God over technology
When my husband and I decided to put our antique collection online in 2017, the budget-friendly option was a free tutorial course that I completed while being a stay-at-home mom. Speaking of motherhood, I joke that building the website was more painful for me than giving birth. But that’s not a fair comparison. I had pain medication and a medical team for childbirth. For the website, I was on my own.
Fast forward to the current year and our store now needs significant upgrades. I find myself back in learning mode as I tinker with functionality and security features. After working for a particularly long, slow stretch, my mind jumped to a stormy sea and a calm Saviour. “What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him” (Matthew 8:27).
It’s obvious when studying Scripture to see that God is the creator and sustainer of life. God is actively involved in every glorious sunrise displayed and each crashing wave contained (Job 38:8–12). Yet I haven’t really believed that God is also king over every AI robot and PHP code. The dizzying acceleration of technology has been astonishing for the layperson (and perhaps, even more startling for those who have a better grasp of its capabilities).
I have found it easy to separate the two realms. God is a God of the natural world; humans created the machine and all the automations that followed. “Come, let us build ourselves … a tower that reaches to the heavens” (Genesis 11:4). Men and women rise from slumber and zealously pound the keyboard to generate more advances that have both the capacity for much good and for sickening depravity. And whether artificial intelligence ever does surpass human ability to reason and perform, it will never master God, and it will never have an immortal soul that communes with its Redeemer.
Through the centuries, technology has simply advanced human discoveries of creation’s orderly patterns. Scientists break down complex concepts like light and vision into basic processes. These discoveries advance our ability to care for ourselves and our world in convenient and comfortable ways.
Even my slow-running website is a puzzle of generated code that communicates with servers to display information on pixelated screens powered by electrical impulses. While people may have developed the system, its complexity surely points to a Creator who spoke it into existence long before we would learn to harness it. I believe that technology is proclaiming the praise of a Creator just as much as the stars shout forth his praise (Psalm 19:1–4). Christ not only holds everything together with the power of his Word, but he also stooped down into his created world to save his people from their sins (Colossians 1:20; Hebrews 1:2–3; Matthew 1:21).
Whatever task I now encounter whether simple or complex is an opportunity to work eagerly for my Saviour (Colossians 3:23). Each thought formed and every key typed is a miracle that leaves me marveling at God’s supremacy as recorded in Psalm 46:10–11: “He says, ‘Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.’ The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.” What a comfort to claim him as our refuge as we encounter each new technological advance in his world!
