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Technological application over nature may be legitimized if performed within a Christian
framework as opposed to a secular godless mindset.
29
As appealing as this position seems
it presents several problems.
First, the underlying notion is that technology may be used to reverse the effects
of the Fall. An inherently utopian idea first advocated by Sir Francis Bacon in Novum
Organum (Second Book 52). This idea certainly propelled modern utopian visions that
technology can usher in a Golden Age, such as Bacon's New Atlantis. This notion
idolizes technology even ascribing co-redemptive qualities with the work of Christ. There
is nothing inherently redemptive in technological development. Spiritual maturity and
greater moral responsibility do not accompany greater technological advance. This was
the profound mistake of the nineteenth century to assume that human responsibility will
necessarily keep peace with technological progress. At best we can argue that technology
mitigates some of the effects of the Fall at a physical level in providing for the necessities
of life in the harsh environment of nature. In addition, the cultural argument can only
apply to believers in Christ who do not control the direction of the modern technological
world.
Second, the cultural argument infers that technology was present in the Garden
along with the state and other institutions necessary for maintaining civilized society.
Their presence and necessity indicts humanity in sin and irresponsibility. The state and
the use of technology infer imperfection in the creation and belong strictly to a postfallen
world. There was no place for technology in the Garden because there was no need for
it.
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Lastly, modern technology cannot be used to glorify God. This assumes that God
has given humanity technology to accomplish his purposes as caretakers of the earth.
This strictly apriori argument refuses to acknowledge the results modern technology
brings or the genuine motivating factors in its development. Ellul pointed out that God
could not be glorified through modern technology because it has not contributed to the
development or care of nature but to its rape and exploitation. To argue that God wants
humanity to control nature through the current means that has lead to environmental
destruction seems blasphemous. How can God condone modern technological
development as a source for the enhancement of his creation when the same means are
employed that wreak havoc on it? If God is reflected in the creation (Psalm 19; Job; Rom.
1), then as nature disappears and the world becomes more urbanized, the modern
technological expansion responsible for this necessarily defaces the image of God in
nature. God reveals his glory in creation not technology.
Technology reflects the glory of
the city of man not the city of God and finds its impetus in greed and the will to power, to
the aggrandizement of mankind. Mysteries are pierced, without divine warrant, for the
increase of humanity not the glory of God that is the reality of the technological
29
Timothy J. Demy, "Theology and Technology: Reality and Hope for the Third Millennium" in Issues
2000: Evangelical Faith & Cultural Trends in the New Millennium ed. Mal Couch (Grand Rapids: Kregel,
1999), 31-52.
30
Jacques Ellul, "Technique and the Opening Chapters of Genesis" in Theology and Technology: Essays in
Christian Analysis and Exegesis Eds. Carl Mitcham and Jim Grote (Lanham: MD: University Press of
America, 1984), 123-137.