Orthodoxy and technology

1. Entity type Lemma
2. Original titleOrtodoxie si tehnica
3. Language term Romanian
4. lemma author Stavinschi, Alexandra
5. lemma category Orthodox view on technology and engineering - Scientific theories and disciplines > Modern physics: Relativity
6. Publication date 31-1-2017
7. lemma work Popescu, Dumitru [Author]. Orthodoxy and technology
8. lemma manifestations http://www.crestinortodox.ro
9. Keywords technology - church and technology - quantum physics - On the Holy Spirit - limits of science - transcendence of God
10. Url Click Here
11. Lemma body

    1. The author starts by analysing the development of technology in the world from its inception. An important observation is that it was introduced after the fall and has progressively evolved. According to the author, it is Christianity that set man free from the natural or universal laws, and of the myth of the eternal return, which dominated man in antiquity. Although he admits that the scientific spirit was ignited in Ancient Greece, there was apparently more interest in the realm of ideas than in the material world.

       Only with God’s commandment to master, humanize and sanctify the earth would man become really free from the superstitions and could make the progress and discoveries that have forever changed the world. The aim of the author is to show that today humanity is threatened again by pantheism and the subsequent loss of all these conquests.

       The author’s intention is to analyse technology in the relationship of creation with divinity, and to show the paramount importance of this relationship. In contrast to pantheism, which sacralized the world because it confused the Creator and creation, Christian theology took the opposite extreme, that of a transcendensce that isolated the world in its own immanence -or as the Assembly of the Ecumenic Council of Churches, which met in Canberra (1992) put it - Christian theology took God's transcendence for His absence in creation.

       Taking advantage of the absence of God in creation, the Enlightenment age proclaimed the autonomy of human reason against any Christian authority and developed a type of technology that, having lost all contact with God, aimed at transforming the heavenly paradise in earthly paradise. The author cites important philosophers such as Kant, who had a decisive impact in the process. He goes on to comment on the real progress of science, but he also lists a large number of risks and disadvantages.

       Following a clear analysis of this negative side, Dumitru Popescu warns against the danger of losing contact with the spiritual world, and laments that there is a discrepancy between the technical and spiritual development of sciences. After a long and thorough theological examination of this process, the author hails the advent of quantum physics, which pushed science to the limits of transcendence. However, it is only the light of the Holy Spirit that can transfigure and humanize man and technology.