This article presents an example of the contributions the field of science and religion could offer to educational theory. Building on a narrative analysis of Philip Hefner's proposal to use “created co-creator” as central metaphor for theological anthropology, the importance of culture is brought to the fore. Education should support a needed revitalization of our cultural heritage, and thus enable humanity to (re-)connect with the global ecological network and with the divine as grounding source of this network. In the concluding (...) reflections of this article, the possibility of a secular interpretation of “created co-creator,” in which “God” is reduced to “evolution,” is assessed. (shrink)

Für eine ethische Beurteilung des Einsatzes moderner Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologien sowie autonomer Assistenzsysteme im Berufsfeld Pflege empfiehlt es sich zunächst, empirische Informationen über Wirkungen und Folgen dieser Technologien aus unterschiedlichen Perspektiven einzuholen. Allerdings ist die Studienlage erweiterungsbedürftig. Auch wenn die Diskussion eher tentativ auf der Grundlage von vorsichtigen Annahmen geführt werden kann, so schälen sich dennoch in der internationalen pflegewissenschaftlichen Debatte sehr ambivalente Bewertungen heraus. Eine der Kontroversen betrifft die Frage, inwieweit und in welchem Maße Pflege als Beziehungsarbeit technisch substituiert (...) werden kann oder darf; inwieweit sich dadurch nicht nur Strukturen der Wahrnehmung und Aufmerksamkeit wandeln, sondern soziokulturelle Bedingungen von Hilfe, Unterstützung und Befähigung grundlegend verändern. Assistenztechnologien werden nicht nur das widersprüchliche Verhältnis von Sicherheit, Überwachung, Kontrolle und Entmündigung verschärfen. Unter dem Einfluss moderner Informationstechnologien wird sich auch der Status professionellen Wissens wandeln. Von erheblichem Gewicht ist schließlich, ob möglicherweise sozialanthropologische Grundannahmen wie beispielsweise die der leiblichen Responsivität und personalen Authentizität obsolet werden. Die ethische Beurteilung erfolgt aus verschiedenen Bewertungsperspektiven. Aus deontologischer Sicht hat sich die Akzeptanz neuer Technologien daran zu bemessen, inwieweit deren Wirkungen mit normativen Ansprüchen und Integritätsinteressen betroffener Personen vereinbar sind. Aus Sicht einer Ethics of Care wird es darum gehen, inwieweit durch den Einsatz von Assistenztechnologien nicht nur psychophysische Entlastungen, nicht nur bessere Informationsflüsse bewirkt werden können. Nicht weniger bedeutsam ist die Frage, ob soziale Netzwerke entwickelt, Möglichkeiten der Teilhabe verbessert und kreative Potenziale der Selbstorganisation und der Selbstwirksamkeit gefördert werden können. (shrink)

Für eine ethische Beurteilung des Einsatzes moderner Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologien sowie autonomer Assistenzsysteme im Berufsfeld Pflege empfiehlt es sich zunächst, empirische Informationen über Wirkungen und Folgen dieser Technologien aus unterschiedlichen Perspektiven einzuholen. Allerdings ist die Studienlage erweiterungsbedürftig. Auch wenn die Diskussion eher tentativ auf der Grundlage von vorsichtigen Annahmen geführt werden kann, so schälen sich dennoch in der internationalen pflegewissenschaftlichen Debatte sehr ambivalente Bewertungen heraus. Eine der Kontroversen betrifft die Frage, inwieweit und in welchem Maße Pflege als Beziehungsarbeit technisch substituiert (...) werden kann oder darf; inwieweit sich dadurch nicht nur Strukturen der Wahrnehmung und Aufmerksamkeit wandeln, sondern soziokulturelle Bedingungen von Hilfe, Unterstützung und Befähigung grundlegend verändern. Assistenztechnologien werden nicht nur das widersprüchliche Verhältnis von Sicherheit, Überwachung, Kontrolle und Entmündigung verschärfen. Unter dem Einfluss moderner Informationstechnologien wird sich auch der Status professionellen Wissens wandeln. Von erheblichem Gewicht ist schließlich, ob möglicherweise sozialanthropologische Grundannahmen wie beispielsweise die der leiblichen Responsivität und personalen Authentizität obsolet werden. Die ethische Beurteilung erfolgt aus verschiedenen Bewertungsperspektiven. Aus deontologischer Sicht hat sich die Akzeptanz neuer Technologien daran zu bemessen, inwieweit deren Wirkungen mit normativen Ansprüchen und Integritätsinteressen (Selbstbestimmung, Sicherheit) betroffener Personen vereinbar sind. Aus Sicht einer Ethics of Care wird es darum gehen, inwieweit durch den Einsatz von Assistenztechnologien nicht nur psychophysische Entlastungen (Pflegepersonal, Patient*innen, ältere Menschen), nicht nur bessere Informationsflüsse bewirkt werden können. Nicht weniger bedeutsam ist die Frage, ob soziale Netzwerke entwickelt, Möglichkeiten der Teilhabe verbessert und kreative Potenziale der Selbstorganisation und der Selbstwirksamkeit gefördert werden können. (shrink)

