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Technology and transcendence Michael Breen, Eamonn Conway and Barry McMillan (eds.) Blackrock, Dublin: The Columba Press, 2003 |
| Theology has too infrequently considered the
important place of technology in religious thought and practice. To a
certain extent this arises from the concern of theology primarily with
abstract ideas and conceptual structures, with a significant avoidance of
the important part that the visual and material (including media and
technologies) play in religious sensibility and practice. This book provides a collection of essays that explore the part that technology plays in acts of human transcendence or the human search for transcendence. It emerges from inter-disciplinary work being done at the Centre for Culture, Technology and Values at the University of Limerick and approaches the topic from a variety of perspectives: theological, sociological, philosophical, scientific and educational. A number of the chapters engage in different ways with Heidegger's seminal philosophical work on technology, though Tillich's cultural analysis also gets a mention. While a number of the chapters fall on the side of being largely critical of modern technology, most of the discussions are balanced and thoughtful. The technology referred to most often are modern technologies, many of which are often easily criticised for their commercialisation, transitoriness and potential for mechanisation of human life. I thought at several places a different perspective would have emerged in the analysis if a historical perspective was present that recognised that technologies have been present in different forms since the origins of humanity and that it is technologies of production that have equally enabled the modern development of ideas that are used to critique the technology. I liked particularly the chapter on technology as monumental history, looking at "how technology is used to cement our place in time and space. "Even in pre-capitalist cultures people have used artefactsto resist the forgetfulness prevalent in human experience concerning friends, heroes and actions and the general dissipation of one's life energy into disconnected and unrepeatable moments." (p.84) The book is a welcome addition to serious theological engagement with the transcendent dimensions of technological characteristics and uses. Table of contents: I. Technology and Culture II. Technology and Philosophy III. Technology and Society IV. Technology and Theology Review by Peter Horsfield |