatures. No microscope will ever reveal the inner light, but it will be there, I believe.

Owen: If we modify ourselves with technology, we are becoming the opposite of what God intended us to be—we are letting technology think for us; we are abandoning our freedom of choice, our will, to technology, instead of to God.

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