The Tools that B(l)ind: Technology and Religion

Abstract

Technology is a new theology. Substantively, technology represents the culmination of human creation undergirded by reason, without reference to the supernatural. In that sense, technology is a kind of secular substitute for theology. Functionally, through its ubiquity and esoteric rules that govern our lives so comprehensively, technology echoes the binding nature of theology as a subset of religion (from religare, meaning ‘to rebind’). However, the binding nature of techno-secular theology produces biopolitical violence. In this article, I propose that recognition (‘re‑cognition’) of technology as techne, a tool to be used for good, rather than a religare, a binding, warrants a return to a theological framework to develop a more charitable community. This will facilitate the development and improvement of theology as a means of exploring mystery.

Artificial Intelligence and Theology: Looking for a Positive—but Not Uncritical—reception

“…The hermeneutic of suspicion has been the majority choice. Take for instance a very recent article by Alan Deagon “The Tools that B(l)ind: Technology as a New Theology” (2021). He claims that with the emergence of AI a new stage is reached in which technology plays a similar role to theology in former times, as a provider of meaning and salvation, inside a framework that suggests the malignant character of that process that is exploited by “biopolitics” as a mechanism of manipulation and dominance.…”