Metanexus: Views 2002.01.04 2428 words Technology may first be understood as ‘imitating nature’, doing thingswhich nature does as well. At some point, we move on to ‘improving nature’,doing some things better than they would be without us, claims Dutchtheologian Willem Drees. He then adds, ‘Better’ is, of course, anevaluation – and thus invites the question…
Metanexus: Views 2002.01.03 2679 words If we are the products of evolution, can we take positive initiatives, makethe right choices? Or are our choices fixed since days of old, and isfreedom nothing but an illusion? Libraries could be filled with books on’free will’. Here I want to indicate briefly why I hold that a meaningfulnotion…
Metanexus: Views 2001.12.28 3771 words What is theology? And what does theology have to say to us? Is it truly thescience of God, in the way that physics might be considered the science ofmaterial objects and their interactions or biology viewed as the science ofthe lifeworld or of living objects? What, then, would be the…
Metanexus: Views 2001.12.27 2056 words Willem Drees asserts that religions emerged in confrontation with the powerof storms, of the sea and the mountains, thunder and lightning. Whenconfronted with unpredictable events we still use animistic language. Weeven do so in our dealings with technological products; the car ‘does notwant’ to start and the computer ‘does not…
Metanexus: Views 2001.12.18 2743 words According to the Dutch theologian Willem Drees, “A creation story begins with the beginning. But we do not know our realityas a film shown to us from the first scene onwards. Our situation resemblesthe predicament of archaeologists. We find traces and clues – and seek tounderstand the past. In that…
Metanexus: Views 2001.12.17 2435 words “Humans have told each other stories for thousands of years. At campfiresand in courts and temples, humans told stories about the origin of theirworld, of the hunting grounds of their tribe, of women and men, of thediscovery of wheat and of fire, of the sun and the moon. Creation storiesexpressed…