I’ve heard the word Orwellian used more in the last few weeks than I have at any time in my life, even in the literary throes of obtaining an English degree. The world, I keep hearing, has become Orwellian, or dystopian, headed towards apocalyptic, or post-apocalyptic. We’re living in a brave, new world where we have become pawns, they say. We’re doomed: we’ve already been sucked up by [choose your enemy] big pharma, big tech, big government, big deep state—futuristic big bad wolves of every ilk lurk behind every tree.
God is dead, said Nietzsche; God never existed, say scholars like Jerry Coyne; and many of us without theology degrees are struggling to understand concepts like dynamic metaphor to reconcile our faith with the Darwinian drumbeat of a purely scientific world view. If you stray too far from the stained-glass world of your pew, the future seems very dismal. Cyber-dismal.
In Christ in Evolution, one of her earlier books, Ilia Delio says, “Religion must evolve along with human consciousness if it is to have any relevance and influence. For Christianity, this evolution would consist of a reformulated Christology that is better suited to engage twenty-first century thought.”
What if the next steps of science and technology aren’t leading us to an Orwellian future? What if we aren’t doomed to live in a spiritual wasteland? What if we cease seeing science and religion as non-overlapping magisteria and instead use their intersection as our lens, seeing the future not as a deterioration of the faith that has sustained us, but as a more complex, more whole, and more interconnected reality? What if artificial intelligence doesn’t destroy us in some sort of Julie Christie/Demon Seed nightmare, but directed by Christological principles, brings about an ecological re-enchantment of the Earth?
In her latest book, Re-Enchanting the Earth: why AI needs religion, Ilia Delio shows us that the future doesn’t have to look like the darker visions of twentieth century writers. If humans are made in God’s image and what we create is therefore divinely created, then technology, rather than being anti-God, can be seen as an extension of God. A clamshell, the technology of a clam, is an integral part of a clam. Perhaps we are evolving to a point where a computer is an integral part of our God-inspired humanity. Ilia Delio’s understanding of personhood and her vision of a healed world is mind-blowing.
This latest book of hers has been described in profound terms: “A bold new take on evolution, humanity, intelligence, and spirituality, Ilia Delio draws with refreshing originality on post-humanism, the work of AI visionaries, and the deep theological insight of Teilhard de Chardin. The result is a summons from the future, a winsome, readable, and urgent call for a new humanity and a new spirituality. A brilliant critique of the modern, autonomous, isolated self,” says Ron Cole-Turner of Pittsburgh Theological Center.
“A provocative call to arms for a generation the already embraces science and technology but wants to go beyond conventional religion in search of spiritual inspiration and direction,” says Steve Fuller of University of Warwick, the author of Humanity 2.0. And David Grummett of University of Edinburgh calls it “a wide-ranging interdisciplinary study that provocatively interprets classic Christian themes for today’s connected, dynamic, and reflective world.”
Who could imagine such a departure from the popular dirge of the slow erosion of spiritual life and the wasteland left in its place? Ilia Delio, OSF, is a Franciscan Sister of Washington DC. She holds the Josephine C. Connelly Endowed Chair in Theology at Villanova University and is founder of the Omega Center. In addition to having doctorates in both science and theology, she has written many books, including Christ in Evolution, The Emergent Christ, The Unbearable Wholeness of Being, and Birth of a Dancing Star: My Journey from Cradle Catholic to Cyborg Christian.
Whether or not you agree with her vision, Ilia Delio is profoundly intelligent and profusely educated. Her arguments, though they may fundamentally change our understanding of the cosmos, are so logical they don’t seem radical. And though her ideas may be challenging for the average reader like me to articulate, they make beautiful, reassuring, and exciting sense. What she says.
On Thursday, January 14, at 6 p.m. Central, the Episcopal Booksellers Association and Orbis Books present a conversation with Sr. Ilia Delio and Greg Hansell, executive director of the Center for Christogenesis. Join the Cathedral Bookstore and readers from Episcopal bookstores across the country to hear what she says from her own mouth. Whether you are an AI expert with Nietzschean leanings or a devout soul wanting hope for a future more compelling than the landscapes created by writers like Orwell, Huxley, or Atwood, Ilia Delio, with her profound learning and deep desire to understand Augustine’s question, “What is it I love when I love you my God?” will blow your mind. She makes the future seem no less complicated, but far less dismal.
To receive a link to the conversation on January 14, email bookstore@christchurchcathedral.org before noon on January 14.
To purchase Re-Enchanting the Earth: why AI needs religion, click here.
“Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.”
― Corrie ten Boom