Abstract.Since the gene splicing debates of the 1980s, the public has been exposed to an ongoing sequence of genetic and reproductive technologies. Many issue areas have outcomes that lose track of people's inner values or engender opposing religious viewpoints defying final resolution. This essay relocates the discussion of what is an acceptable application from the individual to the societal level, examining technologies that stand to address large numbers of people and thus call for policy resolution, rather than individual fiat, in (...) their application. A major source of guidance is the “Genetic Frontiers” series of professional dialogues and conferences held by the National Conference for Community and Justice from 2002 to 2004. Genetic testing, human gene therapy, genetic engineering of plants and animals, and stem cell technology are examined. While differences in perspective on the beginning of life persist, a stepwise approach to the examination of genetic testing reveals areas of general agreement. Stewardship of life, human co‐creativity with the divine, and social justice help define the bounds of application of genetic engineering and therapy; compassionate care plays a major role in establishing stem cell policy. Active, sustained dialogue is a useful resource for enabling sharing of religious values and crystallization of policies. (shrink)

Recent theological anthropology emphasizes a dynamic and integral understanding of the human being, which is also related to Karl Rahner's idea of active self-transcendence and to the imago Dei doctrine. The recent neuroscientific discovery of the “visual word form area” for reading, regarded in light of the concept of cultural neural reuse, will produce fresh implications for the interrelation of brain biology and human culture. The theological and neuroscientific parts are shown in their mutual connections thus articulating the notion that (...) human beings shape and transcend themselves both at the biological and at the cultural level. This will have relevant implications for the timely topic of human uniqueness in science and theology, and in proposing a new research perspective in which theology may consider culture along with its biological import, but not necessarily in strictly evolutionary terms alone. (shrink)

The three dialogues in this contribution concern 21st century application of life‐like robots in the care of older adults. They depict conversations set in the near future, involving a philosopher (Dr Phonius) and a nurse (Dr Myloss) who manages care at a large facility for assisted living. In their first dialogue, the speakers discover that their quite different attitudes towards human‐robot interaction parallel fundamental differences separating their respective concepts of consciousness. The second dialogue similarly uncovers deeply contrasting notions of personhood (...) that appear to be associated with respective communities of nursing and robotics. The additional key awareness that arises in their final dialogue links applications of life‐like robots in the care of older adults with potential transformations in our understandings of ourselves – indeed, in our understandings of the nature of our own humanity. This series of dialogues, therefore, appears to address a topic in nursing philosophy that merits our careful attention. (shrink)

The three dialogues in this contribution concern 21st century application of life‐like robots in the care of older adults. They depict conversations set in the near future, involving a philosopher (Dr Phonius) and a nurse (Dr Myloss) who manages care at a large facility for assisted living. In their first dialogue, the speakers discover that their quite different attitudes towards human‐robot interaction parallel fundamental differences separating their respective concepts of consciousness. The second dialogue similarly uncovers deeply contrasting notions of personhood (...) that appear to be associated with respective communities of nursing and robotics. The additional key awareness that arises in their final dialogue links applications of life‐like robots in the care of older adults with potential transformations in our understandings of ourselves – indeed, in our understandings of the nature of our own humanity. This series of dialogues, therefore, appears to address a topic in nursing philosophy that merits our careful attention. (shrink)

I argue that there is no “roaring reality of rampant secularism” with “technological application as its chief agent,” as claimed by John Caiazza (2005). Two phenomena, techno‐religion and a spirituality of technology, suggest a different picture of reality: Technology may be an alternative spirituality rather than an ally of a secularism that makes “nutcrackers of the soul” out of people who should be “dancers” (Nietzsche). An analysis of secularism and its manifold causes indicates that secularism is a fruit of both (...) science and religion. The secular is a companion of religion rather than its enemy. Hence, I recommend a heuristic instead of an ontological use of the concept of secularism. In a technological age, religion is changing rather than being displaced. These changes are illustrated by the increase of private religiosity, megachurches, and cyber‐spirituality. Energized by the tension between finitude and creativity, technology shares in the marks of spirituality (Philip Hefner) and in the potential for good and evil. In this situation, fundamentalism and dogmatism in religion, science, and technology are a greater threat than secularism. (shrink)

In this article, we argue two points in relation to the challenge to human distinctiveness emerging as artificial intelligence systems and humanlike robots simulate various human capabilities. First, that, in the context of theological anthropology, it is advisable to respond to this challenge by turning toward the human body. Second, following this point, we propose the responsive body hypothesis, suggesting that what makes us distinct from androids are capacities that rise from and depend on our responsive bodies.

