Wisdom and Technology

“Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you yourself will be just like him. Answer a fool according to his folly, or he will be wise in his own eyes.” Proverbs 26:3-4

Wisdom is a long, slow process. 

 I love that God’s word meets us right where we are. It is so clear to us as it reveals God’s character and how we can pattern our lives and ethics to align with him and his plan for the world. At the same time, God also meets us where we are amid complex times and complex issues. God’s word for this is wisdom. I usually define wisdom as God’s word applied rightly to a given situation. The paired proverbs above are a perfect example of this complexity. In wisdom, we are not dealing with a clear-cut ethical issue (do no murder) but instead living with right knowledge of God and applying it to a given situation (that how we are to answer the uninformed will depend on a variety of factors and we must seek God’s guidance for the best path). 

We must acknowledge one key reality about us as human beings: we esteem wisdom in name but find it much less appealing in practice - because it is inherently messy. This ought not surprise us, as life on this side of the Fall (Genesis 3) is messy. Wisdom is the tool which God has given us to navigate that brokenness.

What does wisdom have to do with technology at DMC?

I’m glad you asked! Our Parent University with the esteemed Dr. Tim Elmore last February crystalized for me this fundamental issue that we all as parents are wrestling with: we want immediate answers, such as “How much (if any) screen time is right for my 11-year-old boy,” but are met with a world of complexity and ambiguity. The push in education 15 years ago (from all sides) was that we needed rapidly and fully to integrate technology into the educational experience because otherwise our kids would “fall behind.” Now, rapid changes in the nature and capabilities of that technology and greater awareness of the power of any technology to shape who we are as we use it rightly gives us pause. With that in mind, I’d like to explain the key ideas behind Des Moines Christian’s Philosophy of Technology so that you have a better idea of our approach to technology in an educational setting. 

Keys to the Philosophy 

The first of these key principles is that the goal of education is to make us more human, meaning more like THE human, Jesus, who was God incarnate. He fully embodied the attributes of God, rescued us, and calls us to a life lived in imitation of him. So, we must be mindful of the fact that how we use technology will inevitably shape us, and ought to be used to make us more Christlike.

The second principle is that in most instances technology is usually just a tool. It becomes right or wrong, wise or unwise, when it is used by a person. This means that we must be mindful of the ways that we identify for technology to be used rightly and wisely. 

Lastly, there is an idea called the “Innovation Bargain.” The premise of the innovation bargain is that every technological development allows us to do something with more ease or to do new things, but we usually do not recognize that by using that technology, there will now be other things we can no longer do. As a historical example, the movable type printing press allowed for mass dissemination of ideas as well as education for a much greater number of people. At the same time, the practices of oral tradition as well as the capacity of the human memory diminished drastically. This is the bargain. For us, we must be mindful of what we gain by using a technology, and also what we lose – and, we MUST ask the question of if it makes us more like Jesus to lose it.

DMC Philosophy of Technology

This is the purpose of the last part of our philosophy, which is a grid that lists the attributes of God that most theologians agree we can share with him. If we are called to Christlikeness, and if Christ was God Incarnate, and if using technology shapes who we become, then we ought to have a way to discern that change. This grid is simply just a way to articulate what we already know. 

Let’s take the following example: A teacher assigns an essay or writing assignment in class. A student uses generative AI (such as ChatGPT) to answer the essay prompt and turns in the resulting essay as their own work. The simple and quick response is to label this cheating (it is) and then prescribe their consequences (please note that DMC works to train students on acceptable and productive uses of AI in their work!). The student, however, is confused because in their mind they simply used a tool which is readily available to them to accomplish a task set before them and free up some of their time. We use technologies this way every single day. Why the difference here? 

Education is a long, transformative process.

Over the course of time, we have decided as a society that the process of formal education is valuable because it shapes people in particular ways. In fact, we’ve acknowledged that if we’re going to make this transformational process available to as many as possible, it might even take longer than in previous generations. So, back to our confused student, who does not see education as a long transformational process, but the thing that is keeping them from all the other things that genuinely give their life added value. The essay stands between them and time with friends, leisure activities, athletics, or any number of things. We haven’t communicated to them clearly enough that the purpose of the assignment is not to fill the student’s time, but to change who they are by gauging what they have learned and how it has become a part of them. 

Of course the simple answer is that “they cheated.” But the real, deeper answer is that when faced with a challenge that was supposed to be about a long, slow process of their transformation into Christlikeness, they short-circuited that development. They sacrificed building their rationality, creativity, emotionality, goodness, and relationships in the name of efficiency. In Christian education, where we can fully understand that the goal we are striving for is not just a college-ready student but a more fully-formed person who is equipped in mind and nurtured in heart to impact the world for Christ, it is a shortcut we cannot overlook. 

As I said before, wisdom – and Christlikeness, discipleship, academic success, all things we want for our kids – is a long and slow process. Our aim is to have the right perspective on technology in order to come alongside students in their journey to academic and spiritual maturity – to see them be more like Jesus.

Additional Resource: AI Use at DMC