QUESTIONS: Science and technology are based on a single attitude to exploit nature for human interests. Such an attitude of interest to exploit pervades all as human spheres of action and attitude. Is science and technology making human beings barbarians? – Mr Abraham Thomas

ANSWER: Jacob Parappally MSFS

Humans worshipped nature when they thought that nature had power over the lives of humans. They offered sacrifices to the heavenly bodies like sun, moon and stars as well as all other forces and elements of nature thinking that they were gods. From the known history of humankind in various ways humans tried to placate these nature-gods who were thought to be angry and capricious. They thought they can could survive only if they please these gods.
For thousands of years human mind sought to understand the functions of the heavenly bodies in the sky. Around 400 years before Christ Eudoxus was the first one to state that the sun and all other stars of the universe go around the earth. This geo-centric view of the universe was further developed by Aristotle and it was refined by Ptolemy (Claudius Ptolemeus), an Alexadrian Greek mathematician, astronomer, in his treatise Almagest. This geocentric view fitted very well with the Biblical notion of the world. It was believed that the earth was flat and static and floating over the water and vaulted with a firmament with sun, moon and stars. The sun moved around the earth clockwise, that the sun went back wards at the command of God to give a sign to King Hezekiah (2 Kings 20:9-11). Such primitive world-view was held even by the Church till 17th century Christian Era because the Church read and understood the Scripture literally. The discovery of Nicolaus Copernicus that the earth was going around the sun and it is not the other way about was a blow to the traditional view. His heliocentric understanding of the solar system was proved right by Galileo Galilei by using his telescope. The Enlightenment or the Age of Reason gave rise to an either/or situation of reason or faith, the state or the Church and this dichotomization and binary thinking has given rise to disastrous consequences for the loss of humanity and the perilous situation of the world.

Faith without Reason and Reason without Faith
A question which Tertullian (160 – 230 CE) raised about faith and reason is often quoted to show that faith doesn’t need reason to support its claims and it can stand on its own legs. Tertullian asked, “What indeed has Athens to do with Jerusalem”. In this question, Athens symbolized reason and Jerusalem, faith. It affirms that faith does not require reason to justify it. This is the view of fideism or faith alone attitude of many of the Christians including those in the hierarchy. Otherwise, how could brilliant minds like Cardinal Bellarmine question Galileo and condemn his scientific discovery. When someone relies solely on Scripture or revelation to explain the mysteries of the universe they are denying the infinite wisdom of God who created human beings with the capacity to unravel the mysteries of the world using their God-given intellect and rational way of thinking.
The history of the world, especially in the last four centuries show the disastrous consequences of the divorce between religion and science and in the European context it meant the setting of Christian doctrines and beliefs against rational thinking and scientific progress. On the one hand, the fundamentalist Christian religious thinking and the blind belief was that whatever was written in the Bible was scientifically true and on the other hand, the age of reason with scientific and technological progress that followed it jettisoned the essential truths of religious belief that affirmed that reality transcended the material or empirical reality. The most important dictum of the time of Enlightenment was that anything can be asserted true that is verifiable by scientific experiments in a laboratory. No religious assertion can be scientifically proved and therefore it is untrue.
It is true that faith needs to be reasonable but everything in faith may not fall into the crucible of scientific experiments or pure intellectual reasoning. Pascal, a French philosopher, once wrote, “Heart has its reason which reason does not know”. The rationalist’s thinking with intellect neglected the intuitive dimension of human intellect.
Human intellect has not only the capacity for reasoning and the ability to find the laws that govern the motion of material bodies, their interactions and analyse the elements with mathematical precision but also the capacity to go beyond everything visible and tangible. It can take a flight to the world of one’s own interiority as well as transcend space and time with an intuitive and inner vision. When scientific and technological progress which humans have made are not governed by principles that make humans truly human, those innate ethical principle like ‘good is to be done and evil is to be avoided’ and values like humans’ right to live and unfold as humans, love, justice, equality, fellowship, reconciliation etc., then science and technology become means of power to exploit and dominate others. The unbridled progress in science and technology makes humans barbaric, uncivilized and inhuman. Those who abuse and misuse scientific discoveries and inventions and develop technology accordingly not only exploit humans but also nature which provides humans a home for their scientific progress and development of technology.

