Much reflection has been done on the relationship between God and culture, and a great deal has been said specifically about the eclipse of God by modern society. It is “one of the most consequential ideas embedded in modern institutions and traditions of habit and thought” that “even if God exists he is largely irrelevant to the real business of life.” [1] Human potential and ability is so emphasized that the immediate temptation is to conduct one’s life without giving God much thought. The term that best describes this attitude is practical atheism.
It may be said that Christians also think and behave with the same practical atheism. Thoughts, decisions and plans are made without much regard for God. But more specifically it appears that Christians do not neglect God as a whole so much as they neglect God, the Holy Spirit. The failure to recognize the third Person of the Trinity is a woeful mistake, and one with many consequences in everyday life. Compared to practical atheism, living like the Holy Spirit is irrelevant might be called belief in a “practical Duality” in contrast to the Trinity.
As mentioned already, modern society is dominated by the assumption that mankind is able to gain control over circumstances through rational manipulation. This inflated estimation of human potential has relegated the reality of God, and specifically the work of His Spirit, to insignificant proportions. Secularization (by which is meant the process in which religious ideas, values and institutions lose their public status and influence) has hit hardest the Third Person of the Trinity, and the following is a description of one of the most significant forces of secularization, technology.
Current thought is dominated by a dependence on science and technology rather than on the Holy Spirit. It seems only reasonable and responsible to focus attention upon the temporal and discoverable aspects of nature, for it is the natural world in which existence is thought to take place. Technology has made it possible to manage the natural world, and in some cases even human nature, and gives the illusion that individuals and society are able to be directed toward ends of human choosing. Therefore, science and technology have attempted to define the world in such a way as to render God, and specifically the Holy Spirit, practically irrelevant. They encourage men to be so preoccupied with knowing and making that they forget their position as creatures subservient to the Creator.
The concern of science is to know the truth of things, how they exist and what things do. Two of the principal concerns of science then are certainty and accuracy. But even more than these, science is also concerned with control. This desire for control is manifested in making things and using the world far more than admiring the world as it reflects the Creator. It advances a mindset which attempts to reduce all problems to their simplest parts. This spirit of “creation power” breaks down the God-given creation order, and reconstructs an order according to the ideas of human autonomy. “Creative power was attributed to theoretical thought, to which was given the task of methodically demolishing the structures of reality as they are given in the divine order of creation, in order to create them again theoretically according to man’s own image.” [2] Thus the ideal of science is the ideal of control.
For the most part Christians have accepted the ongoing technological development uncritically. They have been enchanted by the positive effects of technology, such as the enrichment of material life, the enhancement of the duration of life, help in battling poverty and illness, even its aid in the spread the Gospel. This sweeping material prosperity, however, numbs the senses to the gravity of the situation. Man attempts to be lord and master over God’s creation, endeavoring to realize a worldly, technological paradise. In the meantime the perspective of eternity is lost, heaven is closed, and God is taken off of His throne.
With this emphasis on science comes an emphasis on results. This emphasis on results leads questions to take a more pragmatic focus, and the search is made for things that work rather than for things that are good or right. “From within” the church “as well as from without there is questioning of the relevance and the pertinence of its methods and even to some degree its message.” [3] Increasing impatience grows toward preaching as a mode or means of communicating the gospel. Greater displeasure dilates among churches which desire larger attendance and bigger budgets. God and His Word are not the definitive sources of help for present problems or issues. But perhaps most of all this practical atheism attacks our trust in and dependence on the person of the Holy Spirit.
[1] Craig M. Gay, The Way of the Modern World, (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1998), 2. [2] Egbert Schuurman, “A Confrontation with Technism as the Spiritual Climate of the West” in Westminster Theological Journal, (V58 #1, Spring 1996), 64. [3] Hudson T. Armerding, “The Evangelical in the Secular World” in Westminster Theological Journal, (V127 #506, April 1970), 131.
read Part 1: the Holy Spirit is not the Force | read Part 3: the work of the ministry and the Holy Spirit
One Comment
Things you have covered in this post are things I have thought about, especially being a “technologist”. Every day I face questions like, “Can such and such be done?” The question should more appropriately be, “Should such and such be done?” What has this to do with your post? Good question. Schaeffer’s “Escape from Reason” has guided some of my thoughts. In our age(s) of innovation we’ve become far too concerned with “creating” things, little thought has been put into worshipping the creator.