The Big Idea
Our relationship with Technology can be charted out according the key opening stories in Genesis.
The world around us is swimming in so much information and hot takes about technology. Especially with the rise AI, it can be hard to know. Is technology good? Bad? Neutral? What counts as technology? Is old technology better, or is new technology better? Is there even a “better” technology at all? How do we make sense of all of it?
It can feel a lot like drowning when technology moves faster than we can keep up. It doesn’t help that we often hear, or feel, the the nagging fear we might get left in the age of the dinosaurs.
While the exact forms or types of technology may be changing very fast around us, I believe that the core stories of Scripture hold the key to understanding a timeless framework for engaging technology. A framework that helps us think about technology as old as fig leaf clothes and as new as AI or Quantum computing.
Technology as a Good but Damaged Gift from God
Many discussions of technology place its origin somewhere outside of the human person. Be it a hammer, car, etc. This picture of technology thinks of it as any kind of external tool we can use to interact with and shape the environment around us.
Genesis 2:20 shows to first use of human tooling not as an external implement, but an internal naming. The very first work, or shaping of the world, man is invited to perform is the core work of categorization and language formation.
From this we can realize that all our inner technologies such as categorization, language, memory, logic, and storytelling are all deeply embedded tools that are formed within us simply as gifts from God.
By them we are able to think and shape our internal worlds as well as our external world. Afterall, it is only from our internal tooling that external technologies arise at all. Without the internal thought to action, no external tool will be beneficial.
Much more can be said about these most ancient technologies dwelling with in us. Especially how our ability to categorize accurately became corrupted when Adam and Eve stole knowledge of God’s categories of Good and Evil. Or how language was splintered by the idolatry of Babel’s tower.
Yet every internal tool we poses is only by the grace of God. However, none of them stand unmarred by the brokenness of our sinful natures.
Technology as Escape from Sin’s Curse
As we continue to walk through the opening chapters of Genesis, the first occurrence of any kind of external tool, or technology, comes immediately after Adam and Eve eat from the forbidden fruit: “they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths” - Gen 3:7
The very first external human innovation comes as a reaction to the new reality of sin. Much of the external technologies around us today (or even throughout history) come from this same survival reaction.
For a moment, think about the curses and compare them to the benefits of many technologies:
- In the curse to Eve, we often focus on the pain part of child bearing, but how many technologies have been built to manage and even control all layers of the child bearing process, or to ward off sickness, or other biological danger?
- In the curse to Adam the very ground becomes cursed and dangerous. How many technologies have been invented to manage farming and food (look in your kitchen), comfortable and safe living environments, reduce the need for physical labor, etc.?
In other words, every piece of technology tends to do things that help to ward off the effects of sin and its curse. Be that “remediation” of our own sin, protection from others’ sin, or survival of our dangerous environment. In a very real and tangible way, these tools all seek to undo some effect of sin’s curse without ever really dealing with the root of it.
Yet as ever, God is gracious and: “made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them” - Gen 3:21 The goodness of technology must always be connected with the graciousness of God. Through them God eases the burden of our sinful condition in ways we are not able to on our own.
Therefore, we should encounter and use our internal and external tooling within this tension. It is in the separation of technology from God that human pride begins to runs amok.
We can see this playing out in Genesis 4. This is the very first mention of humans using particular kinds of external technology (other than a needle and thread). We are introduced to the Tent Dwelling Shepherds, Musicians, and Metal workers. And all of them are the direct dependents of murderous Cain. Later generations inhabit these same roles positively, be they the famous Musical Shepherd King, or the Craftsmen of the Tabernacle, but the shadow of human brokenness bleeds through them all.
To summarize these opening considerations, technology is rightly understood along two vital axis:
- All technology both external (pluming, books, etc.) and internal (logic, memory, etc.) are gracious gifts from God to ease the suffering of sin and provide for our needs (Think 4th petition of the Lord’s Prayer).
- Technology is not neutral. It always originates and flows out of our internal tooling and is embedded as firmly as we are in a broken and sinful world. This is seen in the very necessity and design of our technologies being derived from the fallen state of our world. For example, the fact that we need the word of God written down is a testament to just how broken our memory really is.
The Artificial Mountain
With these two axis in mind, we can approach the next major narrative that illuminates humanities fraught relationship with technology: The Tower of Babel.
We start with axis 1 being broken. An internal (language) and an external (brick and mortar) technology are separated from connection to God and used for the pride of man.
The dream starts innocently enough, or so it seems. An idea is carried by language into a set of physical tooling: “‘Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.’ And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar.”- Gen 11: 3
Technology separated from God always leads to a false hope for human utopia: “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.” - Gen 11:4
to our ears sounds not that bad
mountains and high places where God is encountered and met
but they are making an artificial mountain the thing that holds them together is not the mountain of God or His dwelling but a human built center of gravity.
they want to make their own artificial mountain. ends up being their own artificial Eden coming about because of technology
Artificial mountain on the plain rather than a real mountain in a range.
The core technology that God disrupts is not the external on but the internal one: “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them - Gen 11:6
In breaking up the internal tooling the external tooling crumbles
A world gathered around one language and an artificial mountain is nothing short of humanity that has completely cut themselves off from God
Therefore it is little wonder that the dream for a techno-utopia is deeply set within human consciousness. Afterall, if technology can undo some effects of sin and brokenness, maybe it will get us the whole way back to the garden? mountain as the place where humans meet with God
Storehouses or Monuments?
Technology is not neutral but codifies and enshrines human decisions.
Use of human technologies makes different worlds possible and discourages others.
Internal technologies like memory, language and imagination are clear examples of this
These decisions accumulate over time and push the world in a particular direction
Joseph uses bricks to make storehouses to save people’s lives
another example of bricks in scripture. Pharaoh and his vast cities and monuments - Pharaoh using slave labor to employ the brick
⁃ Example of the loss of wells as gathering places but indoor plumbing being very convenient and allowing us to live in ways that are impossible without it
⁃ Example of the form of communication effecting what can be communicated. Early twitter clear example. Also emotions in text etc.
Putting Things into a Framework
⁃ Every technological has these common characteristics:
- It has requirements in order to be used.
- It requires particular rituals for humans to participate in their use.
- They bring with them world constrictions or things that are harder or impossible to do because of the way the technology works.
- They also bring unique virtue and vice potential for how they can be used well or poorly.
Example of memory
Example of a book
Example of AI