Lesson 12
The Search for Meaning in Science & Technology
I. The Religion of Science & Technology
A. Are the Bible and Science in conflict?
1. Religion and science are in conflict in so far as one or
the other makes unjustified claims.
2. Science is unjustified when it argues:
a) The scientific method is the only reliable path to
knowledge.
b) Matter is the fundamental reality in the universe.
3. That science is limited to studying what can be observed
in unquestioned. The problem arises when the limitations on
science are taken to be limitations on reality.
a) To be “scientific” we are told that one must study the
world as if God does not exist.
4. Science is not opposed to God, but many scientists are.
Consider the words of P. W. Atkins in “The Limitless Power
of Science”:
a) “Scientists, with their implicit trust in reductionism,
are privileged to be at the summit of knowledge, and to see
further into truth than any of their contemporaries. They
are busy in the public domain, where truth can be tested by
shared experience, where truth supervenes international
boundaries and cultures. Scientists liberate truth from
prejudice, and through their work lend wings to society's
aspirations. While poetry titillates and theology
obfuscates, science liberates.”
5. According to Atkins, science can or will in time be able
to solve all problems:
a) “Science has never encountered a barrier that it has not
surmounted or that we can at least reasonably suppose it
has power to surmount and will in due course be equipped to
do so.”
6. Atkins has nothing good to say about religion:
a) “Theologians, incidentally, have contributed nothing.
They have invented a world and language of their own, like
some mathematicians, but unlike many mathematicians have
sought to impose their percepts and precepts on this world.
In doing so, they have contaminated truth, and wasted the
time of those who wish to understand this world. Scientists
have had and are continuing to have to scrape away the
[debris] of religious obfuscation before they can begin
their own education.”
B. Technology and Religion
1. Charles Babbage, whose Calculating Engine is generally
considered to be the predecessor of the modern computer,
used his device to demonstrate the truth of miracles and
the probability of the resurrection.
2. It was not until Gutenberg invented his printing press
that the Bible could become widespread and accessible to
the general public.
3. Today, the Internet is a very powerful tool for
evangelism. People all over the world will be able to read
this lesson (or any other lesson that we might post) within
hours of its completion.
C. Are Science and Technology Separate from Religion?
1. First, how is technology different from science?
a) “Technology is the application of scientific findings
and other principles of how things work in the natural
world with the purpose of controlling things to achieve a
purpose.”
2. Neil Postman wrote a book entitled Technopoly: The
Surrender of Culture to Technology, in which he stated:
a) “Technopoly is a state of culture. It is also a state of
mind. It consists in the deification of technology, which
means that the culture seeks its authorization in
technology, finds its satisfactions in technology, and
takes its orders from technology.”
3. Postman argues that technology is both a friend and an
enemy:
a) “First, technology is a friend. It makes life easier,
cleaner, and longer. Can anyone ask more of a friend?
Second, because of its lengthy, intimate, and inevitable
relationship with culture, technology does not invite a
close examination of its own consequences. It is the kind
of friend that asks for trust and obedience, which most
people are inclined to give because its gifts are truly
bountiful. But, of course, there is a dark side to this
friend. Its gifts are not without a heavy cost. … It
creates a culture without a moral foundation. It undermines
certain mental processes and social relations that make
human life worth living. Technology, in sum, is both friend
and enemy.”
4. Stephen Monsma, in his book Responsible Technology,
defines “Technicism,” which he argues is a religion:
a) “The powerful line of secularization present in modern
Western culture has as its reigning characteristic the
belief in human autonomy and power. Humankind has put
itself at the center of all things and declares that it
will find progress and life-its own salvation-by taking its
destiny into its hands and bending history to its will. …
According to the secular view, God is dead, and his
normative principles are a forgotten vestige of the past.
We now must make our own way in this world, guided by
reason and empowered by science and technology. This drive
for human autonomy and mastery apart from God and his will
manifests itself in technology in what we will call
technicism. Technicism reduces all things to the
technological; it sees technology as the solution to all
human problems and needs. … Technicism says that humankind
can use its hands and minds – its technology – to build a
kingdom of plenty, ease, and peace.
5. Postman also speaks of a religious aspect to technology:
a) “In Technopoly, all experts are invested with the
charisma of priestliness. Some of our priest-experts are
called psychiatrists, some psychologists, some
sociologists, some statisticians. The god they serve does
not speak of righteousness or goodness or mercy or grace.
Their god speaks of efficiency, precision, objectivity. And
that is why such concepts of sin and evil disappear in
Technopoly. They come from a moral universe that is
irrelevant to the theology of expertise. And so the priests
of Technopoly call sin ‘social deviance,’ which is a
statistical concept, and they call evil ‘psychopathology,’
which is a medical concept. Sin and evil disappear because
they cannot be measured and objectified, and therefore
cannot be dealt with by experts.”
