Is the machine divine, idolatrous, or providential?

Whether machines are objects of worship, instruments of God's plan, or false gods.

Direction Humanlike machines
Span 1620–1933
Questions 2
Works 12
Languages Latin, French, English, Russian

  1. Q30Should technological invention be understood as carrying out a divine purpose?

    5 answers are hidden while the authors build this question’s position key.

  2. Q31Can reliance on machinery become a form of idolatry?

    Yes6

    • 1829Carlyle, Signs of the Times

      Calls the age mechanical in head and heart; men hope only in mechanism, and worship an idol of Strength instead of the Beautiful and Good.

    • 1869Arnold, Culture and Anarchy

      Says 'faith in machinery' is England's besetting danger: freedom, coal, railroads, wealth and even religious organisations are treated as ends in themselves.

    • 1889Carpenter, Civilisation: Its Cause and Cure

      Says locomotives, machinery and telegraphs must be reduced to subjection to the real man instead of remaining objects of 'mere fetish-worship as now'.

    • 1907Adams, The Education of Henry Adams

      At the 1900 Paris Exposition Adams feels the dynamos as a moral force, as early Christians felt the Cross, and finds himself inclined to pray to one.

    • 1909Forster, The Machine Stops

      People consult the Book of the Machine as scripture and come to worship the Machine that serves them.

    • 1933Berdyaev, Man and Machine

      Berdyaev describes faith in technics as the remaining strong faith of modern civilized humanity, whose attachment to it may change humanity’s own image.

    No1

    • 1831Walker, Defence of Mechanical Philosophy

      Reply to Carlyle's 'Signs of the Times' defending mechanical invention as freeing people from drudgery for higher pursuits.