It is in the practice of Christian community that, week after week and year after year, Christians are discipled in the recognition that they are not their own, and that all they have, they have first received. Their making, and their very capacity to make, is always a sheer gift. In the end, Redemer rightly reminds us that wherever the future finds them…Christians will continue to gather, baptize, commune—and remember.

As I write this, there is a watch on my wrist. It isn’t especially fancy—this isn’t a Rolex or Omega, but a stainless-steel Seiko. Its case and band no longer glint in the sunshine, but bear the dull matte burr of long wear. And over the years I’ve had to do various forms of upkeep, from adjusting the size of the band to replacing the crystal face to fixing the internal mechanism that makes it run.
This watch was my grandfather’s, and after he passed away in 2014, it descended to me. Since then, it’s been a fixture in my life: I wore it at my wedding, and, God willing, I’ll pass it on to my son someday. Whenever I wear it, I find myself grateful that my grandfather didn’t buy a cheap Timex or Casio. Instead, he invested in an item that would last—not something extravagant, or something indestructible, but something nevertheless worth preserving and handing on.
In short, I carry on my wrist an item of technology permeated by both memory and history—by my grandfather’s past, and by my own future. It has a particular “immanent” function, to be sure: on a traditional Aristotelian account of virtue ethics, a watch that tells time rightly is properly called a good watch, since it functions as a watch should1. My watch is a good watch, by this standard. And yet what matters to me isn’t just the watch’s function of telling time, but the deeper realities—the deeper loves—to which it points.
Something like this intuition first drove the Christian transposition of Aristotle into a Neoplatonic key2. For Christian thought, the life rightly lived involves both the exemplification of one’s essential virtues and final union with a transcendent Reality that overflows the finite. Beneath and beyond the apparent flux of history and becoming, eternity is ever-present—and all created beings stand within its horizon.
In Made Like the Maker, just as in his classic Centuries, Thomas Traherne once again proves that he is the great English poet of just such participation in the divine. Traherne’s sacramental universe is a world not merely shaped by a demiurge’s hand, but a cosmos positively overflowing with glory for those with eyes to see.3
Mere apprehension of that glory, though, is not the end of the story. Activity is key. As Colin Redemer ably shows in his compelling introduction to Traherne, the Christian has the right—and even duty—to act in freedom to perfect and improve this creation. Over against those who might suggest that Christian contemplation entails stasis or quiescence, Redemer stresses that “the work of man is not finished. The finishing touches of creation are still ours to freely fill.”4
It is in this spirit that Redemer confronts the question of technology and Christian ethics—of the ways in which human beings may rightly exercise their own “sub-creative” faculties. He begins by noting that technological progress as such lacks any orienting principle, beyond the brute fact of incremental improvement in performing some function or other: “Version 2.0 is better at satisfying the needs that version 1.0 was designed to satisfy.”5 That is a crabbed view of advancement indeed.
This myopic tendency is exacerbated by the fact that when modern people think about producing things—that is, creating technology—they tend to think in terms of techne, or “making” through skilled craftsmanship. But, Redemer points out, the notion of “making” is fuller-orbed than this.6 Where, after all, does technology come from in the first place?