Mechanical View of the World versus Organic View
The harmonious relationship between humans and nature was weakened when some thinkers and scientists began to cut the umbilical cord that sustained it. René Descartes (1596-1650), a Catholic philosopher, scientist and mathematician was one of the first ones in the modern history to propose a mechanical view of the world. He insisted that all living organisms are mechanical systems and thus proposed a mechanist view of life. In the Cartesian view the entire material universe is a machine and nothing but a machine. This theory is further developed in the following centuries and have reached a stage of scientific and technological development we have reached now. Cartesian mechanistic view saw all animals including humans as machines governed by matter and motion although he affirmed that humans have a rational soul that can think and reason. Later, La Mettrie followed Descartes and wrote of humans as machines considered ‘soul’ from a materialist perspective. It goes without saying that when humans are reduced to a machine whatever we value as human is thrown out as worthless. There is nothing in humans that can be thought of as noble, true and beautiful. No authentic human relationship is valued. Humans and nature can be exploited by the cunningness of the powerful. Those who have no power to resist any type of exploitation succumb to it. The socio-political and economic exploitation we see all over the world is the tragic consequence of this mechanistic world-view. With the industrial revolution which began in the eighteenth-century England was a concrete expression of it. Therefore, the more science and technology develop the more will be the exploitation of humans and nature.
An organic view of the world which was held already by Greek philosophers find also expression in the Scripture. When the Greek philosophy affirmed that humans are microcosm and this miniature universe is connected to the macrocosm, the entire universe, it was stating not only the primitive humans’ intuition about reality but also the insights of highly enlightened humans all over the world all the time. Everything is ordered and organized by an intelligent Being whom the believers call God. According to the Christian faith, everything is created in Christ, through Christ and for Christ (cfr. Col 1: 15-17). Christ is the Alpha and the Omega of everything. In him everything is inter-related. This is to be actualized in the existential level by freely entering into relationship with everyone and everything without any thought of discrimination or exploitation. Such a vision of life enhances the quality of human life and well-being of the entire world.

Transformation of Science and Technology
Those who have the money power as well as political power to steer the course of scientific and technological progress through funding researches in all areas of human life and nature solely for exploiting them for their advantage make themselves as well as their victims barbarians or inhuman. The latest communication revolution through all types of digital media has been misused by religious fundamentalists, political terrorists and hard core criminals to kill and destroy other humans and nature. Sherry Turkle in her latest book, Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in the Digital Age, says that with the advent of the digital age humans are losing their capacity for human relationships. She says, “In the past 30 years, all the ways that we know how to measure empathy, among college students, have decreased by 40 percent.” Further she says, “We are so used to the constant stimulation of always having the phone to go to, of constantly having stimulation, that we are losing this capacity for solitude and with-it self-reflection [and] self-containment,” Technology destroys our behavioural skills and negatively affects our social nature. When humans lose their humanness what can they become except being barbarians or wolves to one another.
The way out of this dangerous situation of humans is not a going back to primitive way of living. It is also not by stopping further research and possibility of new discoveries and inventions in all fields of knowledge especially scientific and technological field. But it is through a re-discovery of the worth of humans created in the image and likeness of God. Our Christian faith affirms that that we are a part of the Body of Christ and individually members one of another (cf Rom 12:5). When science and technology can be liberated from those who misuse them to exploit, for example, creating a virus and then sell medicines to make profit, or do research to produce weapons of mass-destruction or any weapons for that matter, there is a chance that both science and technology promote human well-being. The awareness that we belong to one another and to the entire cosmos as well as a resistance to anything that diminishes and eventually destroys communion among humans and shunning them may help humans to become better humans. Abuse of science and technology make us barbarians, but when they are properly used for building and deepening human inter-relationship they contribute to make us better human beings!