Eschatology and the Technological Future. By Michael S. Burdett

Abstract

This book is a methodical and careful analysis of the theoretical bases for envisaging the technological future as told by secular theorists, particularly that represented by transhumanism. The author spends very little if any time explaining the specific theories of transhumanists in terms of how they practically envisage that future, and much more on the historical, philosophical, and literary context in which these ideas have fomented. So, the guiding question that is uppermost is, why have movements such as transhumanism emerged in the twenty-first century, and in what sense might they represent a secularized Christian eschatology? The author recognizes that in order to answer this question adequately it is necessary to explore cultural utopian movements and broader questions of the technological imagination as such, and investigate the way key writers have approached the intersection between theological beliefs and technology. For the latter, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin appears to offer a positive rendition of technology, while Jacques Ellul provides a counter-argument. Although philosophical questions are more explicitly dealt with in the final section, philosophical and theoretical concerns drive the discussion of the book as a whole, with a relatively underdeveloped constructive theological approach.