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Techno-demonology: Naming, Understanding and Redeeming the A/Human Agencies with Which We Share Our World.

Research output: Contribution to Journal/MagazineJournal articlepeer-review

Published
<mark>Journal publication date</mark>03/2006
<mark>Journal</mark>Ecotheology
Issue number1
Volume11
Number of pages19
Pages (from-to)57-75
Publication StatusPublished
<mark>Original language</mark>English

Abstract

In this paper I argue that an important strand of ecotheology should be an articulated techno-demonology - an understanding of the ways that technologies increasingly confront us as indifferent or malign agencies. Drawing particularly on the New Testament language of spiritual agencies, I consider in turn three necessary components of techno-demonology. First, techno-demonology needs a taxonomic nomenclature, one which names techno-demonological phenomena in a manner that reveals the specific ways in which the technologies can stand before us as autonomous powers. As a contribution to this task I distinguish between elementals (stoicheia) and powers (dynameis) - between technical systems which have become treated as ends in themselves, and have thus started to control human action, and technologies whose unanticipated side-effects overwhelm their intended purposes. Second, I suggest that techno-demonology should include an understanding of how such techno-demons arise; I thus give historical explanations for the proliferation of technological elementals and powers in the contemporary world. Finally, I argue that techno-demonology should include the redemptive task of restoring technology to its rightful place in creation.