Loss of Transcendence - Lesson 24

Dr. James Houston
Loss of Transcendence
th730-24
Technique in the Modern World (Part 1)
Lesson Transcript

I’ve just been asked a question. And the question is very provocative. How do we judge efficiency when we’re speaking in this kind of language of Ellul and Lewis? I wonder how Jesus would have answered that question about efficiency.

I’m sure there were many times when his own disciples were driven crazy by the fact that Jesus wasn’t being very efficient because he constantly is waylaid by somebody in the crowd. But my goodness. when you think of what it was when Jesus was waylaid like the woman with the issue of blood. She had sought to have the efficiency of being dealt with by many doctors and none of them could give her any cure. And so perhaps we can see that doctoring as the attitude of being efficient, about doing something well. But it didn’t work. What was so amazing was that in place of efficiency there was empathy. There was a quality of relationality that he’s able to look right into her heart and to say who touched me. And the disciples, being very efficient said but Lord, we’re being practical people. You’re being surrounded by people who are crowding in upon you, but you’re recognising something that we don’t understand. And of course, it was his recognition of her inner needs that really transformed her life.

And one of the things that most helps others when we are mentoring them is that we’re able to enter into their situation and almost to intuit what their need is and act accordingly. So yes, we keep protesting we have to be practical. We have to be sensible. We have to recognise that time matters. But there’s a sense in which sometimes time does not matter. What matters most of all is have we broken off an opportunity for a relationship that we should have had. So thank you for that very important question that we’ve raised.

Well, to return to the great classic of Jacques Ellul, it was The Technological Society, which he wrote in 1947, just after the war. In French, it’s called La Technique. For he was talking not so much about the society that was technicalised, but the technique that was doing it. And of course, he puts a lot of weight on this word technique or [techne 00:03:21]. He’s going to draw out from it much more than simply the innocence of saying well, what is a technique? It’s a method. It’s an instrument. But what he means by technique is the totality of methods that are rationally arrived at and that have absolute efficiency in a given stage of development in every field of human activity. As I may repeat that: the totality of methods [rationally arrived at 00:03:58] and having absolute sufficiency in a given stage of development.

[00:04:05]

He’s telling us five things. He’s telling us that it’s total. It comprises the whole of our consciousness. It’s universal. It’s what’s led to globalisation as we’re now seeing it today. It’s activity in the broadest sense of the word. It’s rationally arrived at. It’s the product of the human mind and it claims absolute efficiency. So you were right to ask the question at this moment. Let’s look at all these in turn.

First, techne is totality. So the first sentence of his book is, ‘No social, human or spiritual fact is so important as the fact of technique in the modern world.’ And so he sees that the totality is that it has burst upon human history like a kind of star of Bethlehem. It’s created a whole new world for us. It’s a kind of pseudo-incarnation. History has changed course because of it. And so what’s the evidence for this? Well, look at the difference between the landscape of Aquitaine, or indeed of Holland in the 12th century and you’re beginning to see a few evidences. You’re seeing windmills. You’re beginning to see hydraulic pumps. It’s the beginning of a landscape change. So as you move into the 14th century, you’re seeing that now there are windmills scattered over the skyline of Holland much more than ever before. Or you think of the clock. You think of the chronometer and so on you go. And you realise how even navigation was transformed when we started using chronometric time for navigation. Yes, there have been very powerful changes in the past, but overwhelmingly so today we can’t move a step without using something that’s techne.

Secondly, Ellul speaks of its universality. It’s in the language we use. It’s in the mindset that we have. We’re brainwashed by it. And the most important question that was ask is how do we do it? This is the most important word that we use in our vocabulary: how? That was different yesterday. Yesterday, it was much more who? Who was important? Who was influential? Who were we related to? Yesterday, mystery was much more apparent, but when you turn on the electric light, there are no longer any pools of darkness. There’s not the spluttering candle that once only gave illumination for one small part of the room. The whole of reality is now artificially lit up with neon lighting. You might say it’s neon lighting that suffuses the whole of the firmament of our consciousness. Our minds have changed. We have no more space for mystery.

[00:08:22]

The irony is however that to be effective, to be efficient, is to be a steward of time. And of course, there was a time when this was a good stewardship as it was in the Reformation and especially in the Calvinist heritage of John Calvin himself. And so we remember how it was Weber who spoke about the founding of capitalism as a Protestant ethic, a Protestant work ethic, that when Calvin was seeking for a plain meaning of scripture, he was also being efficient and effective in how we communicate language. Now we have exactitude. But now exactitude is a god. It’s taken the place of the glory of God. So that when you get George Herbert saying that he who sweeps this room as for Thy sake doth it and the action clean, he’s not talking about having a vacuum cleaner come and do it. He’s talking about his own motive for doing it. But the vacuum cleaner is not interested in the glory of God. Doing it like a dear servant is a very, very different attitude.

And so I had the commendation given to me by my son as a teenager when I was going through a period of imprisonment within Regent. And he said dad, if they make you the lavatory cleaner in the lavatories, you’ll still stay at Regent. And I said yes, I will. Because God had given me that freedom to know that having a heavenly vision meant that you could do whatever you did on Earth and it really didn’t matter what it was. If it was for His glory, that’s what [would 00:10:37] count.