Mind over matter.
Brainpower.
Life of the mind.Brain versus brawn.
Common phrases like this emphasize how much our culture venerates the intellectual. Going all the way back to Greek philosophers, we are led to believe that the purest morality is attained when one focuses on the mind and thought, putting aside the body and corporeal desires.
However, if the mind is godly and good while the body is worldly and evil, then why wouldn’t God have just created us as spirits? Instead, he created us as physical beings with mass and inertia, with blood and muscle. If the ancient Greeks were right -- the production of knowledge with our mind alone is good, while the production of things using our hands is the least noble -- then why would God place us bodily in a creation full of physical things and put us in charge of this physical creation?
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Christians can get caught up in a Hellenistic way of thinking, mistaking a focus on the mind for a focus on the spirit. But our soul is not synonymous with our brain. Furthermore, our core identity is not purely spirit. After all, Christians worldwide profess to believe in the physical incarnation of Jesus Christ and his bodily resurrection, and further, put our hope in our own future resurrection of the body.
We might still elevate the mind above the body when it comes to morality and pursuing virtue. However, thinking alone does not imply virtue unless it is accompanied by action. Thinking about embracing my spouse is not the same as the actual physical act. Thinking about serving my neighbor is not the same as actually filling their needs by offering physical aid in the flesh.
Some temptations have their root in physical desires such as gluttony driven by culinary hunger or lust driven by sexual hunger. However, not all temptation is solely of the body. Pure thought is not always pure: our mind alone can drive sins of pride and gluttony. Sin does not taint our body alone but taints our minds as well.
Giving physical embodiment its due is important for engineers, scientists, and all of us involved in technology either as a career or hobby. Technology is the work of our hands as much as of our minds. It is the physical embodiment of our volition. It is our will incarnate.
Philosopher Nicholas P. Wolterstorff underlined the importance of equal respect for both mind and body: “The Protestant Reformation, and, in particular, the Calvinist branch thereof, represents a radical rejection of this scale of values in which the life of the mind is elevated over that of the citizen, in which both modes of life are elevated over ordinary life, and in which the work of our hands is regarded as having no more than instrumental value.“ Wolterstorff allowed no sacred-secular split: “...it was these [production and reproduction aspects of ordinary life] that the Reformers, for the first time in the history of the West, bestowed with inherent and not just instrumental worth -- provided they were done to the glory of God and the good of the commonwealth.” (Nicholas P. Wolterstorff, “Should the Work of Our Hands Have Standing in the Christian College,” in Keeping Faith: Embracing the Tensions in Christian Higher Education, ed. Ronald A. Wells, Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1996)
All careers have inherent value. Both the technologist and the teacher, both the machinist and the mentalist, both the physician and the philosopher have inherent worth. All vocations are sacred. All are callings from God. As such, they all deserve respect.
At the same time, all of these careers and vocations deserve careful consideration so that they live up to their high calling. After praising the ordinary work of our hands, Wolterstorff also calls us to responsibility. It is not sufficient to rest on our laurels of inherent worth. “One serves God and humanity in one’s daily occupation....But one does not serve God and humanity by going into business and then just playing the received role of businessmen, nor by going into medicine and then just playing the received role of physician, nor by going into the academy and then just playing the received role of the academic. For those received roles are religiously fallen -- not fallen through and through, but nonetheless fallen. To serve God faithfully and to serve humanity effectively, one has to critique the received role and do what one can to alter the script.”
Christians working in technology must consider the purpose of technology. For what purpose do engineers develop new technological products? How is our work impacted by sin; how are our technological devices impacted by sin? How then should we work as redemptive agents in the domain of engineering? We answer these big questions In part by recognizing the impact of sin and working against it. We answer them in part by directing our technology design efforts to honor God and love our neighbor, as a Good Samaritan. In all cases, we answer not only the thoughts of our mind but with the tangible actions of our hands.
