EVERYTHING IS COMPUTERISED, BUT COMPUTERS ARE NOT EVERYTHING: THE RELEVANCE OF THEOLOGY IN THE LIGHT OF A DEHUMANISING TECHNOLOGICAL DICTATORSHIP

• P J A Fourie University of the North

DOI: https://doi.org/10.7833/38-0-1731

Keywords: Technology, Computerised, Science,

Abstract

The formulated topic is a pun on the title of Kuitert’s book ‘Everything is politics, but politics is not everything’, in which he objects to an over-politicising of the church, despite his appreciation for the inseparable link between faith and politics. The present author does not want to underestimate the value of modern science and technology, but wants to raise of concern, and show a possible theological way out of the dead-end of the economic, ecological and psychic self-destruction into which the Western life has handed itself.In the introduction, attention is given to the dominating influence of modern technology, as is best illustrated by the computer revolution of the last decade. The ‘computer theocracy’(Schuurman) with its functionality, relative simplicity and reliability in every-day life (Von Weizsacker), is symbolic of an age in which technological specialisation and achievement are in greater demand than the more complex, seemingly superfluous and ‘irrational’ ordinary human spirituality or religiosity. Consequently, this hassled to a ‘fundamental theological crisis’ (Altner). It is further indicated how this crisis is the result of the Cartesian model of non-participation’ which has ever since dominated Western epistemology.A plea is made for a new epistemology in which the so-called human subjectivity and scientific objective are integrated into a whole- an approach which has become feasible because of the developments in quantum physics. It is believed that in the 1990’s precisely this will be the relevance of theology: to form part of an holistic approach to whatever is perceived as reality by society, and to supply a complementary view on that Everything is computerised, but computers are not everything.    reality - unashamedly, will imply that theology itself will have abandoned the rationalistic epistemology of the Cartesian paradigm.