The answer is that technology first emerges from ideas put into words. This making-with-words—poesis—is the necessary condition of any development at all. Some poetic vision or other (understood broadly) logically precedes crafting or manufacture: “Techne is a making without words, but the true technician must first know what he is making, and that requires learning the language of the thing made. This learning shows us that the techne is downstream from poiesis.”7
Of course, the poesis exercised by Christians is inherently derivative of the original Word with which God spoke creation into being. Failure to recognize this leads to idolatry, as the maker of the idol inevitably seeks to arrogate originating creative power to himself.8
With the relation of techne to poiesis clarified, how then should Christians think about technological advancements? As a governing principle—or perhaps framework—Redemer settles on a distinction, drawn from Oliver O’Donovan, between begetting and making.9 Begetting is the act of bringing into reality that which is like the progenitor in essence, and which is received as it is: a child who is begotten is human, like her parents, and is received by her parents just as she is. Making, conversely, involves the deliberative craftsmanship, by way of both techne and poesis, of that which is truly other than the maker.10
These two must not be conflated. “We are bits of creation, and so we are made,” Redemer urges. “Much as human pride rages against it, we are made by God. As we follow God we must beware not to attempt to make what ought naturally to be begotten. This truth grounds us in humility, in moderation.”11 An obvious case of confusion between begetting and making, one assumes, would be the use of CRISPR or similar tools to produce an infant “according to specifications.”12
But as far as “making” goes, Redemer contends, the field is largely open. In metaphysical terms, it is open because whatever human beings do as sub-creators cannot undercut the reality of God as source and end of all things. “Knowing creation is made, and that we are made as part of that creation, also gives us courage to act,” Redemer stresses. “We are not constrained by the fear that our making or begetting is going to fundamentally alter the nature of nature. The making that is ultimately God’s is a complete and whole thing inside of which our making takes place.”13 Hence, for Redemer, “[w]e need not fear the creation of our hands, be it an artificial ‘intelligence,’ a genetic modification technology, a neuralink, or a new form of as yet unrealized power generation.”14 In conclusion, Redemer urges Christians to anchor their own poesis within their theological inheritance, embracing “the word and the sacraments [as] the spiritual technology of Christian poetics.”15
This is a bold vision—neither reactionary nor uncritically accelerationist. It is optimistic. And it is a vision that rightly grasps the centrality of technology to the contemporary question of Christian being-in-the-world. Any theorizing about ideal Christian politics will never escape the armchair if it tacitly assumes away the Industrial Revolution, the internet, and the smartphone. Opposition to progress tout court is a fantasy.16
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Weakness is how his power and all-sufficient grace are seen and known. The one who is never weak, who never suffers or breaks down, will not be able to know the perfect power of God or his all-sufficient grace. So then, I will glory in my weakness that his grace and his power might rest on me! That verb “rest” means to dwell in or live in, but there must be a place in my heart for Christ to enter in.

I Am Weak
God has been teaching me a lot about weakness recently. The pressures of leading a church through a pandemic, discouragements in ministry, physical tiredness (I have three small children!) and personal sin have taken their toll and, to be honest with you, I feel a little worn out.
The phrase I’ve been using with my friends recently is ‘death by a thousand cuts’. There’s not been one major personal crisis for me or my family, more that a cumulative build-up of pressures, setbacks and discouragements have worn me down. I am not saying that I’m about to explode and go AWOL, although that is where this could lead. Nor has it been all bad. In fact lots of amazing things have happened too. I’m just saying that I feel weak.
More than that, I am weak.
I’m Not the Only One
I’m not alone in this of course. Looking at my own congregation, as well as talking with other pastors and Christians, I think a lot of us feel this way. The word I would use to describe so many of us at the moment is ‘depleted’. Our tanks are low and we’re feeling rather sore all over. We are weak.
We’re in good company though. The great apostle Paul knew weakness, speaking of it candidly and often in his writings, perhaps most famously in 2 Corinthians 12 where he says:
To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong (2 Cor. 12:7-10).
At the beginning of this chapter, Paul tells us that he had experienced ‘visions and revelations’ (v1) and a glimpse of Heaven (v3) and, apparently, such things can go to your head, so he needed knocking down a peg or two. Commentators debate what his thorn really was but it was certainly satanic and tormenting. It was just what Paul needed to set him straight though, to the point that he even ends up delighting in his weakness (v10).
I can’t claim heavenly revelations, but I do know what conceit is like. It’s ugly and it’s why I hate feeling weak. I want to be strong!
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Today, many Christian theologians see themselves as principally opposed to philosophy so that they can build a theology largely devoid of any extrabiblical influence. Whether they embrace the label or not, this is a kind of “biblicism” that fails to appreciate or employ the right use of reason and the tools of philosophy. The major problem with such an approach—and there are many—is that it fails to account for the nature of Scripture’s own testimony to the philosophy according to Christ within the context of a Christian view. As we have seen, one cannot escape philosophy. The question becomes whether one must always, in the nature of the case, carry out philosophy ‘outside’ of Christ, or if one can do philosophy under the Lordship of Christ and his Word.

Theology, when done rightly, necessitates philosophy; and philosophy, when done truthfully, requires theology. Theology is, after all, “Queen of the Sciences.”[1] In their broadest senses, theology and philosophy are the same thing.[2] Every level and specific application of theology uses the tools of philosophy. The preeminence of Christ also entails an ultimately theological basis for philosophy. In this article, I hope to show that good philosophy is a necessary and Christ-exalting ally to theology.
When I say theology and philosophy are the “same thing,” I refer to their subject matter and much of their methodology. I do not mean that they are impossible to differentiate from one another once one moves beyond their broad definitions or that the two are necessarily or absolutely identical. As one progresses to more fine-grained understandings of each discipline, differences do arise. The relation between theology and philosophy is thus worth exploring further, even if that relation is admittedly difficult to articulate.
