Is the Antidote for our Dystopia Being Surrounded by Beauty?
Technology shapes the character of our everyday lives. Without it, we would have great difficulty getting to work, having our morning cup of coffee, and reading this article. My problem with technology is not that we have it, but that we have allowed it to shape our lives in a way that we barely recognize. What I mean is that technology is no longer a means of Godly stewardship, but that it now establishes its own worldview.
The technological worldview urges us to buy, build, trade, and relate with the world in a way that resembles a vending machine. I put x in and out comes y. For example, many people go to work not because they know that it will stimulate the economy by producing valuable goods and services, but rather because it will give them a paycheck. Perhaps another example: the contemporary evangelical scene sees people attending church either because of the spiritual experience or to manipulate God by doing their Christian duty. In an extreme example, one could think of the use of pornography in American culture. Such a phenomenon arises out of a technological impulse that demands ease of access to something that—in a God ordered society—takes time, commitment, and genuine relationship to obtain.
In a word, the technological worldview is bland. It’s ugly; and it’s ugly for some very specific reasons. My point in this article is to show that the only antidote to the technological worldview is a return to the classical and protestant vision of Beauty.
Art, Technology, and Idolatry
At the outset, I want to make it clear that when I am discussing technology, I do not necessarily mean technological tools. These are things that can be genuinely useful and fall in line with the biblical notion of stewardship. I readily admit that technological tools have a place in God’s world, but it is the worldview behind the creation of tools that we ought to question.
As I mentioned above, the technological worldview is ugly and in light of statements about beauty and ugliness it’s appropriate to turn to the topic of art. While art can certainly ascend to true beauty, there is an inherent danger in the human pursuit and use of it. In fact, it is the dangerous temptation that art poses to humanity that has aided in the development of the technological worldview. Technology has emerged out of a desire to reach the highest of human potential. While this aspiration is not entirely bad—think of all the lovely devices that you and I use to our genuine benefit—it has also caused us to become extremely self-centered and goal oriented.
It is for this reason that I have taken to calling the technological worldview “the idol of the self.” This idolatry arises in the sphere of art as well. In his work of public theology, Abraham Kuyper writes about art and its dominion over humanity. While he does not directly correlate his work on art with technology, a retrospective eye sees the point clearly. He argues that,
The human race cannot exist without a king. Once it has closed its eyes to the glory of Jesus’ kingship, the presence of sin could mean only one thing: humanity would proclaim itself king over nature, the world, and all of human life…what sets the tone and acts as the instrument for the new enthroned-humanities dominion is art, and it is through art that modern life attempts to satisfy its thirst for the ideal.1
Here we can see that the sphere of art and the sphere of technology occupy the same space. They both seek to “satisfy the thirst for the ideal.” By observing Kuyper’s further remarks, we notice an even stronger correlation between the two. He writes, “What art and religion have in common is that they depend on inspiration.”2 Here, Kuyper exposits the defining feature of art, religion, and technology. Even though he does not mention technology, its origin and the arts’ have a strong correlation.
Both technology and its devices are derived from inspiration. This claim is rather obvious in regard to devices as they require an inventive mind to create them, but technology’s inspiration may not be so clear. Technology, unlike its subsequent devices, relies on inspiration not as a process, but as a fountainhead. The technological worldview presupposes inspiration by inventors, scientists, and the like in order to fuel their creation of inspired art: their devices. Thus, technology is not a virtueless endeavor, as it rises from human creativity to taking the place of religion as the inspired worldview.
Herein lies the root of the problem. The technological worldview is a form of idolatry. Art, technology, and religion always derive their inspiration from the divine, but that “does not mean that art—or technology—itself acknowledges and recognizes this circumstance.” In its purest form, the quest for technological tools is not an unworthy pursuit in the realm of God’s created order. However, as Craig Gay notes in his work on Christian interaction with technology, it is an abandonment of the Christian worldview that drove the technological worldview into its idolized position.3
When the technological worldview takes root in a society, it takes on the role of divinity. No longer is technological progress achieved in light of God’s inspiration, but technology itself becomes the inspiration for human creativity. In The Institutes of the Christian Religion, John Calvin writes, “whenever scripture asserts the unity of God, it does not contend for a mere name, but also enjoins that nothing which belongs to divinity be applied to any other.”4 In North America, the technological worldview is widely assumed and left unquestioned. The problem with this disposition is that it passively allows technology to take on the role of inspirator, where the bible attributes inspiration to God alone. It is, therefore, idolatrous.
Beauty as Attribute
As of yet, I have failed to define Beauty because I wanted to firmly establish the issue of the technological worldview. From the early church, into the medieval period, and through to today, Truth, Goodness, and Beauty have been key aspects of the Christian faith. Unfortunately, Beauty in particular has faltered as a Christian doctrine and has become mere sentiment in individual hearts and minds. Such a reduction of the classical view of Beauty is, in part, due to our ready acceptance of the technological worldview and its idolized state. So, a return to Beauty—biblically defined—is needed to subvert the technological worldview and restore the Christian one.
In his book, The Beauty of the Lord, Jonathan King makes a wonderful case that Beauty can be properly identified as a synonym for the glory of God. The implication is that Beauty is a divine attribute. King mentions such passages as Psalm 27:4; 96:6; and 145:5,12 which portray images of the crown, kingdom, and sanctuary of the Lord. These passages directly link to the theological concepts of God’s sovereignty and the kingship of Christ.5 This connection between the glory of God and Beauty is important because it generates a category for us to objectively evaluate whether something is beautiful or ugly.
