You are currently browsing the tag archive for the 'Speculative Theology' tag.
It is a year of really awesome sci-fi movies: First Watchmen, then Star Trek, and now Terminator Salvation. It’s a smorgasbord of dorkiness for a geek like me. In fact, for a very long time my career ambit
ion was …science fiction writer. I love the stuff. I’ve moved on to other long-term interests (theology and social justice), but somehow even in that area I keep returning to my original nerdy self. Thus my ongoing and intermittent “Film Theology” series, which has explored the theological ramifications of the issues posed by recent movies, all of them, thus far, scifi flicks. In March I wrote about the “Theology of Watchmen“, and just a couple weeks ago I pondered the “Theology of Star Trek“. Well guess what: I just saw Terminator Salvation.
The basic premise of the entire Terminator franchise is simple: in a post-apocalyptic future, humanity is fighting for survival against machines. The most recent film tells the story of John Conner, the prophesied leader of “the Resistance”, who appears to be the great hope of the human race in the desperate struggle.
I’d like to use the whole “war against the machines” concept as a jumping-off point for this post. In Terminator, the necessity of the use of violence against sentient machines is taken for granted. But as a pacifist and as someone very much interested in the study and use of nonviolent tactics, I don’t take that for granted. Thus, the question I’d like to explore, very speculatively of course, is this: What is the relevance of nonviolent ethics in a “war against the machines”?
The ethical necessity for nonviolence within a Christian theological framework is grounded in the idea that life is sacred because human beings are made in the image of God. Similarly, the demonstrated efficacy of nonviolence can be understood within the Christian context to result from the action of the imago Dei in our consciences and minds. As Walter Wink puts it, Christian nonviolence speaks to “something of God in everyone”. Both of these ideas can be translated into pluralistic and non-Christian terms and are present in some form in most religions. For example, the Indian advocate of nonviolence Narayan Desai speaks of a “level of humanness — however low it may be, in every human being” (quoted in Wink’s The Powers That Be).
The issues of necessity and efficacy (central to any discussion of the use of nonviolent strategy in a potentially violent conflict) are thus critically linked. How, then, to consider nonviolence in the “war against the machines”?
Clearly, the central question, as framed in Christian theology, would be this: “Do the Machines bear the image of God?” The initial answer for most people would be a quick no for seemingly obvious reasons. But the issue may be more complicated than it appears. It is quite possible that any artificial intelligence designed by humans in the future would have human characteristics, for every invention in some way reflects the character of the inventor. At a more fundamental level, it may be that the “image of God” (or the equivalent concept within a non-Christian religious or philosophical system) constitutes a necessary component of whatever “intelligence” is. In other words, it may be impossible have actual thought or to be “intelligent” (in the sense of the word that sets humans apart from other animals, or in the “artificial intelligence” sense) without having some component of a “conscience”, or “humanity”, or “imago Dei”.
To summarize, two possibilities become clear:
- The Machines in no way bear bear the image of God. Nonviolence, except in perhaps very limited circumstances, will probably be niether an ethical necessity nor a pragmatic possibility. This is likely the theological assumption in the world of Terminator.
- The Machines do, in fact, bear the image of God. In this case, nonviolence may indeed be a moral necessity — and fortunately, the effect of the imago Dei would also probably make it a pragmatic tactic.
The exploration of the imago Dei question (or non-Christian analogue) would be critical to philosophers, theologians, and ethicists during an actual war against machines. It may also prove to be an important ethical issue over the next decades as scientists improve current AI technology. For obvious reasons, the final resolution (if there is one) of this question is best left to the theologians of the future, and ultimately, the efficacy and necessity of nonviolence against “the machines” cannot be determined until the situation should actually arise.
Let us hope it never will.
This essay was published on Monday as a guest post on David Henson’s Unorthodoxology, one of my favorite blogs. Go to the original to read the full article or post comments.
I believe that the Christian conception of the Trinity demonstrates the universal accessibility of God, who is revealed to be both transcendent, in the person of the “Father”, and immanent, in the person of the Holy Spirit. (I also believe that God is incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ, the Son). Only in the trinitarian structure can the seemingly contradictory qualities of transcendence, immanance, and incarnation be brought together in one divine being.
My take on the trinity may imply some form of panentheism. As Wikipedia defines it, panentheism is distinct from pantheism and “is a belief system which posits that God exists and interpenetrates every part of nature, and timelessly extends beyond as well”. Panentheism is also frequently described as the worldview in which the universe is seen as part of God but not all of God.
Is this roughly equivalent to the idea that “God is both immanent and transcendent”? …
View full essay or post comments here.