Theology and Philosophy are Friends, Not Enemies
Philosophy is technically the love of wisdom, while theology is the study of God. But these definitions are broad and etymological in nature. Philosophy is traditionally divided into metaphysics (What is the nature of reality?), epistemology (How do we know?), and ethics (How ought we live?)—with subdivisions within each. Everything has a philosophy. For example, there is philosophy of language, art, mathematics, history, and science. As Alvin Plantinga once quipped, philosophy is essentially thinking hard about something. Perhaps the harder one thinks about various topics, the better a philosopher that individual is. Philosophy, then, pertains to every topic a human being might possibly think about. If a subject can be thought of, then a philosophy of that subject exists.
Like philosophy, theology can be divided into various branches. Exegetical, systematic, biblical, historical, analytic, contemplative, philosophical, pastoral, and practical are all different types of theology (although not everyone agrees upon each of these). Nevertheless, like philosophy, theology is thinking about something in its relation to God, whether politics, education, marriage, or childrearing. Accordingly, there does not appear to be anything that cannot be thought of in relation to God. Philosophy and theology are thus, at the very least, alike in many ways. Not only do they both pertain to anything that may be thought about, but they address much the same subject matter.
In this way, then, we might even say that there is no ultimate difference between philosophy and theology. Why? Because God is the truly wise one. And any philosopher who truly seeks wisdom will arrive at God.[3] Equally, any faithful theologian will think his thoughts after God. Indeed, one might think hard about any topic in its relation to God such that philosophy and theology are virtually indistinguishable from one another. As mentioned above, it would nevertheless be a mistake to think of the two disciplines as identical. Upon closer examination, the terms “philosophy” and “theology” are used as descriptors of particular activities in virtue of degree of their relations to either thought itself or to God. A Socratic dialogue might, for example, take into account the question and nature of life after death but be considered “philosophy” rather than “theology.” Yet when the Apostle Paul writes about life after death, it is generally understood to be theology rather than philosophy. The strength of “rather than” is not absolute, but admits of degrees. In truth Socrates is doing both philosophy and theology, even if his theology does lead us to the one, true and living God. Equally, Paul is doing both theology and philosophy, as his cogitation about God leads him to a true philosophy of life.
In this way, we can see how philosophy and theology—or is it theology and philosophy? —are friends, not enemies. That being the case, their emphases as well as their contexts differ significantly. For this reason, room exists for differentiating philosophy and theology, but not at the expense of their shared properties or, when related rightly, their symbiotic relationship. Indeed, the best theologians and the best theology regularly rely on doing philosophy, and that is what I will now consider.
Theology Requires Philosophy at Every Level
Obviously, if theology and philosophy are friends and not enemies, then theology will be found partnering with and depending upon philosophy at every level. Again, this is true in general, but it is also true when theology is much more narrowly defined. Indeed, every specific application of theology will rely in some sense upon the use of philosophy. Let’s consider a few examples.
For starters, exegetical theology requires a philosophy of language, biblical theology requires a philosophy of history, and systematic theology requires the philosophical discipline of logic. At the same time, a proper understanding of language, history, and logic are only possible given what theology says about them by way of its explication of divine revelation.[4] Theology, then, rather than philosophy, is always closer to the principium in play (that is, the most basic principles).[5] Even if theology and philosophy overlap as described above, it does not follow that the content or conclusions of all theology and philosophy are good or true, nor does it follow that all uses of philosophy in a methodological sense are consistent with the first principles of Christian theology.[6]
This means that theology requires philosophy at every level without depending upon philosophical argument in any pre-dogmatic sense. In other words, theology that coheres with biblical revelation must never submit to philosophies sourced from ideologies developed independent of God’s Word. Instead, true theology and true philosophy must always treat Scripture as first order.[7] While philosophy (thinking hard about something) will be present in every theological inquiry, it is important to distinguish philosophy as servant from philosophy as master.
Rightly Relating Philosophy and Theology
If we accept the claim that philosophy is a servant and not a master (with sources unto itself), then this will have sweeping implications for personal faith and apologetics, especially as it relates to natural theology. For consider the implications set forth by philosopher Michael Sudduth: “The pre-dogmatic function of natural theology . . . entails a more positive use of theistic arguments to establish the faith. Here reason has become a principium of the dogmatic system.
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