"Technology may first be understood as 'imitating nature', doing things which nature does as well. At some point, we move on to 'improving nature', doing some things better than they would be without us," claims Dutch theologian Willem Drees. He then adds, "'Better' is, of course, an evaluation - and thus invites the question what the standard is by which this is judged. In what sense is our wheat after millennia of human selection 'better' than the natural varieties? Well, it is better for our purposes - for producing bread, feeding the hungry. In some contexts we may even consider ourselves to be correcting nature, doing things differently, averting problematic consequences of nature."

But is this attempt at "correcting nature" a matter of wisdom or a matter of hubris? Something to be avoided or something to be embraced? Or is there perhaps a third option? Something more than being cautious stewards? Is there a possibility of being co-creators with god? And, if this is a viable possibility, then, as co-creators, is part of our role the taking of risks in a way similar to god's own risk-taking activity vis-a-vis creation? Are we engaged in a similar struggle of will versus indeterminacy?

These are truly the most metaphysical of questions, since they deal with that moment in which the non-physical (thought, will, desire) impinges upon, affects, and changes the physical (matter, material). And it is from within this moment, this juncture, this nexus, that Willem Drees addresses the issue of our human attempts at playing, imagining, and imitating god.

Willem B. Drees is professor of philosophy of religion and ethics at Leiden University, the Netherlands. He has an advanced degree in theoretical physics (Utrecht, 1977) and doctorates in theology (Groningen, 1989) and philosophy (Amsterdam, 1994). And today's column is the fifth in a six part series of excerpts from Drees' book Creation: From Nothing Until Now (Paperback or Library Binding; ISBN: 0-4152-5653-4; Routledge; December 2001, 128pp.). Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 were posted to Metanexus:Views on (2001.12.17), (2001.12.18), (2001.12.27), (2001.12.28), and (2002.01.03) respectively.

--Stacey E. Ake

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Subject: Creation: From Nothing Until Now, Part 6 From: Willem B. Drees Email: <wb@drees.nl>

FROM NOW ON: PLAYING AND IMAGINING GOD

We are creatures, produced by a long history 'from nothing until now', of which we have barely begun to scratch the surface in the preceding pages. However, we are not only products but also producers. We are creative creatures; we are also looking forward, where to go 'from now on'. This creativity has a material and an intellectual form: we modify our world and ourselves, and we create our images, our understanding, both in the sciences and in religious life. In both senses, we work with our historical heritage but we are not restricted to it. We can 'play God', create new visions and new realities.

Our calling to play god

We are not only thinking beings. We are also creative creatures, beings who shape their environment. With modern technology, this has risen to unprecedented heights. Benjamin Disraeli compared in 1844 various cities to various human endeavors. Rome would represent conquest, the building of empires. Jerusalem stands for faith; Athens invokes our intellectual heritage. These are the traditional examples. However, he added to this Major League of human cities Manchester.

He did not add Manchester for its soccer team. Athens and Manchester stand for two different styles of human intellect, for two different styles of life, for two different dimensions of science. Astronomy is a good example of a particular kind of science, which would fit the Athenian archetype. Observations, models and theories culminate together in an understanding of many phenomena in the sky, and even in some understanding of the whole observable universe. Science is the attempt to explain, to understand reality as it is.

Manchester stands for another side of science, for the birth of chemistry and the rise of technology. This city is an archetype of the Industrial Revolution. This is science that not only seeks to understand nature, but also to create things that had not been before - a science that is not restricted to the natural but brings forth the artificial. In our days, this active, creative side of science has become enormously significant. Think of the creation of new materials with a wide variety of properties, the creation of electronics that gave rise to information and communication technologies, and of biotechnologies with major consequences for food production and medicine. Science offers more than understanding; it provides us with tools to change our world.

Technology may first be understood as 'imitating nature', doing things which nature does as well. At some point, we move on to 'improving nature', doing some things better than they would be without us. 'Better' is, of course, an evaluation - and thus invites the question what the standard is by which this is judged. In what sense is our wheat after millennia of human selection 'better' than the natural varieties? Well, it is better for our purposes - for producing bread, feeding the hungry. In some contexts we may even consider ourselves to be correcting nature, doing things differently, averting problematic consequences of nature.

Humans are concerned about the consequences of those technologies. For physics, the archetype of responsibility has become the nuclear bomb. Chemistry is associated with pollution. Every science seems to have its particular experiences of sin, of causing problems that may be beyond its powers to solve. It is, of course, questionable whether it is science itself that is to blame, or whether one should rather blame our ways of living, our political and economic decisions. But science is involved, and this has consequences for the perception of science.

Could we and should we have done without this side of science, restricting ourselves to the noble goal of understanding? I doubt it. The active attitude is deeply rooted in human nature; we are as much homo faber as homo sapiens, and we will need both our skills and our wisdom to survive our powers, which too are in the combination of skill and intellect. Should we wish we had done without this active side, without the inventions that have changed our world? I doubt whether a moral person really can sustain such a desire. There is, of course, the mythical image of paradise, of an effortless pastoral life with fruit in abundance. But if one is more realistic, we realize that we need our technology - and we need it also for morally lofty purposes, to feed the hungry, to cloth the naked, to care for those who are ill.

