Technology intrudes on my life. It keeps me from being present. Compared to nature, it can feel impure and imposing. Technology invades my home and takes over my walls, my pocket, my wrist. Technology can feel like an intruder in the pure world God created. We’ve probably all felt this way. Technology can feel like something outside the pure world of nature invading and taking over the earth like a bunch of Daleks from Dr. Who.
Our smartphones, smart TVs, smartwatches, and smart-everything-elses can genuinely feel like intruders, but we need to step back and ask: where do they really come from? Tech critic Neil Postman articulated one view that we may resonate with at times:
“The best way to view technology is as a strange intruder, to remember that technology is not part of God’s plan but a product of human creativity and hubris.”
Technology, in this view, is man’s invention that we impose upon God’s pure creation. Postman goes on to argue that technology gives the impression that it is inevitable and has always been there. Technologies and inventions like the alphabet, books, and smartphones can come to a place where we see them as “gifts of nature, not as artifacts produced in a specific political and historical context.” In other words, technology becomes “mythic”.
Postman definitely makes an important point. Technologies are human inventions, and often behind them is the pride of man. No technology is merely neutral. All are formed in a context with certain priorities and tend to shape us in certain ways. However, can we say that technology isn’t part of God’s plan? Is technology merely a product of human pride? These questions get at this important issue: where does technology come from?
I think we must reject from the outset Postman’s statement that technology is not part of God’s plan. Such a statement betrays a kind of deism, not a biblical understanding God’s relation to the world. God did not create the world, hand the keys to humanity, and step out of the picture. The unified testimony of Scripture is clear: God in his providence remains involved in the world. Not even a bird can die apart from his will, and he knows and cares about the most mundane details of our lives (Matt 10:29-30). All technology must fit into his will in some way.
This raises the question: If technology fits into God’s plan, how does that actually work out? Tony Reinke in his book God, Technology, and the Christian Life points out two key biblical texts in Isaiah that help us wrestle with the question about the origin of technology and God’s relationship to it. A quick look at each of these texts will help us begin to drive at an answer to this important question.
The Farmer and His Tech: Isaiah 28:23-29
In Isaiah 28:23-29, Isaiah uses an illustration from the world of agriculture and farming as a parable about God’s judgment on Jerusalem. The main point is that though God is judging his people, the process is similar to how a farmer works his fields: his plowing and threshing isn’t forever, and it’s purpose is achieving the best crop possible.
Notice what God says about farmers and their techniques and technologies in verses 26 and 29:
The farmer knows just what to do, for God has given him understanding. . . . The LORD of Heaven’s Armies is a wonderful teacher, and he gives the farmer great wisdom. (Isaiah 28:26, 29, NLT)
The main point here within the metaphor Isaiah uses is that the farmer learns how to farm from God. The technology and methods he uses are taught to him by God. How? Through patterns in creation. The farmer discovers (through trial and error) how God has wired the world to work. He uses the patterns and elements of God’s creation to create techniques and technologies to produce better crops.
The farmer’s tech isn’t merely a human product outside of God’s plan. No, God teaches the farmer through how he has created the world. The Lord gives the farmer wisdom to make tech to further his goals. He is the Creator of this world, and he has wired it to work in a certain way with certain elements and within certain limits. The farmer makes tech to further his crop only according to the possibilities and patterns God has wired in his creation.
This applies to all forms of technology. All technology is simply discovering how the world works and using what God has already made to make something useful. Nobody makes anything out of nothing in a lab. They can only use what God has already made and shape it into something. Nothing is completely manmade. Everything goes back to God who made everything in creation.
This world was created by God, loaded with potential for technology. Technology is not an intruder on God’s creation; it arises from creation! Reinke writes,
“God taught us how to build rockets and planes like he taught the ancient farmer to grow crops. In every human discovery we find the Creator’s instruction. God is our tutor, and he ordains every link in the chain of technological revolution.” (102)
But what about technologies that are used for evil? Can we say that God teaches us how to build technologies that are used to destroy? That brings us to another text in Isaiah.
The Makers and Wielders of Weapons: Isaiah 54:16-17
In Isaiah 54, the Lord speaks of the future for his people, a future without fear, a future of peace and righteousness. Near the end of the chapter, the Lord declares that his people will not need to fear the makers and wielders of weapons who may rise against them:
“Behold, I have created the smith who blows the fire of coals and produces a weapon for its purpose. I have also created the ravager to destroy; no weapon that is fashioned against you shall succeed, and you shall refute every tongue that rises against you in judgment. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD and their vindication from me, declares the LORD.” (Isaiah 54:16-17)
The Lord is encouraging his people here: I’ve made both the blacksmith and the ravager, the one who fashions weapons and the one who wields weapons. They are under my control, God says, and they cannot hurt you apart from my will. The point is that God has power over those who make and use weapons, and, by extension, to all who make and use technology.
God has created both the makers of technology and those who use them. And this applies even to technologies that are used for evil, like weapons for unjust warfare. No technology is outside his control or his will. He created the makers and users. He is sovereign over them. No technology can thwart God’s purposes for his people.
As Reinke puts it in his book:
“In any discussion of technology, many Christians get hung up on the most powerful technologists in the world who are inventing the most threatening innovations on earth—nuclear power, killing weapons, space rockets, modified genetics—and assume that these men and women fall outside God’s governance. They don’t. Isaiah 54:16–17 shows us how God creates and governs the most powerful technologists.” (53)
Technology is no mere intruder. It not only stems from patterns and resources in God’s world, God also has a place for even the most destructive technologies in his perfect will. How that all works out is not ours to fully understand. But we know that God’s sovereignty over technology is ultimately for his glory and the good of his people. No innovation in tech will wipe out God’s people.
No technology is merely manmade or outside of God’s plan and purpose for history. Sure, some technologies can feel like “intruders” into our lives since they are subject to the curse of sin. Not all tech should be allowed a place in our lives! Often tech is not used for good. Yet, at the same time, no innovation is outside of God’s plan or will.
So, while we should have a healthy caution and intentionality about new (and some old) technologies, we can’t write them off as manmade products of human pride, as some inherently evil Babel enterprise. Even the Tower of Babel was within the sovereign will of God, and God used that situation to jumpstart the development of languages and cultures. No technology is simply neutral, yet all technologies, whether used for good or ill ultimately come from God and he is sovereign over them.
Technology may truly intrude into our lives at times. But technology is not alien to earth. All tech is earth-grown, derived from patterns in creation, and within the will of God. We must use it with wisdom for God’s glory and the good of those around us.
Theology and Technology 