“And through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand; and he shall magnify himself in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many:”
Daniel 8:25a
According to Daniel’s prophecy, the antichrist has both a motive and a plan for technology. That got me thinking: what are my motives and plans for using technology? Do my views line up with the Bible? What is God’s plan for technology in the future? Tossing these questions together brought out some advice from dedicated believers from different eras that I want to make accessible and apply to this study.
Seed Thoughts on Faith and Technology
The role of technology, that is, machinery in Christianity has baffled many. The debate involves the Biblicality, morality, and effectiveness of man’s physical inventions in the spiritual arena. It has brought out many arguments, dividing otherwise agreeable believers into opinionated camps. I fear this is due to the speed at which inventions have built upon each other, and the inability to settle a definition for technology.
For example, in 1828, the definition of technology was “a description or an explanation of arts; or a treatise on the arts.”1 Fast forward (a technical term) to 2012, and it is “the branch of knowledge that deals with the creation and use of technical means and their interrelation with life, society, and the environment, drawing upon such subjects as industrial arts, engineering, applied science, and pure science and the application of this knowledge for practical ends.”2 So it has become more about the USE of materials, laws, and mechanics, than the depiction of them. In 1828, the exclamation of the popular mind was: Wonder! that a bird can fly! Today, the question is: how fast and far and high does that bird fly?
As Archimedes proposed, that given a place to stand, and a lever long enough he could move the world. Such is the bombast of science “falsely so called”3 due to overmuch faith in machinery. We want an even trade: light without heat, warmth without fire, sound without effort, health without sweat. Such is the propellant of the tech industry today. But the advances in communication, transportation, comfort, and knowledge come at great cost. The “engines”4of the Bible are ultimately for war. Man behind the machine seeks to best other men behind their machines. Something, or someone dies at the smoking gun of progress.
Perhaps we should think in God’s terms. We are the invention of a Creator. Were we pre-engineered by God to have weaknesses? Perhaps travel was meant to take time; communication was supposed to be deliberate; comfort intended to be optional and knowledge to be earned. Our abilities, even our lifespan is limited. Was even our obsolescence planned? The fact that we have limitations may be less about our advancement in the world stage, and more connected to the will of God for our life. Perhaps we were made to “take up the cross, and follow”5 Him without the aid of the wheel, the inclined plane, or lever?
Beware the Tech that Emphasizes Time over Eternity
This is the carnal warfare any Christian may be easily consumed by. We may think we are wielding the next great weapon to advance the kingdom of God (insert: the printing-press, radio, television, internet, flight, etc.) but what we are honestly doing is messing around in carnality. The Devil is pulling the levers, and moving this world to his aims. In 2018, a preacher from Florida euphemized the smartphone by showing how the Devil employs gadgets to keep his machine running smoothly sunup to sundown:
"So instead of being able to close your day with thoughts of the Lord and His goodness toward you that day, or to think of where you failed Him and what it’s going to take the next day to keep from failing Him again, or to simply clear your mind and let the Lord speak to you, the little devil once again has distracted you from fruit-bearing for Jesus Christ and from the reality of eternity.
Enough already about all of the things that man can do nowadays as a result of modern technology! [The] convenience[s] are things that the Lord could care less about. But what does that matter as long as you get a little temporal pleasure, right? Enough already about “old timers” not wanting to keep up with the times of technological advancements! The “old-timers” got a lot more done for the Lord than any five modern men you know, guaranteed.
They had time to talk to the Lord throughout their day and let the Lord guide their thoughts without something interrupting them every thirty seconds.
They had time to think about the eternal souls they came across and weren’t in a hurry to keep up with the schedule that the little devil has mapped out for them.
[T]he claims for the importance of the computer and smartphone are that more can be accomplished in a lesser amount of time! More what? More distraction from what really matters, that’s what!6
Technology is intended to hoist the sails; yet it may be the heaviest weight anchoring your eternal soul in temporal shallows.
Beware the Tech that Magnifies the Worship of Work
One researcher summed a study of technology alongside theology this way:
"In his Introduction to The Technological Society John Wilkinson sums up the foundational insight of Ellul by stating: "Ernst Jünger once wrote that technology IS the real metaphysics of the twentieth century." It is when technological means become ends in themselves, when human ends become forgotten and swallowed up by the quantitative approach to life, that technology becomes a god. Mass man is mechanically dominated man." "Worshipping the means or techniques without the proper ends result is endless means, all seeking fruitlessly to control the world."7
So you can move the world. Why? Just to prove you can? What is the end of a technology IF IT COULD deliver all we wish it would? Longer life? Smarter brain? Citius, Altius, Fortius, Communiter? We seek to win the comparative (better), but fail to attempt the superlative (best).
(“For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds;)”
2 Corinthians 10:4
Beware the Tech that Promotes Productivity over Prayer
We waste our lives looking for the lever to move the world. God is looking for a man to be His fulcrum, kneeling humbly in the spiritual power of prayer. Prayer is the exercise in stillness to move mountains; the practice of silence to be heard by Almighty God. Of all the Christian disciplines, prayer is one that CANNOT be enhanced by machinery. It is immune to upgrade or redesign. It is repellent to technology by its very nature. Prayer also insulates the engaged heart from the novelty of the physical world. Prayer is entirely spiritual.
And how vitally spiritual it is. “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against… spiritual wickedness in high places.” (Ephesians 6:12) For there has never been an invention built that threatened the devil’s power. Quite the opposite, for Daniel said that “craft” to “prosper in his [the antichrist’s] hand.”
A veteran prayer warrior of the late 18th century cuts through the bloat of opinion about technology and severs truthfulness from wishful thinking.
"The devil is not afraid of machinery; he is only afraid of God, and machinery without prayer is machinery without God. Our day is characterized by the multiplication of man's machinery and the diminution of God's power sought and obtained by prayer. But when men and women arise who believe in prayer, and who pray in the way the Bible teaches us to pray, prayer accomplishes as much as it ever did. Prayer can do today as much as it ever could. Prayer can do anything God can do; for the arm of God responds to the touch of prayer."8
-R.A. Torrey
In short, there are mountains that cannot be moved with physical (technological, mechanical) forces. Spiritual victories are won by invocation; not by calculation.
- Webster, Daniel, American Dictionary of the English Language, https://webstersdictionary1828.com/Dictionary/technology ↩︎
- Collins, William, Collins English Dictionary, https://www.dictionary.com/browse/technology 2012 Digital Edition ↩︎
- 1 Timothy 6:20 ↩︎
- 2 Chronicles 26:15 Built in the days of King Uzziah ↩︎
- Mark 10:21 ↩︎
- Colvin, Zach, “The Reality of Eternity” Bible Believers’ Bulletin Vol. 42 No. 2, February 2018, p. 17 ↩︎
- Reynolds, Greg, The Word is Worth a Thousand Pictures, p. 234 Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2001 ↩︎
- Harvey, Kneeling We Triumph, Book One, “Prayer is Omnipotent,” Harvey Christian Publishers, 1982 ↩︎
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