Introduction
Just finished my friend Chris Wiley’s Manmade from Canon Press, which I’m reading with my elders this month, and as always, I found Wiley all the right kinds of stimulating. I regularly hand out copies of his Man of the House, and his Household and the War for Cosmos deserves regular re-reading. Manmade is another contribution worth your time and attention.
While Wiley suggests that he is a glass half-full kind of a guy, I think his real gift is a prophetic eye for seeing the ways in which things can go (or have gone) wrong. I mean, he’s a relatively cheerful cynic, but he’s at his best when he’s pointing out threats and liabilities — what we have lost, or what we are potentially in danger of losing. While he affirms his postmillennial bonafides at the end of the book, he does so by citing Jonathan Edwards dying of an experimental smallpox vaccine — again, pro-future, but not a sentimentalist — a keen eye for how things can go sideways.
As with good conversation partners, the fun is in the friendly back and forth — the what-a-bouts, what-do-you-means, etc.
So here are a few thoughts and questions that I have been chewing on, stimulated by Chris’s book.
Derivative & Digital
First, what does it mean that what men make is less real? I know what Plato and the Greeks seemed to mean by it, and I know that Christians have played with this notion as well. And maybe time has something to do with it. Maybe our creations are more provisional — they take longer to establish their reality. But I do wonder if perhaps some of what is manmade will last and be granted a sort of honorary status alongside the things that God has made. Something like this seems to be implied in the creation narrative, when God, having created and named, turns and asks Adam to begin naming the animals. While Adam is not creating ex nihilo, he is in some sense joining in God’s creative work. Tolkien called us “sub-creators.” Or what does it mean that the kings of the nations will bring their treasures into the New Jerusalem (Rev. 21:24)? This was implied by the rough map God drew for Adam in the garden: four rivers leading to different lands, with treasures down the rivers. Man’s work was designed by God to make/build/invent, and while it is certainly derivative, some of it is worthy to bring back to God.
If language is the fundamental type of this imitation (naming), perhaps this maps onto the analogue vs. digital distinction Wiley discusses. I wonder if what we’re learning is a new language (digital) that is better for some things and worse for others. Language has more literal modes and more metaphorical modes. Analogue is a more literal, continuous mapping of the world, whereas digital is more metaphorical, representing a particular shape of reality. As we have descended into our postmodern trash heap, if you try to explain everything by use of metaphor, you descend into meaninglessness (including your claim that everything is metaphor). The same thing would be true of digital. Some things need to be analogue. But everything depends on *what* it is we are talking about. It also depends on what our duties are in any given moment. Sometimes it would be degrading and disobedient to translate an analogue into a digital representation. God prohibits something like this for Himself in the Second Commandment: God is so glorious and other, He requires a perfect analogue, but all of our attempts are clunky digital representations and therefore are idolatrous. Only Jesus is the perfect analogue. And I would argue something analogous (ha) for replacing real flesh and blood preachers with digital/video sermons — in general, that’s an unhelpful downgrade. But sometimes, perhaps on the mission field or in evangelistic settings, obedience may require playing the video sermon as better than nothing.
Manmade Holiness
We see sometime of this in the tabernacle and temple which are full of artistic works. On the one hand, there was no chisel heard near the building site of the temple (that probably indicates something about our topic), but clearly many tools and technologies were employed in the construction of these holy places. Gold, timber, bronze, metallurgy, architecture, sculpture, weaving, dyes, etc. And the point here would simply be to underline the possible connection between of manmade products and holiness. Holiness not only inhabits God’s creations, but the logic of redemptive history is that God’s holiness will also inhabit (some of?) man’s creations. God’s people were forbidden from making any kind of carved or molded image of God, but they were commanded to carve and mold other images to represent the holiness of God (e.g. cherubim, palm trees).
Of course the golden calf is the great cautionary tale, and this lines up with the Babel temptation. Humanistic man is constantly tempted to consolidate power (Babel) and misuse the gifts of God (idols). This is why I think Wiley’s opening fable/parable about a world in which neuro-robots and demons/idols are indistinguishable is a very fair warning. I also appreciated his later story that pictured a thoughtful Christian family using AI/robots with care and discipline. But the story that was missing is the one in which Christians are thoughtfully using the new technologies for confident dominion and conquest, in which secular humanistic schemes are being undermined by intelligent Christians — or one in which we say God loves this. It is holy to Him.
I’m thinking of the end of Zechariah’s apocalyptic prophecy, where he says everything in Jerusalem will be inscribed with “Holy to the Lord.,” not only the pots and pans but even the bells on the horses (Zech. 14:20). That’s remarkable. That’s human technology that God says is now “holy” to Him, set apart, sacred, and what is meant is that it is able (and fitting) to draw people closer to Him. I would argue that cars are certainly in that category now. If the bells on the horses alerted people to where horses and carriages and plows were and would one day serve holy purposes, how much more so automobiles carrying millions of people to their jobs, missionary work, and church every Lord’s Day? — and yes, even with their bells and alerts (although I would argue that the seatbelt alert seems rather Philistine).
The Enoch Factor
Wiley argues that Christians must stay grounded in God’s creation and the reality He has made. All of our creative work must be done in humble submission to His original creative work. Our work must glorify and extend His creative work, not deform or modify with Babylonian hubris. As Lewis pointed out, humanistic hubris is ultimately a kind of animalistic self-destruction (think Nebuchadnezzar in the fields howling at the moon) — but this really can do a fair bit of damage before it completely unravels. Revelation says that those who are filthy will continue in their filthiness, and those who are righteous will continue in their righteousness. So evil men will grow in their evil, even if it will eventually sputter out. But God’s people were made to fight and resist that kind of madness — growing in wisdom and maturity.