This is the second post in a sporadic series that pushes even my own definition of “Speculative Theology”. The series considers the theological and religious implications that would result in a result where time is actually circular. Please read the first post, Hypothetical Worlds of Circular Time, for an introduction to both the concept and to the words I’ve coined in an effort to identify particular aspects of such a speculative universe.
In a universe of circular time, inhabitants who are aware of the nature of the world (such as kyklids — see part 1) would naturally be faced with an entirely different set of existential questions than we are. In the development of mythological and religious systems, cosmogonical myths (creation stories) are often used to answer some of these questions. For example, in Christianity and Judaism, the Genesis account of creation places humanity in the context of a “good” creation, and humanity is “made in the image” of the creator-God. Religious traditions like these thus view the “beginning of the world” as the natural place to start when considering questions of universal identity and the nature of creation.
But a universe of circular time has no beginning, and in Kyklokhron (the hypothetical world I’m considering in these posts), at least some inhabitants are aware of this fact, being themselves “circular” temporally. Obviously, there’s not a creation myth in the conventional sense in Kyklokhron.
But I think that inhabitants of such a universe would still ascribe to a religious cosmogony. Rather than being a temporal creation account, it would be existential and “eternal”. Rather than describing how the universe came it be, it would seek to explain why the world exists at all. It would speak of God maintaining and vitalizing the world, rather than bringing about the universe or “starting it off”. In Kyklokhron, God is not the prime mover but the continual mover.
Perhaps, also, a circular-time “cosmogony” would implicitly incorporate ideas of more than one “dimension” of time. That is, it might claim that the universe as a whole was created by God, who in some sense existed “before” it. This would essentially make the entire time-loop instantaneously a single moment within another direction of time altogether. (That sentence might make no sense at all, but these sorts of things are ridiculously hard to imagine, let alone verbalize in any kind of understandable way).
Cosmogony in Kyklokhron would still serve the same existential purposes that such stories do in, say, Christianity. But obviously, it would of necissity be conceived of in a radically different way. Perhaps in some future post I’ll make a foray into creative writing and speculate on just what exactly such a narrative would look like…
One of the categories I use to file my posts is called “speculative theology“. This has included, thus far, such things as posts about Jesus as a woman, but now I’d like push even my own definition of “speculative theology” towards its limits.This will be something of a departure from the dominant themes I’ve been writing about recently (like nonviolence), but hopefully it will be interesting. It will also be abstract, difficult, and specialized, and frankly, it’s not something a massively huge number of people will be drawn to.
This post is the introduction to a series I’ll writing intermittently and indefinitely. This series will explore the concepts and difficulties posed by a hypothetical universe wherein time is circular. This post will lay out some of the main ideas I’ve developed in this area and introduce the basic framework of what I imagine such a universe to be like; in an effort to remain true to the main emphases of this blog, the rest of the series will focus primarily on religious and theological issues that would emerge in such a universe. Obviously, this epitomizes “speculative theology”; and also obviously, much of this may well be totally useless for the “real world”. But hopefully it will stimulate thought and provoke ideas that are not useless in the “real world”. And anyway, one can never tell what bizarre applications the most speculative constructions will have (consider half of modern mathematics, for example).
Imagine a universe where time is literally circular. This doesn’t mean that events happen over and over (though one might perceive this to be so); rather, it means that every event occurs once, but a chain of events in succession can eventually return to its (arbitrary) starting point. This can be a difficult concept to grasp; but just as in a drawing of a circle, every point appears only once (even though it “loops”), so too in a universe of circular time, every event exists only once. Let’s call this universe “Kyklokron”, from the Greek words for “circle” and “time”.
1. Imagine that in Kyklokhron there is a species of intelligent being that is finitely immortal. That is, these people are niether born, nor do they die; rather, their existence forms a continious unbroken loop in time. If one were to write down the story of the entire life of one of these people, the narrative would eventually return to its starting point. These people could be called kyklids. A kyklid would in some sense “remember” her future, because her future is also her past. Of course, memory is imperfect and even fallacious, so this would hardly eliminate the day-to-day surprises of life.
Obviously, the finite but unbounded life-span of a kyklid is at least as long as the period of time of the universe as a whole. The most basic type of kyklid would be one who exists for the same length of time as the whole universe. (These kyklids undergo non-iterating looping.) But it is also possible that the lifespan could be longer, lasting any whole-number multiple of the length of time the universe exists. In other words, a kyklid could experience the universe once, or twice, or many more times, before his own life-span completed its loop. (For the mathematically minded, consider two continuous periodic functions, one with a period 1, the other with with a period of n. The former represents the existence of Kyklokhron; the latter represents the life of a kyklid.) This would mean that it is possible that a kyklid literally exists in multiple places at once (for mathematicians: a kyklid exists at n different locations during any given instant). Of course, the kyklid must wait around for the entire length of the universe to be able to go to different place at that same time. This can be termed “self-coexistence”.
