I’ve been reflecting on the next wave of internetness: “the internet of things” — that ability for our toasters and cars and devices to talk to each other in real time and automate our physical world! Intro in Part 1; Church Ideas in Part 2
So, as Christians, do we have Biblical and theological thoughts about technology automating our lives? Is this good? Bad news? How do we reflect on this?
One thought experiment is to think through the “theological anthropology”—just a fancy term for “being human the way God intended us to be.”
Like God? No and Yes.
With our stuff ready to obey our every whim, and our knowledge extending into a virtual omniscience about things we aren’t anywhere near (“whoa, turn down the A/C back at the house!”), it could be tempting to say we are becoming a little more like God. And this, of course, often sets off the blasphemy alarm and it should. We know the sin of putting ourselves in God’s place is the most core of them all: it’s Adam and Eve’s apple.
But if we think again, we realize “becoming more like God” isn’t always a theological black plague. In fact, when God made the world and gave Adam the command to steward and tend the garden, he was making us like himself in the sense that we were to sort and build and make stuff (yes, even in PHP). This is part of the imago dei (the image of God): our ability to create!
But can it go too far?
[Read more…] about The Internet of Things: Being Human? Being God? [Part 3]