Many years ago, James Jordan wrote an essay called “The Enoch Factor,” in which he pointed out that because pagans are not bound by the law of God (or at least try to rebel against it) and are impatient people, they often build cities and invent technologies before God’s people (see Genesis 4).
He writes: “For a variety of reasons, the heathen often make more rapid initial cultural gains than do the righteous. The heathen are willing to enslave other people to work for them. The heathen don’t take one day in seven to rest. The heathen expend no psychological energy in repentance and striving against sin. Thus, the heathen get there first. This is what I call “the Enoch Factor.”
We see the Enoch Factor in Genesis 4. Not only did Cain build the first city, but his descendants became “fathers” (experts, teachers) of the sciences of animal husbandry, music, and metallurgy. The first poem in the Bible is put on the lips of a descendant of Cain (Genesis 4:20-24).
The Enoch Factor means that very often great advances in technique (not in philosophy) come from pagan sources. Usually the heathen get there first, and then the believers come after.”
Unbelievers can sacrifice marriages and children for their careers. They can lie, steal, cheat, and kill to build their cities, make their discoveries, and craft their technologies and works of art. God’s people are called to take dominion and be creative, but we are required to honor God’s law at every step of the way, and to even retrace our steps in repentance when something goes sideways.
Pagans hand their kids smart phones when they are in elementary school and do not think about how to protect them from the dangers. Pagans have free access to internet and AI in every room in the house with no protections or accountability. Pagans build cities and practice the corporate theft of “eminent domain.” Pagans dive into in vitro fertilization and do not scruple the destruction of millions of tiny human beings. Pagans deform healthy bodies with plastic surgeries, sex change operations, and hormone therapies.
But Christians understand the way God made the world. It takes time. It takes wisdom. Of course this can degenerate into cowardice and laziness. Christians must be courageous, bold, militant, and creative, but we must also honor God in all of our dominion pursuits. And this means honoring marriage vows, raising our children in the fear and admonition of the Lord, telling the truth, refusing to steal, protecting all human life, and honoring the Lord’s Day.
God made the world in such a way that it works best when we work and draw and invent in harmony with His canvas — with these limits firmly in place. But, and this is the part that takes faith, within those limits, Christians should go hard. Within those limits, Christians should go the hardest — with nuclear, with AI, with robots, with weather and fertility and the arts.
Our Comparative Advantage
Maybe the sharpest, brightest dividing line in how Christians approach technology is the firm conviction that only the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ takes away human sin and corruption. Only His death and resurrection overcomes the curse of death. All the humanistic (and transhumanistic) attempts to achieve eternal life are clearly false gospels. Those are golden calves promising life and health without submission to Christ, but of course they never do.
But what does it mean that God took on a human body? God the Creator became a sub-creator. And it cannot be an accident that that He was a carpenter! He built things, designed things, made things, like Noah, like Bezalel, like Solomon, like Galileo, the Wright Brothers, and Elon Musk. I’m not sure I agree that anything a human can do for himself he should do for himself. I mean, a man could walk to the store for himself, but why should he not drive? Well, I would say that it all depends. A man might decide to walk to the store because he knows he needs the exercise or because his wife loves it when he walks with her and holds her hand. On the other hand, a romantic sentimentalist may prefer walking, but he really should drive because he has other responsibilities to honor and what he *should* do is use his time in a more productive way. I borrowed a friend’s excavator this last summer, and man, am I thankful for diesel engines and hydraulic power. I *could* have dug that long ditch over many days (and months), but I don’t think I *should* have. But I do agree with the principle that there must be touch points with God’s reality. It would not be wise or productive for everyone to be farmers or mechanics, but some men ought to be. The economic principles of specialization, comparative advantage, and division of labor are biblical and Christian principles, so long as they are not abstracted from the rest of the biblical worldview. We are not machines; we are human beings made in the image of God.
Conclusion: Our Sherwood Forest
I like to think that maybe when it comes to technology, Christians should think of themselves as living in Sherwood Forest, slowly building communities of wisdom and creativity — I think this probably fits with Wiley’s use of St. Anthony in the desert. We are the outlaws because we are constantly fighting the world, the flesh, and the devil. But we are not escapist communities; we are communities of resistance, communities of true science and learning and technology and the arts. But we are not aiming these gifts at primarily serving ourselves or our own hubris, but primarily we are thinking about the mission of God, the design He has embedded in the universe, and how we may continue to sub-create with Him — naming/creating in imitation of His naming/creating. But we should also constantly have battalions of our merry men focused on sabotaging the evil around us. I can imagine armies of software engineers using AI to hack into the porn industry, constantly bringing down their servers with bots and viruses. I imagine the use of AI and robots deftly assisting accountants in finding every loophole in IRS code to evade every unlawful tax. I can imagine, technology that helps Christians rescue babies from murder. Maybe in some dystopian future, women go to fully automated, robotically run abortion mills. And maybe Christians hack the servers so that the babies that are “aborted” are actually saved and rescued, like the early Christians did on the hillsides outside of Rome.
Of course, we will have the Bible translated into every known human language with the help of AI in the next few years, and then we can turn our efforts to building out full libraries of the greatest poetry and literature ever written, making them accessible to every language. And maybe some AI analysis helps evangelists and missionaries reach cultures in new and unexpected ways. AI and robots cannot (must not) replace the image of God, but they can assist us, just like God’s creations (animals, plants) always have. In the Christian AI future, Christians are constantly going back to the God’s good creation, studying what He has made and what He has said about it — constantly checking our work against His work and going slowly enough to double check and erase our mistakes. But in the AI future, Christians use robots to sabotage evil and create good, true, and beautiful things that assist human beings in taking dominion.
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