January 1994 Print

by Dr. Michael Berton

Man is neither angel nor beast; and the misfortune is that he who would act the angel acts the beast.—Blaise Pascal. Pensées

Creation is the primordial art, both as action of God and as effect of that act. In contrast, all human production inevitably presupposes the existence of this marvelous and beautifully ordered universe in which man stands at the pinnacle of material existents. Nonetheless, such activity bears traces, faint though they be, of the originative divine action.

Human art, especially that which merges with technological innovation, seemingly bears within its trajectory a hidden aim to do more and more with less and less. This characteristic, which some contemporary thinkers have termed “etherealization,” were it not impossible, would mirror the very “fiat” of Genesis by making reality “be” from nothing.

Such is metaphysically impossible, of course, because creation, strictly speaking, is the exclusive prerogative of the Holy Trinity, whose nature is infinite being and hence infinite power. Moreover, due to the oneness of knowledge, wisdom, and power in God, He can only create an effect which, as such, is good. It is, indeed, so good “to be.” However, in man, this identity of wisdom, knowledge, and power is absent metaphysically. Even the proper ordering of the latter to the former is ever vulnerable, due to the wounds of that Original Choice to make be that which is not.

In all acts, and at times in spite of his intention, man imitates in some dim way what is beyond himself. But due to moral fragility, whatever man makes is able to be used for evil. The only shields against this are the vigilance of virtue and the effects of healing grace.

Anyone who has experienced the ways of the world knows that progress in one dimension may be regress in another. Material gain may accompany spiritual loss and vice versa. Such is not due to any absolute necessity as some might bleakly conclude. There is no law written into the nature of things demanding that the price of ­material progress be the death of the spirit.

However, historical experience indicates that untempered con-cupiscence, though not the sole cause of the demise of love of spiritual things in the life of a given individual or a society as a whole, is a cause of such. And since causes affect each other in different ways, the prevalence of what St. Thomas calls “superfluous concupiscence” is both a cause and a sign or effect that things of the spirit are abhorred, whether by a single person or a society. For the virtues flow into one another: courage is temperate, and temperance is brave; justice is temperant and prudence is courageous. Reciprocity and differing mutual relations of dependance are woven throughout the fabric of man’s psychic and moral life.

Within a consideration of what we choose to do, it is axiomatic that a person chooses things according to the kind of person he has made himself to be. As the theologians at Paris in St. Thomas’ time would put it; “as a man is, so does the end seem to him.” The kinds of objectives a person establishes for himself and the finalities he has for using things reveal the character of the man. 
A person who is noble loves noble things. A man entrapped in concupiscence turns all things ­towards self-gratification. And concupiscence may range from gross sensuality to untempered curiosity about matters of knowledge beyond the competency and proper concerns of a given individual.

An irony of our epoch is that while immense numbers of humans languish in extreme poverty and displacement due to injustices committed in the name of modern, centralized nations, for the first time in history greater and greater numbers of human beings are offered the possibility of participating in the universalization of hedonism, of seeking pleasure for its own sake. It is as though the concupiscible dimension of the sense appetites had been offered supplementary means to evade being ruled by the habits established in them by intellect and will. However, while we witness ever greater numbers of individuals subjecting themselves to moral derangement by using whatever means they may find, it is important to recognize as well that the structures and dynamisms intrinsic to certain technological innovations, particularly electronic technology, are contributing to the demise of the centralized, secularized state.

Even thinkers with a purely secularist orientation admit of suffering from what they term “techno-anxiety” about the possible repercussions of emerging technical innovations on man and society. Martin Heidegger, one of the most influential non-Christian philosophers of the twentieth-century, asked towards the end of his life whether thinking will end in the business of information processing.

That such a question can even be posed indicates that, indeed, it has occurred to some degree. Observe the almost maniacal desire to augment the means of processing words and communication under the rationale that the world needs not less but more and more, to paraphrase the vendors of Apple Computers. But quantity is not quality, even if, at times, more of a good thing is better. Of course, it is possible that had thinkers such as St. Thomas, possessed such instruments as are commonplace today their extensive and profound production would have been even greater. However, it would not have necessarily altered the quality of their attainments.

n our time, however, it is dreamed that instruments or tools will compensate for lack of capacity. Such is not the case. Even those of reasonable talent when encouraged to extend their capacities excessively produce works of gradually inferior quality. Unless words are first weighed before being spoken and written, what is said will have no weight.

