Credo
20 May 2024
In Greek mythology, Prometheus is a Titan god, a potter, who created the first man and woman out of clay. He is also believed to have been the one who stole fire from Zeus to give to man, thereby enabling him to fashion tools.[1]
The German philosopher Gunther Anders was in California on a tour with his friend T. to visit an exhibition of technology in 1942. Anders noticed how T. “concealed his hands behind his back, as if he were ashamed to have brought these heavy, graceless and obsolete instruments into the company of machines working with such accuracy and refinement.”[2] The philosopher christened his friend’s reaction “Promethean shame,” “shame when confronted by the ‘humiliatingly’ high quality of fabricated things (selbstgemachten Dinge).”[3]
Decades have passed since 1942. With mass production, the quality of fabricated things has not been as uniformly impressive. Yet we are regularly greeted with news of technological and medical breakthroughs and inventions that would have been unimaginable in 1942, especially in the arenas of AI and biotechnology.
Deep down, there is an existential anxiety that the things we create will be better than us or, worse still, render us obsolete. Does not the profusion of op-eds explaining why ChatGPT – at this point at least – cannot complete as proficiently a job as a human does, reveal our collective primal insecurity in the face of technology? Indeed, Anders continues – our shame comes from the fact that “[r]eshaped continually through trial and error, the world of products presents itself every day anew and different,” whereas
[o]ur body is today still yesterday’s body, still the body of our parents, still the body of our ancestors…. Seen from the perspective of machines, it is conservative, anti-progressive, obsolete and un-changeable: a dead-weight in the rise of machines.[4]
Here is where transhumanism – the use of technology to transcend human limitations – holds such enticing promise. It beckons us to scenarios where we can be immune to the ravages of time and the constraints of space. It even promises to overcome death, through the Singularity[5].
But these mirages bring us further and further away from the certain comfort of our creatureliness. The Christian believes that there is immense relief in the knowledge that each of us has been lovingly fashioned by God, with all our attendant creaturely limitations. We see that confidence most beautifully expressed in Psalm 139.
Most commentators highlight God’s “omni” properties in Ps 139: His omniscience (vv 1 – 6), His omnipresence (vv 7 – 12), and His omnificence (vv 13 – 18). Yet, for all the panegyrics, as Derek Kidner observes, “it remains intensely personal from first to last.”[6] Dennis Tucker concurs, noting that the I-Thou relationship between God and the psalmist is emphasized throughout the psalm. “In the first strophe ‘you’ serves as the subject of nearly all the verbs, while in the second strophe, ‘I’ dominates throughout.” Hence, “this ‘I-Thou’ relationship serves as the ‘unifying thread’ throughout the psalm.”[7]
It is also out of this I-Thou relationship that man’s creatureliness, as opposed to God’s omni qualities, is brought into sharp contrast. In verses 1 – 4, 6 – 12 and 15 – 16 the psalmist speaks of God’s omnipresence and omniscience. In contrast, man is hemmed in by God physically (v5) and cannot escape God’s presence (vv 7 – 12). By virtue of our bodiliness, man is subject to the limit of space.
Other psalms speak of God’s eternity (for example, 9:7, 90:2, 102:12, 26) but in contrast man is but a breath (Ps 144:4). God had determined, in Gen 6:3, that man would not live for more than 120 years. Therefore, besides the limit of space, man is subject to the limit of time.
However, we would not have grasped the whole picture if all we see are the creaturely limits imposed upon us. The psalmist is at pains to evoke throughout the psalm the exquisite care, pleasure and ownership God takes in fashioning him. From the embryo (“unformed substance”) in v16, to the kidneys or organs (“inward parts”) in v13, to the bones (“my frame”) in v15, the psalmist attests to the attention to detail and the satisfaction God takes in creating him.
The Hebrew word translated “you created” in v13a used elsewhere in the Old Testament always connotes possession; hence there is an association here between God taking immense care and pleasure in fashioning man and the fact that we belong to him. In v15c “I was skilfully wrought” again underscores the craftsmanship that goes into the creation of the human being. The deliberate repetition of (“wonderfully made”/ “wonderful”) emphasizes the excellence of God’s craftsmanship.
That is why despite a keen awareness of his creaturely limitations the psalmist still exclaims that he is “fearfully and wonderfully made” (v14). The word rendered “fearfully” in English which in this context means “cause astonishment and awe,” in every other occurrence in the Old Testament is used of God Himself and His deeds. In other words, this is the only context in which the awe directed at God is used of a creature other than God – but only because the creature is God’s handiwork.
To crown it all, the Creator does not simply fashion man and toss him randomly into the ups and downs of life; He has ordained every single day for man that he will live (v16). And God is with man every single day of his life (v18b). Ultimately, it is God’s excellence and omnificence – His ownership and care, His love for and His faithfulness to His creatures – that gives the psalmist the faith to proclaim his own excellence.
Psalm 139 speaks of the odd, counter-intuitive comfort of our creatureliness. Indeed, as the philosopher Remi Brague points out, Sartre’s platitude that we are our own projects is fallacious – how can one be the subject and the object of the making at the same time?[8] It is a hubristic claim, but one that will also condemn us to restlessness because we will never know for sure when we ought to ever stop working on ourselves, especially when technology beckons like Sirens to “better” versions of us.
When we return to the crucial point of departure – our creatureliness – we will find that we have good reasons to embrace the Maker’s instruction manual – God’s wisdom – for us. We rest in our creaturely limits of time and space because somehow, despite these, we bear the ineffable imago Dei, the glorious image of our Creator.
[1] Charles Russell Coulter & Patricia Turner, Encyclopedia of Ancient Deities, (Chicago, IL: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers 2000), 391.
[2] Gunther Anders, “On Promethean Shame,” 29 – 95, translated by Christopher John Muller, in Prometheanism: Technology, Digital Culture and Human Obsolescence, (London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016), 30.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid., 38.
[5] The transhumanist Ray Kurzweil envisions the Singularity as “a future period during which the pace of technological change will be so rapid, its impact so deep, that human life will be irreversibly transformed” through digital immortality. Ray Kurzweil, The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology, (New York: Penguin Books), 7.
[6] Derek Kidner, Psalms 73–150: An Introduction and Commentary, vol. 16, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1975), 500.
[7] W. Dennis Tucker Jr., “Psalms 107–150,” in Psalms, ed. Terry Muck, vol. 2, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2018), 914 – 915.
[8] Remi Brague, Curing Mad Truths: Medieval Wisdom for the Modern Age, (Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 2019), 11.
Khaw Siew Ping is pursuing a Doctorate in Theology at Trinity Theological College. She has been a teacher, home-maker, and church worker involved in a variety of ministries from preaching, administration, to drama and worship ministry. Siew Ping has been a member of St. John’s – St. Margaret’s Church for more than three decades.