In Summary
Reviewing a year of discussion towards a theology of computing
About a year ago, Mark messaged Aldo and Daniel about this thing called "Full Stack Theology." Between a podcast, Discord server, and Substack, we've had a lot to talk about. To celebrate a year of Full Stack Theology, we've put together a summary of… "what we think," for a lack of a better phrase. A year ago, there was little we were convinced of, save that we needed to be thinking and talking about computing and theology. Now, we have some points we seem to reference again and again.
I
To design is to organize (a.k.a. to order, to set in relation and in proportion) the material world for some purpose that the designer establishes.
God placed Adam and Eve in a garden, not a forest. A garden is not simply the plants that make it up but also the relationships (spatial and otherwise) between them. The garden transcends, fulfills by surpassing, the natures of the things within it. God designed the Garden; we image God when we design.
To design well "makes the earth a dwelling worthy of the whole human family" (Gaudium et Spes).
To design well is to lift up the material world into the worship of God by the support of women and men and by the expression of goodness, truth, and beauty. Design is a human vocation and responsibility.
It is more proper to rationality (c.f. "rational animal") to design and order (proportion = ratio) than to simply be logical.
Everyone designs. Design is determining the size and layout of the kitchen. Design is crafting cabinets. Design is determining which drawer shall be the silverware drawer. Design is even laying the silverware within its drawer.
Technology, to give a precise definition to the colloquial sense of the word, is a product of human design that enables further human actions.Â
God, within his creation, establishes the natural law as a specification of the eternal law. Designers, within their analogous creating, establish an analogous law, encouraging some actions and discouraging others.
II
Human actions are evaluated in their object (the act itself), its intention (its end), and its circumstances.Â
A good intention is spoiled by an evil action, and a good action is spoiled by an evil intention. The ends do not and cannot justify the means.
Technologies, being products of design, are not human actions. Therefore, they cannot be evaluated morally. This is the simple interpretation of "technologies are not good or evil, it depends how you use them."
Technologies are, however, an effect and a cause of human actions, and these human actions certainly can be judged. This is a more precise response to the charge that technologies are neutral.
Common human actions regarding a technology are its design, production, trade, use, and habitual use. Specifying the action being judged is fundamental to a clear reasoning and discussion regarding some technology.
The moral status of the production of a technology cannot be judged simply by its use.
The moral status of the use of a technology cannot be judged simply by the intentions of its designers.
Arguing that the use of a technology is only a remote cooperation with evil is necessary but not sufficient. We are called not just to avoid evil, but to do good.
The primary virtue of the designer, and of the user, is prudence, the judgment and selection of proper means toward ends.
Habitual use of a technology forms a relationship of dependence of user on designer and producer; this relationship, like all relationships, must be a relationship of love in seeking the common good rather than a relationship of mutual use.
The design of a technology establishes a law within that technology, this law can be judged like other laws.
The production of a technology requires the use of creation and human labor; just production ought to glorify these goods and not abuse them.
III
Everyone designs; some design greater things than others. The house constrains/enables the kitchen; the kitchen constrains/enables the cabinets; the cabinet constrains/enables the silverware drawer.
Those that design greater things have a greater responsibility of justice towards the people they design for.
A designer can become a good designer (a just designer) by learning how to be a good ruler and lawgiver.
Judgments on actions regarding technologies within our present economic system are very muddled because of these technologies' wide social and geographic reach. This reduces culpability in the short term but also impels a future and growing disengagement from these modes of production by reducing their use and constructing parallel, just economies.
Goodness is diffusive; finite things image God's infinity through multiplicity and diversity.
To seek only one design above all others is to presume the human law within the design is in fact a divine or natural law given by God.
Being made up of finite things, any design can only properly relate a few of its parts. Conversely, there is an endless ocean of good designs that vary upon which parts are most properly ordered. A child's drawing of Jesus with His arms looped around the world does not have a proper relationship to the human body or the globe, but quite accurately relates to the deeper truth that "God so loved the world…"
A good designer understands her or his own design work in proportion to the larger "construction project" that Jesus has founded and enabled within the Church.
Redesigning and replacing unjust technologies will be as difficult as designing and establishing them in the first place.Â
The larger-scale unjust technologies we have today have been the product of generations of development; there lie generations ahead where we will have to continue our conversion.
On smaller scales, where - work at our desks, families within our houses, perhaps even within our companies and parishes - we can root out unjust technologies and establish just technologies more effectively. This apparent priority of the smaller scale is simply an imitation of the scale of Christ's work here on earth and an expression of the scale of conversion.
Like any kind of conversion, there is work to be done today.
Do some particular points strike a chord with you? Do some feel grating? Let us know by discussing in the comments.