6. Postman argues that technology is a god:
a) “in the sense that people believe technology works, that
they rely on it, that it makes promises, that they are
bereft when denied access to it, that they are delighted
when they are in its presence, that for most people it
works in mysterious ways, that they condemn people who
speak against it, that they stand in awe of it, and that …
they will alter their lifestyles, their schedules, their
habits, and their relationships to accommodate it.”
7. As for God, Postman argues that the computer has become
our new source of authority. He writes:
a) “I am constantly amazed at how obediently people accept
explanations that begin with the words ‘The computer
shows…’ or ‘The computer has determined…’. It is the
equivalent of the sentence ‘It is God’s will’ and the
effect is roughly the same.”
II. The Internet: Man’s Quest for Meaning
A. God & the Internet Appear to Have Much in Common
1. When we refer to God we use a capital “G.” We refer to
the Internet in the same way.
2. God is everywhere. So apparently is the Internet.
3. God is all knowing. So apparently is the Internet.
4. God is a spirit. So apparently is the Internet.
5. We turn to God when things go wrong. We turn to the
Internet when things go wrong.
6. God is the final authority. So apparently is the
Internet.
B. Modern Man Has Confused Information with Wisdom
1. “We live in a world where there is more and more
information and less and less meaning.”
a) What is lacking is wisdom, which is what we use to “rank
the significance and meaning of what we know, discern what
we need to know, and decide how to put what we know into
action responsibly.”
b) Proverbs 1:7 – The fear of the Lord is the beginning of
wisdom.
2. Postman argues that Technopoly flourishes wherever
people:
a) “believe that information is an unmixed blessing, which
through its continued and uncontrolled production and
dissemination offers increased freedom, creativity, and
peace of mind… Technopoly flourishes when the defenses
against information break down.”
3. Another author writes:
a) “For the literate mind prior to the advent of computers,
the central problem of human knowledge had to do, not with
finding one's way through a forest of information, but with
achieving genuine insight, usually expressed in terms of
vertical movement.”
4. Our society has a very bad case of truth decay!
C. Can Man Create Life?
1. Will “artificial intelligence” lead to a new “life
form”?
2. Rudy Rucker: “The manifest destiny of mankind is to pass
the torch of life and intelligence on to the computer.”
III. Evolution: Man’s Quest for Meaninglessness
A. The High Priesthood and Dogma of Evolution
1. Darwin’s impact on the world is hard to understate. One
leading evolutionist described it as follows:
a) “By coupling undirected, purposeless variation to the
blind, uncaring process of natural selection, Darwin made
theological or spiritual explanations of the life processes
superfluous. Together with Marx’s materialistic theory of
history and society and Freud’s attribution of human
behavior to influences over which we have little control,
Darwin’s theory of evolution was a crucial plank in the
platform of mechanism and materialism … that has since been
the stage of most Western thought.” [Douglas Futuyma]
b) Julian Huxley said that evolution was “the most powerful
and most comprehensive idea that has ever arisen on earth.”
c) Richard Dawkins wrote that evolution “made it possible
to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.”
d) Ray Kurzweil in The Age of Spiritual Machines writes
“Let us praise evolution.”
2. Evolution is not just a scientific theory.
a) It is a grand, unifying materialistic philosophy that
functions as a religion.
b) One author has written:
(1) “Evolution is a general postulate to which all
theories, all hypotheses, all systems must henceforth bow
and which they must satisfy in order to be thinkable and
true. Evolution is a light which illuminates all facts, a
trajectory which all lines of thought must follow.”
[Catholic priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin]
c) Philip Johnson argues that evolution is the “key
philosophical concept that has allowed the atheists and
agnostics to dominate the whole intellectual world and
government world” leading to the complete marginalization
of theism in these realms.
3. Evolution is far from value free.
a) Evolution is based on naturalism, which says that nature
is all that there is.
b) Any morality based on a naturalistic worldview will be
based on one of two paths:
(1) Socialist morality, which starts with the needs of
society.
(2) Individual morality, which starts with the needs of the
individual.
c) Edward Wilson wrote:
(1) “If religion … can be systematically explained and
analyzed as a product of the brain’s evolution, its power
as an external source of morality will be gone forever.”
d) Evolution is a search for meaningless!
(1) It is a search for freedom from God.
B. The Beginning of Wisdom is the Denial of God
1. The Bible tells us that the beginning of wisdom is the
fear of God.
2. The modern world tells us that the beginning of wisdom
is the denial of God.
a) Modern man accepts evolution because they cannot accept
the alternative – divine creation.
b) The reason that evolution is taught as a fact is not
because of the evidence for it, but because of the need for
it. There is no acceptable alternative.
c) Yet the chances of spontaneous generation and the
resulting mutations that could produce man are so remote,
the evolutionist could teach Christians a few things about
faith!