2. This concept of extended looping, with life-span longer than that of the universe as a whole, could apply to any number of organisms or objects in Kyklokhron. These objects can be said be in a state of “looping iteration” in the universe. Thus, in Kyklokhron, it is possible that an entire flock of birds consists of a single finitely immortal bird. By extension, it is also possible that a universe with circular time is composed of only one particle of each fundamental type.
3. It is also important to note that the even objects that do not, strictly speaking, “loop” can self-coexist. In other words, in Kyklokhron there exist objects that have a definite starting point in time, and a definite ending point, but that exist for longer than the basic period in between.This category could include people, and can be conveniently be called “nonlooping iteration”.
4. Of course, the most basic type of object (temporally speaking) is one that exists for less time than the universe as a whole and thus obviously does not loop. This is nonlooping noniteration.
5. To summarize, then. From the above, it is realized that in Kyklokhron, there are four types of objects:
nonlooping & non-iterating [most basic: begins and ends within the basic time-span of the universe]
nonlooping & iterating [begins and ends, but "self-coexists" for a while, since it lasts longer than the universe as a whole]
looping & non-iterating [doesn't have a beginning or an end, but doesn't self-coexist -- exists for the same length of time as the whole universe]
looping & iterating [doesn't have a beginning or end, and "repeats" with self-coexistence -- has a lifespans that is a multiple of the length of the universe]
In the rest of this series, for however long and sporadically it goes on (intermingled, of course, with more typical posts on more typical subjects), I’ll be exploring religious and theological issues that would emerge in Kyklokhron. Future posts will assume that Kyklokhron does have all of the sorts of objects and people and objects described above, in section 5, and they will refer to the definitions and terms here.
What if the American Revolution had been conducted nonviolently?
Let’s consider. Walter Wink writes in The Powers That Be that the American revolutionaries overestimated the ability of the British to hold their colonies in the face of resistance, violent or nonviolent. This misconception of British strength thus was part of the reason the American movement went from tax refusal, noncooperation, etc (think Boston Tea Party) to armed struggle (which of course also met with initial failure, demonstrating that both methods faced essentially the same obstacles). Wink notes that in fact, “Britain was incapable of maintaining its American colony against any form of resolute resistance for any span of time”. This is surely true — just compare the situation in British-occupied India in the early twentieth century, when Gandhi led the nonviolent movement for that country’s liberation.
So what if the Revolution had been nonviolent?
America has often been called a “great experiment” in democracy. Despite its failures, the United States has indeed provided a model for democratic ideas and has thus inspired similar democratic movements around the world. Even when American government has acted against democratic interests abroad, American culture has acted as a forum for exploration into how to make democracy work and how to improve its weaknesses, and without both the failures and the successes of the American experiment it is probable that fewer countries around the world be embracing democratic principles today. (Of course, as Noam Chomsky has noted, there are many countries that might already have embraced democratic movements were it not for American imperialism — but that’s another story…)
These facts result, of course, from the peculiar circumstances of the American founding and the American Revolution. Analogously, then, consider the possibilities had the American Revolution been fueled not only by ideas of democracy, but also by ideas of nonviolence:
1. America could have become not only a “great experiment in democracy”, but also a “great experiment in nonviolence”. Though in later years the nation would surely depart from its ideals (as it has in the area of democracy), America would have emerged as an advocate for the nonviolent resolution of conflict and could have inspired other nations to embrace such principles far earlier than they did.
2. America has emerged as one of the most militarist powers in the world; however, if the “founding principles” of the nation had been rooted in nonviolence, our history could have been quite different. Nonviolent theory is currently in its infancy; if the United States had devoted its national resources over the years to research in active nonviolence, instead of military training and technology, the theory and practice of political defiance could have been developed far earlier. The world would be very different.
3. American foreign policy would be vastly different. Rather than focusing on using military means to further US objectives, a national ethic and culture rooted in nonviolence could have fostered foreign policy designed to reduce bloodshed and injustice. The country could have taken on the world role of benevolent encourager of justice, rather than that of international bully or “policeman of the world” (which is, of course, the actual perception that millions or even billions of people around the planet have of this country).
Tragically, all this merely is hypothetical. America wasn’t founded on nonviolence. But in recent years, many countries have undergone nonviolent revolutions. Perhaps in another two centuries, historians will call one of them a “great experiment in nonviolence” and will remark on the curious impact it will have had on the world.
