Being, making and imagining: Toward a practical theology of technology

Abstract

The title of this paper is intended to be reminiscent of a lecture given by Martin Heidegger in 1951, entitled ‘Building Dwelling Thinking’, in which he speculated on the role of architecture in society. Using his fourfold typology, I develop some consideration of how, similarly, theological reflections upon the relationships between ‘earth, sky, gods and mortals’ – or nature, transcendence, divinity and humanity – might enable new framings of what it means to be human in the context of advanced technological societies. I argue that one of the steps towards such a theological anthropology is the necessity of locating our humanity in the context of a web of relationships with the non-human, extending into realms of material culture and the natural order. This serves to remind us that neither human nature itself, nor humanity's engagement with non-human nature and material culture, can be reductive or solipsistic. This establishes an irreducible link between the material and the metaphysical, a reminder that human technological creativity entails not only practices of ‘making, building and becoming’ but the faculties of thinking and imagining – in other words, a capacity for transcendence. Human distinctiveness rests not only in our creative and technological abilities in building material worlds and artefacts, but in our unique propensity to build and inhabit those of the imagination as well: meaning, language, even religion.

Keywords:

• theology
• technologies
• imago Dei
• Martin Heidegger
• posthuman