IV. Genetics: Man’s Desire for Permanence
A. Oh Death! Where is Thy Sting?
1. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 15:26 that the last enemy
that Christ will destroy is death.
2. Science makes the same claim and it has death in its
sights.
a) The sting of death has so far been one sting that
science has been unable to alleviate – but they are working
on it!
3. Cloning is the process of creating an embryo from the
DNA of a single animal. If carried to term, the embryo
develops into an exact genetic double of that animal.
a) PRESIDENT CLINTON: “Each human life is unique, born of a
miracle that reaches beyond laboratory science. I believe
we must respect this profound gift and resist the
temptation to replicate ourselves.”
4. At www.humancloning.org we read that human cloning will
permit man:
a) To take a step towards immortality - Human cloning
essentially means taking a human being's DNA and reversing
its age back to zero. Dr. Richard Seed, one of cloning’s
leading proponents, hopes that cloning will help us
understand how to reverse DNA back to age 20 or whatever
age we want to be. Cloning would be a step towards a
fountain of youth.
b) To be a better parent - Human cloning can improve the
parent-child relationship. Raising a clone would be like
having a child with an instruction manual. You would have a
head start on the needs and talents of your child. We are
not saying that a clone would be a carbon copy with no
individuality. Our talents and desires are genetic,
developmental, and environmental. We would have a head
start on understanding the genetic component of a cloned
child.
c) To Live on through a later-born twin - Some childless
people feel that by being cloned by their later-born twin
would help them or their DNA to live on in the same sense
that people who have children live on.
5. Richard Seed, who has announced his intentions to clone
humans within the next few years, believes that human
cloning is a moral imperative – something that will bring
humankind closer to God.
a) “God made man in his own image. God intended for man to
become one with God. Cloning and the reprogramming of DNA
is the first serious step in becoming one with God.”
B. Are There Any Limits?
1. Are there any limits to what man will do with the power
of genetic engineering?
a) Where would such limits come from?
b) If history has taught us anything, it is that man will
do what man can do.
(1) Designer children? That will happen.
(2) Human cloning? That will happen.
(3) Creation of new species? That will happen.
(4) Whatever you can think of and more will happen.
2. Man has thrown open the toy box after having pushed God
out of the playroom.
a) As one commentator noted: “Human cloning will occur even
if the government is against it, even if scientists are
against it, even if ethicists are against it, if there are
people willing to pay money.”
3. ASIDE: Genesis 6:1-4 is a strange passage, but it tells
us what caused God to destroy the world with a flood.
a) “Now it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the
face of the earth, and daughters were born to them, 2 that
the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were
beautiful; and they took wives for themselves of all whom
they chose. 3 And the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not
strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh; yet his
days shall be one hundred and twenty years.” 4 There were
giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when
the sons of God came in to the daughters of men and they
bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were
of old, men of renown.”
b) What was happening there in verses 2 and 4?
(1) Who knows, but perhaps this strange passage tells us
God’s solution when genetic experimentation gets out of
hand.
V. Space Travel: Man’s Desire for Transcendence
A. Man Has a Desire to Leave This World
1. God has put eternity into the heart of man, and that
(apart from all other creatures) makes man restless.
2. Part of that restlessness is a restlessness with the
world itself.
a) As Christians, we know that this world is not our home –
but modern man at times seems to have the same view!
b) Most futuristic stories about man picture him as leaving
the confines of this world to venture out into space – to
boldly go where no man has gone before!
3. The first planned project to put a man in space was
called “Project Adam.”
B. What is Man That Thou Are Mindful of Him?
1. Another driving force behind man’s drive into space is
the view of modern man that humanity is without
significance in the universe.
a) We are an accident and just a tiny speck in the immense
universe.
b) It is arrogance we are told to believe that we are alone
in the universe. Thus, we venture out to find other life.
2. The message of Scripture is that man is far from
insignificant. We are made in the image of God, and the
Universe was made for us to inhabit. The purpose of the
vast Universe is to declare the glory of God – to us!
VI. Is There Anything New Under the Sun?
A. God Remains the Only Source of Meaning
1. Why has the Western Judeo-Christian culture developed
such an extraordinary obsession with technology?
a) David F. Noble in his book The Religion of Technology
argues “because, at its core, technology embodies a
religious tenet promising the transcendence of mortal
life.”
b) He argues that the great technological thrusts of our
day – space travel, computers, and genetic engineering –
are reflections of age-old yearnings – for salvation and
transcendence of the gloomy life foretold in Genesis.
2. This technological pursuit of salvation has indeed
become an obsession to modern man.
a) Psalm 127:1 – “Except the Lord build the house, they
labor in vain who build it.”
b) Those who build their house on sand or on silicon will
one day be left with no foundation.