In C.S. Lewis’s The Magician’s Nephew, the protagonist, Digory Kirke is sent on a mission, by Aslan (a great Lion) to save Narnia from a Witch that, by his own bad decisions, had been unleashed on the otherwise perfect world. His mission was to take a long journey, to get a magic silver apple from a far away orchard that can be used to protect the realm from that Witch. When Digory arrives at the orchard, the Witch is there and she offers him a simple temptation: he should steal a second apple. These apples, she explains, will give immortality. This temptation is particularly strong for Digory because, back at home, his mother is dying of a mortal illness. Digory wants, more than anything, to have his healthy mother again. But Digory also knows that Aslan’s instructions were clear and that he was not given permission to take a second apple. So against his overwhelming desire and emotion to take another apple, he refrains. When he returns, Aslan explains what would have happened had he taken a second apple. Aslan states,
“Understand, then, that it would have healed her: but not to your joy or hers. The day would have come when both you and she would have looked back and said it would have been better to die in that illness.
And Digory could say nothing, for tears choked him and he gave up all hopes of saving his mother’s life: but at the same time he knew that the Lion knew what would have happened, and that there might be things more terrible even then losing someone you love by death.”
In the end, Aslan did give an apple to Digory and his mother was healed but this passage should be instructive to us as we speak of science and technology – and medical experiments. We often justify doing horrible things like harvesting aborted baby parts by saying that if we were to not do it we might miss out on life saving technologies and cures. This is the justification that former NIH Director Francis Collins gave when asked about these horrific experiments. But shouldn’t we consider the words “said it would have been better to die in that illness”? Shouldn’t we consider the statement, “there might be things more terrible even then losing someone you love by death?”
And the answer to these questions for a materialist is often “no”. For someone that views death as the end, many think there can be no greater evil than death itself. If Digory had to steal the apple to save his mother, he should have. If we have to experiment on babies, we should - whatever it takes to extend our lives. Because life is all we have. And this is why the desire for Transhumanism and digital life is so attractive. The hope is that if we sacrifice enough in the name of science and technology we can finally attain the eternal life that we desire.
But what Lewis was saying in the Magician’s Nephew is that even if we were to attain such a goal, we would regret it. The resulting existence would be worse than the death itself. The Shakespearian statement, “A coward dies a thousand times before his death, but the valiant taste of death but once,” reflects the truth that sometimes suffering and death is better than living. Sometimes we live only to regret living.
One aspect of religious life that has been almost completely forgotten is the doctrine of redemptive suffering. This idea was prevalent in the ancient church. It was the idea that suffering was not a purely bad thing. In fact, it was often a good thing. The church taught that to be a martyr was one of the highest goods. It taught that suffering would somehow bring union with God and his saints. It was believed that those who suffer would somehow gain from that suffering something that they would not have been otherwise able to obtain.
Pope John Paul II wrote of redemptive suffering this way,
“By his passion and death on the cross Christ has given a new meaning to suffering: it can henceforth configure us to him and unite us with his redemptive Passion.”
Suffering can make us better rather than destroy us. Even the materialist, in his more thoughtful moments, would agree that sometimes suffering is better than not suffering. We have phrases like ‘no pain no gain’ and ‘it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.’ We know that there are things worse than pain – even things worse than death. The most materialist among us would at least claim to be willing to die for the ones they love, their nation, or their ideas. We can all see that as unpleasant as suffering can be, it can – at least at times – be redemptive. And if you question materialism as your world view, the calculus changes further. Living at all costs is not the hope of Christianity. This is not the hope of people who think that death is not the end. It is not the hope of those who hold that death is temporary.
As I have previously discussed, Christianity in the middle ages offered not simply a rejection of magic but a healthy alternative to it - not a magic that called on dark powers and human sacrifice but a magic that rested ultimately on what is good, pure, and holy. Throughout these past series of posts, I have argued that science and technology are in many ways simply a rebranding of the magic of old. I have argued most moderns no longer say “hocus pocus” to do their magic they say “studies suggest.” And so is there a sense in which all the negatives of modern science and technology can be avoided while still offering the solutions we crave?
