> Dan Anderson Case #70 - Progress Theology and Philosophy

The devices and desires of our hearts

August 30, 2024

Dan Anderson

If there is a truth universally acknowledged in human life, it is probably not that a single man in possession of a fortune is in need of a wife. It is the human capacity for self-obsession which the Bible calls sin. Reinhold Niebuhr, a giant of 20^th century political philosophy, famously commented: ‘The doctrine of original sin is the only empirically verifiable doctrine of the Christian faith.’^[1] Here, perhaps, is a truth universally acknowledged.

And yet, the obviousness of sin is curiously one-sided. While our large and small moral failures are plain to each other and we even take relish in consuming them as entertainment, when we turn our attention on ourselves or our tribe, we find zillions of ways to re-describe sin: mistake, failure, weakness, illness, brokenness, disorder. Descriptions that, while true, often seem to domesticate sin and distance it from us. ‘I am a sinner’ is hardly a truth universally acknowledged. Even when said sincerely, it is rarely felt with all its weighty existential grief.

This spiritual blind spot is likely to make us miss the fact that the challenges and opportunities of living with technology are those that arise from living with ourselves—our basic human condition as sinners. In some ways the systematic study of technology is a particularly profitable lens through which to study the anatomy of human sinfulness. It’s the nature of technology to enhance human capabilities. And so, it also functions as a magnifying lens for human sinfulness. Much of our anxiety about technology comes from an inarticulate sense that on this territory we need to take special account of the effects of sin. Without a humble realism about our spiritual condition, we are likely to go astray, following our devices and the desires of our own hearts.

You might call this stance a ‘theological technological determinism’, meaning that, short of a fundamental change in human nature, there is an inevitable logic to technological advancement: the logic of sin. This is not the only thing to say about technology. There are so many ways in which human technological achievement is an abundant blessing and a source of wonder and joy.

Getting the balance of optimism and pessimism right takes skill and insight into the human condition. Interestingly, it means that theologians are good friends to have in your design team, because theology has useful things to say about the anatomy of human sinfulness that effective designers need to take into account.^[2]

Your theological design team might tell you something like this: an anatomy of human sinfulness starts with four elements—idolatry, lust, injustice, despair—all of which shape our technology. You’ll note that these are theological terms drawn from the Bible. This might make them a bit foreign if you’re not a regular visitor to the world of theology, but most of us appreciate technical language when we’re doing precise work. Let me give you a quick gloss for each one.

‘Idolatry’ is the propensity for human self-obsession in relation to God. We lean toward self-determined identities and goals rather than gifted ones. ‘Lust’ is the propensity for self-obsession in relation to each other. We lean toward self-gratification rather than love, and transactional relationships rather than gracious ones. ‘Injustice’ is the pattern of individual and social behaviour that flows from the first two propensities: all the inequalities of power, recognition, and resources that are inconsistent with the norms of mutual flourishing. ‘Despair’ is the loss of hope that there could be anything other or better than ourselves or our own efforts.^[3] Once you put on your theological frames, it’s not hard to see these realities of the human condition shaping our technology. Living well with technology as human sinners means acknowledging these realities about ourselves.

Once we have a realistic appreciation of the effect that sin will have on our technology, we have the capacity to design for systems that mitigate and recover from failure. You might call these things the theological design characteristics of realism, governance, and forgivingness. We need to be just as creative and thoughtful in these aspects of our technological design (or social, corporate, or political systems) as we are in identifying affordances, ensuring scalability, or effective marketing. If you want to be good at these things though, it starts with you. Sin is easy to see ‘out there’. It’s a truth universally acknowledged about others. Living well with technology requires us to acknowledge the painful, personal reality of sin. It starts with a confession.

In the Anglican Book of Common Prayer published in 1662 there is a line that goes: ‘we have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts’. The word ‘devices’ has changed its meaning in English over the ensuing centuries. This only gives the prayer a deeper resonance. I’ve followed my own shiny devices and let them express desires that are unworthy of who I’m called to be. What about you? How might mindful recognition of sin change the way you design and interact with tech? Consider becoming more mindful of this in your daily routine. Acknowledging this truth regularly is an ancient spiritual practice for a contemporary technological society.

Rev. Dr Daniel Anderson is the Director of the Lachlan Macquarie Institute, Australia.

^[1] Reinhold Niebuhr, Man’s Nature and His Communities: Essays on the Dynamics and Enigmas of Man’s Personal and Social Existence (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1965), p24. Quoted in Joseph E. Hartman, ‘Democracy and Sin: Doing Justice to Reinhold Niebuhr’. Academic Questions (National Association of Scholars) Vol. 28(3), 2015. Online here.

^[2] A successful historical example of this kind of design thinking occurred in the development of the separation of powers in political and corporate systems.

^[3] I’ve borrowed these four characteristics from the Lutheran theologian Robert Jensen, but the glosses are my own take. Robert Jensen, Systematic Theology Vol 2: The Works of God (Oxford University Press, 1999).