Despite the prominent role that technology plays in twenty‐first‐century societies, the intersections between spirituality and technology have been poorly analyzed. This article develops a cross‐reflection between these two key anthropological aspects, using a philosophical approach that structures the analysis along three classical categories: transcendence, immanence, and relationality. Drawing from ideas of philosophers, such as Heidegger and Merleau‐Ponty, the article sheds light on problematic aspects of technology that spirituality helps identify and for which it suggests solutions. Symmetrically, the analysis shows commonly (...) inadvertent aspects of spirituality that technology brings to the fore. All in all, spirituality appears as an essential dimension to cultivate in technological societies, while technology might reveal spirituality as richer and deeper than has been apparent in traditional settings. (shrink)

Creating android and humanoid robots to furnish companionship in the nursing care of older people continues to attract substantial development capital and research. Some people object, though, that machines of this kind furnish human–robot interaction characterized by inauthentic relationships. In particular, robotic and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies have been charged with substituting mindless mimicry of human behaviour for the real presence of conscious caring offered by human nurses. When thus viewed as deceptive, the robots also have prompted corresponding concerns regarding (...) their potential psychological, moral, and spiritual implications for people who will be interacting socially with these machines. The foregoing objections and concerns can be assessed quite differently, depending upon ambient religious beliefs or metaphysical presuppositions. The complaints may be set aside as unnecessary, for example, within religious traditions for which even current robots can be viewed as presenting spiritual aspects. Elsewhere, technological cultures may reject the complaints as expression of outdated superstition, holding that the machines eventually will enjoy a consciousness described entirely in materialist and behaviourist terms. While recognizing such assessments, the authors of this essay propose that the heart of the foregoing objections and concerns may be evaluated, in part, scientifically – albeit with a conclusion recommending fundamental revisions in AI modelling of human mental life. Specifically, considerations now favour introduction of AI models using interactive classical and quantum computation. Without this change, the answer to the essay's title question arguably is ‘no’ – with it, the answer plausibly becomes ‘maybe’. Either outcome holds very interesting implications for nurses. (shrink)

While the social and ecological landscape of the twenty-first century is worlds away from the historical-cultural context in which the biblical myth-symbols of the image of God and the knowledge of good and evil first emerged, Philip Hefner's understanding that Homo sapiens image God as created co-creators presents a plausible starting point for constructing a second naïveté interpretation of biblical anthropology and a fruitful concept for envisioning and enacting our human future.

The estrangement between genetic scientists and theologians originating in the 1960s is reflected in novel combinations of human thought (subject) and genes (investigational object), paralleling each other through the universal process known in chaos theory as self-similarity. The clash and recombination of genes and knowledge captures what Philip Hefner refers to as irony, one of four voices he suggests transmit the knowledge and arguments of the religion-and-science debate. When viewed along a tangent connecting irony to leadership, journal dissemination, and the (...) activities of the "public intellectual" and the public at large, the sequence of voices is shown to resemble the passage of genetic information from DNA to mRNA, tRNA, and protein, and from cell nucleus to surrounding environment. In this light, Hefner's inquiry into the voices of Zygon is bound up with the very subject matter Zygon covers. (shrink)

In debate with John Caiazza, we clarify the meaning of the terms technology and secular, arguing that technology is not really secular. Only when combined with antireligious secularism do we get the modern techno‐secular worldview. Science is not secular in the strong sense, nor does its practice automatically lead to the techno‐secular. As a complete worldview, techno‐secularism is antireligious, but it also is dehumanizing and destructive of our environment. Religion may provide a transcendent source for a humanizing morality that might (...) move technology in a more ecofriendly, humane direction. The alternative is not a happy one for our posthuman technological future. (shrink)

I examine the responses to John Caiazza's “Athens, Jerusalem, and the Arrival of Techno‐Secularism” as part of Zygon's forty‐year anniversary symposium. The responses reveal that issues of modernism and postmodernism are central to understanding the dynamic of the current science‐religion/theology dialogue and that the resistance of many of the participants to the influences of postmodernism is a sign not of its backwardness but rather of some of the weaknesses inherent in the postmodern project. This does not mean that the many (...) insights of postmodernism should be rejected. Rather, the science‐religion/theology dialogue may be in an intellectually opportune place to construct successors to the worn label of postmodernism. (shrink)

Can a technological culture accommodate spiritual experience and spiritual thinking? If so, what kind of spirituality? I explore the relation between technology and spirituality by constructing and discussing several models for spirituality in a technological culture. I show that although gnostic and animistic interpretations and responses to technology are popular challenges to secularization and disenchantment claims, both the Christian tradition and contemporary posthumanist theory provide interesting alternatives to guide our spiritual experiences and thinking in a technological culture. I analyze how (...) creational, network, and cyborg metaphors defy suggestions of (individual) animation or alienation and instead offer different ways of conceptualizing and experiencing communion between the material and the spiritual. (shrink)