Technology In Our Relationship With God I Fr. Anselm Ramelow, O.P.

Sep 10, 2025

Fr. Anselm Ramelow, a philosophy professor at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in Berkeley, dives into the intricate relationship between technology and our spiritual lives. He warns against idolizing technology while emphasizing its rightful role as a tool for human ends. The discussion spans the moral implications of tech in faith, historical contexts of its influence on the Church, and how modern technologies challenge our connection with God. Ramelow critiques the impact of virtual worship, urging a balance between innovation and reverence.

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INSIGHT

Technology Is Spiritually Ambivalent

Fr. Anselm Ramelow argues technology is not neutral and always affects our relationship with God.
He frames technology as spiritually ambivalent, neither purely good nor purely evil.

INSIGHT

Being Makers Reflects God's Image

God made humans as makers so technology participates in our God-given dignity.
Fr. Anselm insists making is part of human nature, not simply a post-Fall aberration.

ANECDOTE

Monasteries Drove Early Tech

The Church historically encouraged and developed technology, notably in monasteries.
Monasteries advanced agriculture, clocks, mills, archives, and metallurgy to serve human needs.

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Fr. Anselm Ramelow examines how technology shapes and reflects our relationship with God, cautioning against both idolizing technology and seeking salvation through it, while affirming its proper role as an instrument serving man's chosen ends.

This lecture was given on June 11th, 2025, at Dominican House of Studies.

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About the Speakers:

Fr. Anselm Ramelow, O.P., a native of Germany, teaches philosophy at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in Berkeley, California, where he is also currently the chair of the philosophy department. He is also a member of the Core Doctoral Faculty at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley and the Academy of Catholic Theology. He obtained his doctorate under Robert Spaemann in Munich on Leibniz and the Spanish Jesuits (Gott, Freiheit, Weltenwahl, Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1997) and did theological work on George Lindbeck and the question of a Thomist philosophy and theology of language (Beyond Modernism? - George Lindbeck and the Linguistic Turn in Theology, Neuried: Ars Una 2005). Other works include Thomas Aquinas: De veritate Q. 21-24; Translation and Commentary (Hamburg: Meiner, 2013) and God: Reason and Reality (Basic Philosophical Concepts) (Munich: Philosophia Verlag, 2014), as editor and contributor. Articles appeared in Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie, Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte, Nova et Vetera, American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly and Angelicum. Areas of research and teaching include Free Will, the History of Philosophy and Philosophical Aesthetics. He has worked on a philosophical approach to Miracles and other topics of the philosophy of religion, and more recently the philosophy of technology.

Keywords: Divinization of Technology, Ethics, Idolatry, Incarnation, Liturgy, Makers, Materialism, Sacramentality, Spirituality, Virtual Reality