When we talked about “Church Magic” we said that there was an appearance of similarity between pagan magic and the magic of the church but that the distinction was where the power came from (God or the gods of paganism). Similarly, science, in order to avoid the downsides we have seen, must be reoriented. Science in the best sense can be defined in the old sense of the word. The word “science” comes from the Latin scientia that simply means ‘to know’ and there is a form of science that has always been practiced that simply seeks to know about the universe that God created. How does gravity function? How does motion work? How do cells work? How do the planets move? What sorts of animals are there? How can we categorize those animals? To seek this sort of knowledge is not seeking power but simply knowledge. But just as “church magic” was always carefully restrained by ethical and theological boundaries, science must be subjected to boundaries. No longer can we say “someone was going to do it so why not us?” Nor can we say, “I must do this ethically questionable thing for a future ultimate good.”
The fundamental mistake with magic would be to assume that it is neutral. To assume that the forces driving magic are neither good nor evil but somehow beyond good and evil or independent of good and evil would be a mistake. In the same way, the fundamental mistake with science and technology advances over the past 500 years was to assume neutrality. This comes from a deep belief that both were completely non-religious activities. But as we have shown, this simply cannot be assumed. We showed how from the very beginning there was a close relationship between religion, spiritualism, science and technology to the point where we must call them twins (if not different manifestations of the same thing). Throughout history spirits have been called upon to advance these things. To pretend these are somehow either not there or neutral is in conflict with the fact that the people advancing science that called upon them did so with purpose.
“Church science” or “church technology” must be done in a similar way to church magic. They must always be with immovable rules. There have to be principles that are established by something beyond the practical and utilitarian. Humans have an amazing capacity to self justify – to use some potential future good as a pretext for doing a current evil. In order to avoid this, there has to be an immutable authority outside us. In our post Christian world, many are confused as to what this authority might be. But in the medieval world, there was not confusion.
As I have written in the past, scientific pioneer Francis Bacon simply assumed that the Christian religion was that restraint. Recall that he wrote, “…yet I hold, that in the end it [science] must be bounded by religion, or else it will be subject to deceit and delusion…” As with redemptive suffering, we must recognize that it is better to die then to violate ethics. Putting ethics aside in order to relieve suffering will cause more destruction. More suffering will result not less.
I live a few hours away from a large Amish community. One unexpected observance for me as I recently drove through that community was that it is not strange to see an Amish person using a pay phone or even a cell phone or computer depending on where and how they are using it. Often their restrictions on technology limit ownership rather than use or limit activities in the home while permitting them outside the home. What is permitted is determined by the local bishop and the question that is asked is: is this technology good for families and our community? So rather than being anti-technology, the Amish are selective with their technology. Their default is not to adopt new technologies and when they do, they usually have restrictions on them.
I am obviously not Amish nor do I advocate the Amish lifestyle but I do think that this method of thinking through technology is something we should all consider. Instead of the default being to adopt every new thing, our default should be to reject every new thing. Only if we determine that it is a technology that will not take away from our lives and will promote the good of our family and community, should we even consider it. And if we do determine that it meets these criteria, we should move forward carefully, with restrictions, and be open to removing the technology if the effects are unexpectedly bad. In order to do this, we, like the Amish must be comfortable being different from others. We must be comfortable being the only one without the new device, the new social media platform, or the latest gadget.
Simply asking the question, ‘is this going to improve my life, the life of my family, and my community?’ and only adopting if the answer is a clear, ‘yes’ is perhaps the biggest step we can take.
And perhaps one good use of technology is, ironically, using it to fight back against the negative effects brought by technology. Independent journalists have used social media to expose the once hidden medical experiments on unborn babies. Edward Snowden used his computer savvy to expose the surveillance state. One can imagine developing technology to push back on the absolute control that tech is being used to exert on humanity. Tech can be used to bury digital tracks that would otherwise be used for persecution. And technology is already being used to spread good and true ideas that those in power would like to suppress. I know of Christians who are working to set up parallel economies allowing dissidents to live free from the dystopia that is being built. Technology, when used under an unchangeable ethical authority, can be part of the fight. As the founder of Gab, Andrew Torba, once wrote about using AI to undermine official narratives, “They have no idea what they did when they gave us AI.” Technology when used right can be taking the sword from your enemies hand and using it to win.