The lightning rod may serve as an example. In his book A History of the Warfare of Science and Theology in Christendom of over a hundred years ago (1897), Andrew White dwells extensively on the resistance of churchwardens and ministers to setting up lightning rods - a resistance which not only was stupid, but immoral as it led to an unnecessarily early death of many. Frederick Ferre writes in a book titled Hellfire and Lightning Rods on the experiences among Swedish immigrants in Minnesota in 1922. A preacher condemned in his sermon the lightning rods, which sought to deflect the wrath of God. A young, sensitive man wondered:

Could God's will truly be foiled by a steel rod and a grounding wire? Was it really wrong to try to protect family and livestock from the storms that swept in from the prairies with such seemingly undiscriminating force? Was God really directing the thunderbolts? Should he believe that the God Jesus called our 'Father in heaven' really would punish the farmers for taking whatever meager technological precautions might be available?

The churches have accepted the lightning rod, perhaps a few odd corners excepted. But objections to technology surface again and again, and with it the warning that 'we should not play God' - not with medical technology, not in biotechnology. The warning against 'playing God' often indicates insecurity due to shifting boundaries between that which is given (and thus would be God's domain) and that which is in our hands to play with. Aside of the warning not 'to play God', there are also other religious images invoked in discussions on the way we humans change our world. Some invoke the notion of stewardship to express a limited, conserving range of acceptable human action. Should we limit ourselves to the role of stewards, or rather reach out as co-creators?

In the Christian tradition, the bible is the place to look. Let me therefore offer a summary of the bible, in a single sentence. The bible begins on high, with paradise, which is followed by a long journey through history, with the expectation of final salvation. The combination of past and future returns in the liturgy in the emphasis on memory and hope. The Sabbath recalls the creation and the exodus and is a foretaste of fulfillment. This overarching U-profile in the Christian tradition implies that images of the good are there as images of the past (paradise) and as images of the future, of a City of God, a new heaven and a new earth, the Kingdom to come. If humans are considered stewards, one looks back in time, to a good situation that has to be kept and preserved. But humans are also addressed as workers who have their eyes on the Kingdom, on that which might come.

In relation to the use of human knowledge and power, some other stories may be illuminating as well. In the synagogue Jesus meets someone with a withered hand. Will he heal on the Sabbath? Then Jesus asks: 'Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?' The priority is clear. In this story of healing, from Mark 3, as in many other stories, a human is freed of the burdens of his past. A tax collector and a prostitute are again on the way of life, the possessed relax and the deaf hear. The social dimension that can also be found in the stories on the prophets, is also found in the parables. Especially those who have been less well off, get new chances; they are seen in a new light. Discipleship as serving the poor and needy has often been forgotten in Christian history, but it has resurfaced again and again. This resulted in particular in the care for orphans, widows and people who were seriously ill.

One parable explicitly speaks of stewardship (Mathew 25: 14-30). A landlord is to leave and entrusts his property to three servants. One received five talents, one two and the third only one talent, 'to each according to his ability'. The one with five talents made another five; the one with two talents made two, but the one with only one talent buried it and returned it to his master. In the end, the landlord commands to cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness; there men will weep and gnash their teeth.

Of this brief tour of biblical texts and images I retain that in biblical language the good is not only in the past but as well in the future, that humans - even when considered as stewards - can be active and even ought to be active although the initiative is with God, and that this activity is normatively determined as care for the weak and needy. Humans may not be co-creators in the sense in which God is a creator, but they are certainly creative creatures, or created creators. We are beings who genuinely act in creation, and thereby change the world and ourselves.

Stewardship has become prominent in reflection upon the ecological damage that we have done. In that context, stewardship has the connotation of nature conservation. It evokes reticence rather than the intention to change nature. But human activity is not only a threat to Gods good creation. Human culture, including human technology, may also be appreciated as taking up the work God entrusted to us to work for the good. Human creativity does not diminish God. To the contrary, the more someone develops one's creativity, the more one surpasses current limitations, the more God becomes God. We cannot shift the burden of responsibility to God; we are responsible. Our task becomes to make God present in the world, or, as Isabel Carter Heyward says it with a remarkable verb, our task might be 'to god the world'. The issue is that the religious sensibility not only has to do with the appreciation of beauty and goodness, but also reflects engagement with justice, with love. Transformation is a central theological theme.

Transformation as personal conversion or social change is an important theme in many theologies, especially in evangelical and political theologies. Natural theologies arising out of experiences with the natural world mostly lack this; they tend to overemphasize the way things are as one deserving wonder. However, a religiously adequate view should, in my opinion, also attempt to disclose the possibilities for transformation of the natural order. In the dialogue with the sciences, all aspects of religious faith are involved - not merely creation, but also redemption, not only 'what is' but also 'what should be'. Perhaps a complementary book to From Nothing until Now should be From Now On.

Returning to the metaphors discussed, such as stewardship and co-creator, I would stress that neither the past (images of paradise) nor the future (a new heaven and a new earth) is acceptable as the sole point of reference. It seems to me to be far more fruitful to listen to the parables and pick up the sensibility that can be found there for those in need. The question of creativity and responsibility is not whether one acts, whether one gets involved, but how - and in what way, and thus who will benefit. In that context it becomes important to be realistic about matters of power and politics, of limited knowledge and unanticipated consequences, of inequalities among humans and the even greater asymmetry between humans and other living beings. We can serve God and our neighbor with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our strength, and with all our mind - and hence also with science and technology. But we may be reminded that this great commandment is immediately followed (Luke 10) with the story of the Good Samaritan - thus warning us against too limited a sense of who our neighbors might be.

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Published   2002.01.04