Aquinas on the Web? by Bennett Jana Marguerite;

Author:Bennett, Jana Marguerite;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Published: 2019-11-22T00:00:00+00:00

The power of the internet

I have tried, thus far, to expose some of the ways in which the internet has authority and power in human life. This is part of the reason I want to name the internet as one of the Powers and Principalities, for I am also suggesting that the internet is one of many social structures which affects our ability to follow Jesus well. In saying so, I am arguing against those Christians who want to see following Jesus simply as a matter of individual expression of faith over against everything else in the world. While an individual’s faith is important, it is also important to see that the world affects discipleship positively and negatively. The internet influences people to act in ways that are not necessarily Christ-like.

To make the claim that the internet exists as one of the Powers is to say that the internet is part of God’s creation, but that it is fallen. Theologian Charles Pinches writes, “The powers order human life, and so make a certain form of it possible. However, they also distort, since they are tempted to overreach and become idolatrous.”31

Scriptures affirm that the Powers are created: “For in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him.”32 John Howard Yoder advises Christians to remember that since the Powers are created, we also acknowledge that they had some kind of goodness: “Society and history, even nature, would be impossible without regularity, system, and order – and God has provided for this need.”33 The internet makes certain versions of life possible, especially for people who have never been without its technology. Many people these days cannot fathom how to drive from one place to another without using MapQuest or Google Maps, nor how to obtain encyclopedic information without using search engines, nor how to stay connected with friends without the use of Twitter and Facebook.

In acknowledging the creatureliness of the Powers, we acknowledge that there is no object outside God’s purview. So, the internet must also be understood as part of God’s creation, as I mentioned in Chapter 2; to say otherwise is to succumb to idolatry and to place some object outside of the created world in which we live.

Scriptures are also clear that just as humanity has “fallen” so have the Powers. Being fallen means that “[e]ach Power exists in a perpetual confusion with respect to its origins, its own identity and its end.”34 Moreover, the various Powers do not function to serve humanity, but instead dominate human life and hinder that life from being lived to the fullest extent possible. “[O]ne of the more unfortunate features of the Powers is their penchant for twisted use of language in order to deceive: denials of truth, doublespeak, ‘overtalk,’ secrecy, impressions of expertise, surveillance and harassment, exaggeration, deception, cursing, conjuring, diversion and demonization to name a few.”35 The internet, as

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