And there are many other situations where, when used in moderation and under consideration listed above, tech can help us learn, heal, grow, and spread good in the world. It can be done.
But it must be “church tech”. Remember that with church magic that was something that offered the upsides to magic while simultaneously offering an ethical authority (the church) to ensure that the magic was not using evil entities and practices to accomplish its goals. And we have to consider that the word church here might not just be metaphorical. For Francis Bacon it was not. Perhaps the institution that we all think of old and out of date has a role yet. Perhaps the church needs to do as it did with magic in the middle ages. Perhaps rules and procedures for technology need to be established once again.
We stand at a moment when the spiritual is so far from us. We stand at a moment when material seems like all there is. But ironically, this has made us incredibly blind to the spiritual and has in many ways made the spiritual more powerful. Like a toddler unaware that we are playing on a highway we are in grave danger. We happily play with AI. We happily adopt the latest chimeras rolled out by science. We happily walk into the matrix. Trucks are rushing past us and we are oblivious.
What I hope that I have been able to accomplish with these posts is to tie the two worlds together again when it comes to technology. Bring heaven and hell into focus again and to remind us that science and technology should be no more considered safe and neutral as magic and religion.
When Digory made the choice not to steal the apple, he didn’t know that Aslan would make everything alright in the end. But he understood that there was danger in using evil to obtain good. He understood that there might be unintended consequences that surpass whatever immediate good we are hoping to achieve. He understood, “it would have been better to die in that illness.” Science and technology are a danger that in naiveté or willful blindness we did not know was dangerous. They are a magic we did not know was magic. We must recognize what they are and properly put them before we move forward. We must not steal the apple in the hopes of avoiding suffering. Only then, if it is so granted to us, can the blessings of a deeper magic – a deeper science and technology – possibly be redeemed and redeployed for good.
We showed how from the very beginning there was a close relationship between religion, spiritualism, science and technology to the point where we must call them twins (if not different manifestations of the same thing)
In a 2012 editorial, “The Genesis Problem,” New Scientist editors admit that physicists have been fighting a rearguard action against the Big Bang theory for decades, largely because they believe it has theological overtones. After all, if you have an instant of creation, don’t you need a creator?
If modern physicists understood the pagan and occult implications of the Big Bang model their fears would be put to rest. The seedbed of Big Bang speculations is ancient global cosmic events described by Eastern Advaitans and Greek nature sages as Cosmic Eggs and kalpas.
One Hindu belief was that Brahman (the Void or energy field) spontaneously generated itself as something like a seed or singularity about 4.3 billion years ago and then evolved under its’ own power by which it expanded and formed all that exists:
“These Hindus believed in an eternal Universe that had cycles of rebirth, destruction and dormancy, known as ‘kalpas,’ rather like oscillating big bang theories. We also read in the Hindu Bhagavad Gita that the god Krishna says, ‘I am the source from which all creatures evolve.” (Evolution: An Ancient Pagan Idea, Paul James Griffith, creation.com)
In this way of thinking, the entire universe, spirit, life, the gods, human beings, and everything else, came about by a process of emanation (or unfolding, emergence or evolution) from an energy field called Brahman.
Just as waves form across the surface of the ocean, so the Void forms upon itself successive waves (emanations) of particles (modern particle theory) that in turn emanate further entities and so on, with all of these entities interacting within an extraordinary network or great chain of being consisting of downward-descending self-contained planes of existence, a top-down hierarchy of astral plane realities (modern multiverse theory) arranged vertically.
Each higher plane of existence emanates the one below it through a mechanical process, thus each plane stands in the position of god-force to the one below. Therefore creation is not creation ex nihilo, as the Genesis account teaches, but mechanical emanation out of the Void.