I recently read Philip Hefner’s short book Technology and Human Becoming, which deals with the theology of technology. Central to Hefner’s work is the idea of technology as a ’sacred space,’ wherein religious and spiritual questions take on meaning as full and as varied as in any other context.
Hefner also deals with the theological implications of cyborgs, the melding of human and machine, understood both in the most basic sense and as an emerging aspect of human becoming resulting from integration of technology into our lives. Noting that we are all turning into ‘techno-humans’ and that Homo Sapiens is becoming Techno Sapiens, the author ponders a critical and fascinating question: ‘If the techno-human, the cyborg, is created in the image of God, what does that tell us about God?’
I would add another question: What does that tell us about the Incarnation? For in the Incarnation God became man, and thus presumably if the Incarnation were to occur today instead of 2000 years ago, God would become techno-man (or techno-woman). And furthermore, if today the human race is moving towards ‘Techno Sapiens’ and away from the Homo Sapiens of twenty centuries back, what relevancy does the actual historical Incarnation have for us, for the cyborgs that we are becoming?
I believe that, in a very real sense, if humans are becoming machines, then the God-human, Jesus Christ, can be approached as a God-machine in our lives. For ‘the Word became flesh and dwelt among us’; in a purely historical sense, this means that the Word became bone, muscle, sinew and skin, but in a broader theological sense it means that the Word became whatever it is human beings are. Human beings are changing, but this change does not alter the relevancy of the Incarnation.
I addressed a similar question a while back, in response to a blog post by Rev. Jeremy Smith. He wrote, One of the tenets of Christianity is that Jesus is God-with-us, Emmanuel, human. How do we preach the Incarnation in a world where we can craft virtual space so easily and completely? My response to the question I pose now is the same as that to the question he posed then. We must conceive of the Incarnation as story, as a narrative truth that, though historically grounded, transcends the confines of historical detail.
Thus it might be appropriate someday for us to understand John 1.1-4,14 like this:
At time t=0 there was Information, and Information was with God and Information was God. Information was at time t=0 with God. All software and hardware was programmed and manufactured by Information, and without Information nothing was manufactured and constructed. In Information was intelligence and awareness, and intelligence and awareness was the light and electricity of cyborgs.
And the Information was programmed into hardware and software and resided amongst us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of an inventor’s only prototype, full of grace and truth.
As a Christian with a high view of Scripture, I believe in the full equality of women and men.
I fully support women’s ordination. I think that the idea that men have some kind of inherent moral authority over women is not only wrong but dangerously wrong. (For those of you who think that these views don’t align with Scripture or with my asserted high view of the latter, take a look at this site.) I also do not believe that God has an inherent gender: he is neither inherently male, nor is she inherently female. The biblical portrayal of God as male is primarily due to the necessities and norms of the cultures within which the Bible was composed, not to some actual divine gender quality. Men and women equally bear the image of God (Genesis 1.27).
As a Christian with a high view of Scripture, I also believe in the second coming of the divine Jesus Christ, an event referenced throughout the New Testament. (Incidentally, the modern American idea of a ‘rapture’ is, in my opinion, a theological absurdity based on a serious misreading of the one single biblical text with any hint of the idea.) The second coming of Christ has been a key belief throughout the history of Christianity.
Believing then that men and women are equal, that God has no gender, and that the divine Jesus will return, a question naturally arises.
What if Christ returned as a woman?
Just asking this question would shock a heckuva lot of people. In fact, some of you may already be branding me a heretic, or at least a misguided wannabe theologian with too much time on his hands. But I believe that if we take the Bible seriously, this question must be asked.
I brought up this idea to my cousin Mike, an actual theology student (at Yale), to see if he could think of any biblical objections to the idea. Nothing. He found the possibility intriguing. He had, as usual, an interesting insight: Christ returning as a woman would catch many Christians totally off guard, just like Christ’s original coming, as a humble carpenter and itinerant preacher, caught many of the Jews totally off guard, since most expected a liberating warrior-messiah-king. To expand on Mike’s thought: Maybe, like the Jews before the Incarnation, we’re reading the biblical descriptions in a way that totally leaves out what could actually happen. There’s a nice symmetry there, and it’s consistent with the way God works in the world (ie, in upside-down, least-expected ways) to think that Jesus could show up as a woman.
The return of Christ to Earth is often spoken of as a surprising event, unlooked-for, ‘like a thief in the night’ (1 Thess. 5.9). What better way to surprise the world than for God to appear in female form?
