Technology
- Jun 30
- 5 min read
“…our concept of human rights would not—and could not—have come into existence without Christianity’s revolution of the concept of the human being….It’s difficult to measure the exact cultural effect of something of this magnitude. But one thing that’s very noticeable is the correlation of the new concept of human dignity with the sudden increase in technological development. Parallel to the weakening and transformation of slavery, Western culture developed an interest in technological means of labor-saving that wasn’t present in previous ages. The ancient Greeks are a good contrast. Centuries prior to Christ, they had actually invented steam engine technology, but at the time they considered it merely a curiosity. It seems that it didn’t occur to them to use it as a means of labor-saving, probably because their whole civilization was founded on a slave economy. Slaves had no time to develop such technology, and the leisure class (who did have the time) simply had no need for labor-saving—they had slaves to do mundane labor. But with the rise of the concept of universal human dignity, the Medieval era would see the pioneering of a huge variety of new inventions and technological advances across every sector of life.” (Dr. Zachary Porcu)
“Our whole drive in Western culture is to enshrine our wills–through more refined political programs and policies, through technology, and through the religions that can serve these aims–in a place of ultimate significance. Yet for all this emphasis on our freedom and self-determination, we are not necessarily becoming more “personal,” if by personal we mean something unique and deep. If anything, we have become less able to relate to other persons, which is the essential cornerstone of personal maturity.” (Timothy G. Patitsas)
“Despite, or because of, all the incredible technology our society has at its fingertips, human beings are becoming more and more isolated. Suicide, drug abuse, and depression continue to increase. To make up for our inability to love one another in totality, society elevates social causes to ease our consciences. [We] are losing the ability to actually love each other, even as they are heroically taking on huge social problems throughout the world.” (Jonathan Jackson)
“It is through the line of Cain that technology came to mankind (Gen. 4:16–22), knowledge that has traditionally been held to have come via demonic involvement.” (Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick)
“Technology has given us the ability to send emails to another continent with just a touch of a screen, to see the face of our interlocutor, even if we are thousands of kilometers apart, and to instantly receive news from anywhere in the world. Social media, messaging apps, and video calls have created a “hyper-connectivity” that our ancestors could only dream of. It would seem that the paradox of modernity should have been resolved by itself—the more ways we have to communicate, the less lonely we become. However, the reality is much more complex. Today, when humanity has everything needed to be together, more and more people are experiencing an oppressive, almost physically palpable loneliness. This is not just a light sadness that comes over you on a rainy evening, or a temporary melancholy that disappears after a phone call to a friend. It is a deep, existential feeling of being disconnected from the world, which sometimes persists even in a crowd. As a psychologist, I constantly encounter this state in my practice, and I have come to the conclusion that it can only be understood at the intersection of modern psychology and centuries-old spiritual traditions.” (Viktor Luzhkov)
“In pagan myth, this giving of secret knowledge is depicted in a positive light, such as with the Greek Prometheus giving fire or the Mesopotamian apkallu that gave antediluvian knowledge. But in the Christian tradition, such knowledge comes via demons (e.g., Gen. 3, or in St. Irenaeus’s On the Apostolic Preaching, 18). Technology is not inherently demonic, but demons gave it to humans before they were ready for it, leading to their destruction.” (Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick)
“But, having also spent a good few wakeful night hours recently with late pregnancy, I was swiftly struck to realize how difficult it had become for me to allow that wild and holy inmost voice to come alive in me because there is always the temptation to another: the voice of my phone. I’ve been waking very early these days, my body so uncomfortable that it forces my mind from sleep into the grainy blue light of dawn. The impulse to check my phone, to use that screen to medicate the angst and annoyance I feel, or the fear that creeps upon me, is strong. Sometimes I wonder if Satan’s greatest and latest scheme to take the world is simply to remove us from any numinous moment. From the thin places and liminal moments when eternity draws near, when quiet heightens the senses of our hearts so that we reach, expectantly, for God. What if in that way, we were removed from any experience of sublimity? Any moment in which we come up against something undeniably good and blessedly greater than ourselves? What if Satan didn’t have to destroy beauty or attack God’s loveliness shining in the world so much as make us incapable of seeing it? And what if the very thing that stole those moments from us also immersed us in the endless updates of a broken, violent world, disaster on an endless loop so that our primary experience of existence is an incessant exposure to despair?” (Sarah Clarkson)
“It’s in light of our daily lives that I repeatedly suggest that there is no such thing as progress. The landscape changes. The advance in technology now enables me to sit on hold for an hour, waiting for a human voice, while holding enormously sophisticated (and expensive) device in my palm. It does not change the boredom of that hour, bring meaning to my existence, nor make the world a better place. Nor should we mistake technological “progress” with the Kingdom of God. If the few social successes (end of slavery, etc.) of the past few centuries constitute moments in the Kingdom of God, then I am severely disappointed.” (Father Stephen Freeman)
“… our lives are increasingly parasitized by technology. This technology, such as our computers, smartphones, and other appliances, force us to constantly ‘check’ everything. They prey on the most passionate parts of our nature…Our perception of time and our place in the world is completely flattened out. The teleological view of history that our forefathers relied on is more difficult to hold on to, and instead we become trapped in loops where our culture is nostalgic for visions of the future that never occurred. Genuine originality in art and culture is lost, and consequently self-expression is rendered phony, being nothing more than simulacra of ideas and periods we have attached our identity to, rather than genuinely entering into the mindset of a particular way of life…‘cyber-depression’ is simply a corollary of modern life, as well as something for which we bear collective responsibility, rather than something attributable to the brain chemistry of the individuals who suffer mentally.” (Priest Alban Illingworth)
“What good are culture and science and technological advancements without faith in the resurrection? Yet even that is not enough, because the demons themselves believe in it. We must go further and confess Christ’s resurrection with a pure heart. We must commune intensely with it, every day of our life.” (Michel Quenot)
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