| In this paper we will look at the effects of modern technology though the lenses of moral philosophy and spiritual reflection. Our principal questions will be: Is technology servant or master of the spiritual life? How is technology a challenge for the spiritual life and why? How varied can our relationship with technology be depending on our worldview and our particular engagement with it? Does technology promote a denial of grace within us, or can it be channelled as a support of grace? How can the application of technological progress be used for the good and how do we insure that we work towards balancing any negative implications by developing awareness and by remaining centred in our own sense of self?;To explore this topic we will focus on two principal writers: Albert Borgmann takes a philosophical, experiential and pragmatic approach and looks at technology on a broad and somewhat sympathetic manner. Wendell Berry, shaped by a somewhat different cultural context, is more critical and responds with a mix of local specificity and an imaginative literary emotional engagement. We will look at how we might reacquaint ourselves with what is at the heart of technology and how that connects with the core of our spiritual selves. We will examine our modern obsession with technology and efficiency in the context of liberal capitalism, and explore how we may reconcile that with an innate desire to love. It is hoped that we can provide some insight into how one might approach the technological particulars of our every day lives, with love and with awareness that such technology is part of a larger whole. Our objective is to in fact develop a technological ethical balance that can embrace the reality of our industrialized lives with a freedom to navigate towards good, and to continue being active partners in the process of salvation and creation. |
