It’s been several months now since the latest encyclical letter from Pope Benedict was issued. This was the first encyclical that I read all the way through, and it is very good. The theme is that we need hope, and that ultimate hope can only be found in Christ. That’s nothing new for anyone who knows the basics of the Christian faith. What is astounding and important about this encyclical is the way Pope Benedict makes this case in terms that relate to the prevailing ideas of our world, especially as found in Europe. He is speaking of those who have already written off Christianity as having no relevance for true hope, relying instead on politics, education, economics, or technology to provide hope for the future.

There is a lot of good stuff in there that I won’t comment on here, choosing to focus on how he addresses the hope people put in technological progress. When I was a teenager, I completely embraced that hope until I came to a point where I wanted something more. This desire led to Christianity, which gave me my ultimate hope, but I did not initially find good answers to the issue of technological progress. This encyclical is the best treatment of this question I’ve found so far.

Here are a couple of quotes that I found particularly thought provoking. I provide them hoping that you will check out the rest of the letter and benfit from the treasures found there.

 First we must ask ourselves: what does “progress” really mean; what does it promise and what does it not promise? In the nineteenth century, faith in progress was already subject to critique. In the twentieth century, Theodor W. Adorno formulated the problem of faith in progress quite drastically: he said that progress, seen accurately, is progress from the sling to the atom bomb. Now this is certainly an aspect of progress that must not be concealed. To put it another way: the ambiguity of progress becomes evident. Without doubt, it offers new possibilities for good, but it also opens up appalling possibilities for evil—possibilities that formerly did not exist. We have all witnessed the way in which progress, in the wrong hands, can become and has indeed become a terrifying progress in evil. If technical progress is not matched by corresponding progress in man’s ethical formation, in man’s inner growth (cf. Eph 3:16; 2 Cor 4:16), then it is not progress at all, but a threat for man and for the world.
(N. 22)

In this next quote, I was particularly struck by the fact that anything we might do to ensure moral goodness in future generations requires the loss of moral freedom. If people have true freedom, then they have freedom to be evil. We will never build a political system that will guarantee a perfect society.

 Let us ask once again: what may we hope? And what may we not hope? First of all, we must acknowledge that incremental progress is possible only in the material sphere. Here, amid our growing knowledge of the structure of matter and in the light of ever more advanced inventions, we clearly see continuous progress towards an ever greater mastery of nature. Yet in the field of ethical awareness and moral decision-making, there is no similar possibility of accumulation for the simple reason that man’s freedom is always new and he must always make his decisions anew. These decisions can never simply be made for us in advance by others—if that were the case, we would no longer be free. Freedom presupposes that in fundamental decisions, every person and every generation is a new beginning. Naturally, new generations can build on the knowledge and experience of those who went before, and they can draw upon the moral treasury of the whole of humanity. But they can also reject it, because it can never be self-evident in the same way as material inventions. The moral treasury of humanity is not readily at hand like tools that we use; it is present as an appeal to freedom and a possibility for it.
(N. 24)