Consider how a dynamic, abstract, and functionalist vocabulary pervades contemporary discussions while displacing ancient, concrete notions rich in connotation. We hear talk of “cyberspace” and “interface.” Sources of information, including great ancient and medieval texts are made available in media granting instant access and research through “hypertext” extractions which lift terms and phrases out of their contexts so that occurrences may be compared in a new light. While valuable to some degree, the price, of course, is a potential disorientation in relation to the text as a totality.

Truly, all technology is in some way an extension of man’s powers in order to increase what may be a legitimate dominion over matter. What is new in the steadily augmenting electronic age, though, is the “externalization” of the central nervous system, which is the seat of what St. Thomas called the inner sense powers: unified perception, imagination, memory, and concrete awareness of pleasure and pain. It is this intensification of sensory cognition and accompanying desire which permits untempered pursuit of delusional, hedonistic content. Such is engaged by making experimental fabrics of images and impulses which veil any immediate reference to true objectivity. The result is a sort of inversion of angelic knowledge, for an angel is where he acts, and his action is his cognition and desire. In contrast, an unrestrained subjection to certain latent possibilities within emerging technology, particularly “virtual reality” and hologram imaging, enables man the knower to be “where” and “what” there is here-and-now-being-imaged.

Due to the fact that these technics ultimately rely upon some of the most fundamental principles of light and energy, which, be it noted, are part of the material order, their potential ­ability to counterfeit reality is quite dazzling. Whether given individuals will be able to apply these developments to proportionally good human ends, or whether they will be content to be absorbed by pure illusions remains to be seen. In the long term, however, man hungers for the real, for things, and not merely the experience of phantoms. If it is not good for God to be alone, as Chesterton observed in adverting to the profound appropriateness of God as being Trinity, much less is it good for man to be absorbed within hedonistic solipsism.

As Christfaithful work for a rebirth of Christendom even while surrounded by decaying secularist structures, no doubt, they will witness an almost unrestrained euphoria for human accomplishments in the realm of technics. some men, perhaps many, will extend their powers to subordinate experience to whatever they will imagine it to be. Ultimately, however, even imitation must be measured by what is imitated. Things and nature are the measure of man as a being in ­nature, and God is the measure of things and man. Even if men are deluded into believing themselves ­possessors of quasi-angelic capacities, eventually they will be forced to know that to ape angels is not to be human.

till, a question remains. If the technics of what we globally call “electronic technology” are not intrinsically evil; and if some of them are indeed latent with potential applications for the construction of a new Christendom, should not at least some Christians who are capable take upon themselves the burden of understanding and mastering them so that they may be instruments in a new sacralization of the world? Certainly, it is prudent to be cautious with any instrument, for it inevitably may carry its own inner effects that will alter the intention of its user if vigilance is not present.

But challenge and fortitude are the elements of all great ventures. Abbot Suger in the early thirteenth century courageously gave impetus to the utilization of the then novel Gothic structures. Such resulted in the marvel of resplendent translucent walls of glass, which manifested the realities of the Faith by virtue of luminous imagery;as well as richly detailed statuary which radiated from within the incarnational nature of the Christian sacramental order. Only a few decades later, St. Thomas definitively accomplished what his great predecessor, St. Albert the Great, had begun: the assimilation and utilization of Greek philosophical principles, especially those of Aristotle, so that Theology could more fully and with greater precision express that truths of Faith. Neither of these endeavors was without risk, especially that of St. Thomas.

When the opportunity for a new Christendom might arise is veiled from us in the mists of the future. But just as the Magi offered gold, frankincense, and myrrh to the Child, symbolizing both material and spiritual aspects of Christ and His Church, so too, should all things able to serve Him be offered by those capable of doing so. The Epiphany of a new Christendom may well be in the balance. And that balance involves ourselves, as Our Lord’s humble instruments upon whom He so graciously relies, living the sacramental life in total dependence of Him.