This article explores questions about chatbots in particular and artificial intelligence (AI) in general from a Pauline, that is, a Christian theological perspective. It does so in a way that focuses on a particular scene in the New Testament: Paul in the Athenian Areopagus, considering an altar to an “unknown God,” quoting Greek poets and philosophers, and sharing curious theology as he dialogues with Stoic and Epicurean thinkers (Acts 17:16–34). By examining the sociohistorical nuances of this scene and their philosophical (...) and theological implications, this article shows how the altar Paul considers philosophically and theologically becomes the focal point for an important dialogue about apocalyptic ends, or ideas about who we are, where we are going, and who or what is responsible for that who‐ness and where‐ness. In turn, this can teach us how to ask practical questions, which can uncover the unsuspected apocalyptic ends represented by, or even contained within, common technological objects such as chatbots. (shrink)

This book examines biographical and textual connections between sociologist-theologian Jacques Ellul and philosopher-phenomenologist Paul Virilio. Through an examination of Ellul and Virilio's embeddedness in the socio-historical context of postwar France, the book identifies a relationship between these critics of technology which constitutes a nascent theological tradition. The author shows from various vantage points how Ellul and Virilio's nascent tradition exposes technology as modernity's primary idol; and, how it uses multiple disciplines-including history, sociology, philosophy, phenomenology, theology, and ethics-to resist the perilous (...) consequences of the modern world's worship of power and the kinds of technologies this misdirected worship produces. Jacques Ellul's death in 1994 and Paul Virilio's death in 2018 may have prevented the maturation of this nascent theological tradition, but Theology, Ethics, and Technology in the work of Jacques Ellul and Paul Virilio aids this tradition's ripening through the presentation of an illuminating way to read these two unique, and at times quixotic, intellectuals. (shrink)