If Beauty is an attribute of God, then the seemingly subjective statement, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” is actually true because the beholder is God Himself, and he stands in judgement over aesthetic beauty. All things that are accredited to have beauty must measure up to the glory of the Lord. Aesthetically, this is not possible, since God’s beauty is infinite and unimaginable outside our human experience. However, if an artist is to make something truly beautiful, then the aim of their craft and craftsmanship should be the glory of God. It is only in the context of God’s glory that they might create something truly beautiful.
The trouble then is, can technological devices be beautiful? Of course, the answer is, yes. The point I am making is not that all technology is bad, but rather, that the technological worldview has caused us to take glory from God by creating a new definition of Beauty. That definition would be: Beauty is found when something is functional. What this definition does is take on the divine Glory and twists it to say that functionality is glorious.
The problem here is that as a technological society, we have made functionality the underlying worldview through which we communicate with God and his world. For instance, we read our bibles because it functions as a way to draw us closer to God; we pray because it functions as a mechanism through which we speak to God. I am not saying that reading our bibles does not draw us closer to God or that prayer is not communication with the Trinity. However, when practicing these spiritual disciplines, we must recognize that they do not work by the mere act of doing the work—ex opere operato. Spiritual disciplines are forms of Beauty, not mechanistic devices.
Becoming Beautiful
Beauty cannot be achieved in some mechanical way. Rather, it is an attribute of our Most High God. Given this assumption, that means that the only way to attain Beauty here on earth is by being personally and communally transformed into the image of Christ (2 Corinthians 3:18). So, in order to overcome the technological worldview, we must plead with the Spirit to continue his sanctifying work in us.
If you assumed that I was talking only about the spiritual nature of the Church, you’d be wrong. You would also be wrong if you assumed that I was talking about physical beauty. I am actually arguing for both of these things. The destruction of the technological worldview happens in the church when we both recognize that physical beauty is contradictory to the technological worldview, and so is spiritual beauty. If you were to visit a series of regular, run-of-the-mill, evangelical churches in North America, you would see church building after church building inundated with the technological worldview. The buildings are usually simple square buildings with neutral colored wall paint and nothing—perhaps other than a scripture verse here or there—that really smacks of heavenly discourse. In all reality, most of these churches are purely function over form.
Is this not the technological problem that I have been describing? Where has the beauty gone? If a church does not look like what I’ve just described, then it tends to be a mega church that closely resembles a mall. Which, once again, has the technological worldview written all over it. It might be fancy and clean in the same way that an iPhone is, but it’s not holy.
Now, try and picture a 150-year-old Presbyterian or Anglican church. You walk into one of these lovely pieces of architecture, and you are immediately caught up in the grandeur of them. They were, quite literally, built different back then. I would like to suggest that this is the sort of physical beauty that contradicts the technological worldview. The countless arches and the stained-glass windows take special time and effort to design, engineer, and build. They are not there for function only, but for beauty. They revolt against the technological worldview by containing a glory that rejects necessity as their master.
There is, of course, a danger on this end of the spectrum as well, since we can easily confuse the beauty of the place for a conjuring up of the divine. We should wholeheartedly reject this notion as well, since it is the technological worldview edging its way back in. I also would point out that not every church needs to be the most extravagant piece of architecture out there. Only that we ought to put more thought and effort into the physical beauty of our places of worship. We do this not because God requires it—in the early church He was perfectly content to be worshiped in homes—but because we want to magnify Him and signal to the world that this is a place where God meets with his people.
On the other end of the spectrum is spiritual beauty. The technological worldview has worked its way into our churches through our hearts. The old saying, “sinner on Saturday, saint on Sunday,” is a truism that displays the technological nature of our hearts. All too often, we head out the doors on Sunday morning to observe a church service. Maybe we sing the songs, but we doze off or get distracted when the sermon starts.
When the service is over, we might stick around for coffee and a quick chat, but that’s the end of it. We leave feeling like our duty is done, and our sanctification is complete until next Sunday. I won’t lie, this is the ugliest kind of worship that we can give to the Lord. In fact, it’s not really worship at all. True worship seeks to bring glory to our God and Father, our Lord Jesus Christ, and our advocate the Holy Spirit. It is in biblical worship that the Church fights against the technological worldview and becomes truly beautiful.
What is more, when we work out our faith with fear and trembling, we conform ourselves to the image of the Son. In Ephesians 4:17–24 Paul writes about the transformation that takes place in the Christian life. In verses 22–24 he says to “put off the old man…and put on the new man, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” Paul is here pointing to the reality of true beauty. We have been purchased by the blood of Christ, and the Holy Spirit has re-created us in the image of the New Man. Through Christ, the image of God has been restored in us, and now we work out of thankfulness for the beauty we have been given as bearers of God’s image. In his work Restoring Beauty, Louis Markos writes, “it is only when our eyes are drawn heavenward to the One who is Beautiful, that we shall be His bride. Then shall we all be beautiful.”6
Conclusion
Beauty is the definitive answer to the problem of the technological worldview. When the glory of God is the aim of our work, our art, our worship, and our lives, the pillars of the technological worldview begin to crack. With fears of world domination by AI running rampant, we must remember that it is the technological worldview that is driving that fear. A return to the classical Christian view of Beauty, and to the one who is beautiful, is the only thing that will settle our trembling hearts.
Image Credit: Unsplash
