Technology is woven deeply into the fabric of our culture. We find technical terms threaded into our language. We speak of someone "pushing our buttons," we ask for "input" from colleagues, we call our pilot project a "test drive." We increasingly find technology forming the curtained entrance to goods, services, and ideas. One of those goods is this review, which most of you are likely reading on a device, not a printed page (though one could argue that printing is also technology). The recent debacle with the roll-out of healthcare.gov illustrated the criticality of technology as the gateway to essential services. Current ideas in wide ranging disciplines often make their debut appearance in online journals.

While technology is part of the warp and woof of our lives, we view our relationship to our devices and machines with ambivalence. On the one hand, technology has been a boon, providing significant health improvements, raising the standard of living for many, uncovering deep scientific mysteries, improving productivity at work, and interconnecting us in a global community. Our tools enhance our sight, amplify our voices, and extend our reach. On the other hand, technology comes with baggage. The cars that get us where we need to go also may provoke us to road rage. The phone that connects us with far-away friends also seems to disconnect us from neighbors. Our time-saving devices often break down or misbehave, effectively squandering any time savings we had hoped to gain.

Highlighting our immersive interaction with technology and then identifying the mixed blessings that come part and parcel with that connection is the usual approach for writing about technology. A few authors have focused on the blessings of technology as part of a utopian vision of an ever-improving technological society. However, many writers have skipped the blessings and jumped directly to the curses of technology as part of a dystopian editorial condemnation of our machine-dependent existence. Unfortunately, it is simpler and more provocative to swing the pendulum hard toward either of these opposite directions of blind praise or unrelenting critique.

Why is technology often considered so monolithically? Must our judgment be all or nothing, either embracing or rejecting? We do not generally treat other forms of culture in this way. We immediately consider such dichotomous choices to be false -- to embrace or reject music, legislation, theater, or science. Why should technology be treated differently than other human endeavors? Technology is not an alien thing woven into our culture: technology is a cultural artifact as well. Humans are not only musical, political, philosophical, and scientific. We are also technological. We are not only homo sapien, we are also homo faber. It is thus refreshing to discover two books addressing these two sides of technology with a balanced hand: John Dyer's From the Garden to the City and Derek Schuurman's Shaping a Digital World.

The style of each book is indicative of the author's background. Schuurman, an engineer and computer scientist teaching at Redeemer University College, uses a rather scholarly approach to state his case. He targets an audience of Christians who are "practitioners and students working in fields related to computer technology." Dyer works in information technology as well, but it is his theological training at Dallas Theological Seminary that comes through in the stories he weaves together into an extended three-point sermon on technology. Although he doesn't explicitly define his audience, it appears to be the Christian community in general, i.e., the users more than the developers of technology. However, as each book unfolds, it becomes clear that humans are creative by nature and calling, and thus the line between developer and user is rather fuzzy. We are all engineers in some sense, when we adapt the resources around us to solve the problem at hand, whether the problem is pounding a nail (and we adapt the sole of our boot into a makeshift hammer) or whether the problem is communicating the plight of a protest crowd under attack by a dictator (and we adapt social networks into news broadcasting platforms).

In defining technology, Dyer turns to a seminal book from a team of Christian scholars seeking to relate Christian principles to technology, Responsible Technology: A Christian Perspective, edited by Stephen V. Monsma (Eerdmans., 1986). That earlier work has been a central influence for many of us thinking and writing about technology from a Christian perspective. It reflects a distinctly Reformed take on technology, drawing on the work of Abraham Kuyper and Herman Dooyeweerd—two key thinkers in this tradition. The Responsible Technology (RT) narrative informs Dyer's definition of technology as "the human activity of using tools to transform God's creation for practical purposes." Following RT, Dyer views technology as not merely the tools we use, but as an activity, and in particular, a cultural activity. Technology is a cultural good as much as art, music, and legislation are cultural goods. It is distinctive from these others aspects of culture because technology's central purpose is utilitarian: to transform. These technological cultural goods do not "exist for their own sake, but tools have a job: transforming the natural world."

Though Schuurman starts with Carl Mitcham's multifaceted definition of technology, when it comes to defining computer technology specifically, like Dyer, he also turns to RT. I have always found the RT definition unsatisfying because it restricts the definition of technology to the activity alone, relegating the results of that activity to the awkward term "technological artifact." I was happy to see that though both Dyer and Schuurman start with the RT definition, neither adheres to it slavishly. In practice, each book treats tools and devices such as shovels, televisions, and social networks as "technology" in the pages that follow their definitions.

The difficulty in consistently applying a single definition points to the underlying complexity. If design and use of technology is a cultural activity (and I think it is), then it will be helpful to consider the language used to describe other types of culture-making activities. Composers compose music; writers write novels; painters paint paintings; legislators draft legislation; judges issue rulings; directors film movies. We do not always uniquely identify the actor, the activity, and the object when speaking of culture. In some cases the words are quite distinct and in others the words are identical, save the ending. In the case of technology, there is broad societal consensus on the object, but little agreement about the nomenclature for the actor or the activity. The actor is variously called engineer, scientist, designer, or technologist. The activity is diversely named engineering, science, design, innovation, or invention. Thus, I find Mitcham's definition more satisfying because it better captures the important nuances. In Thinking through Technology: The Path between Engineering and Philosophy (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1994), he suggests a fourfold framework for the modes of the manifestation of technology: Technological objects (or artifacts), Technological activities (making and using), Technological knowledge, and Technological volition. The former two are exterior to the human being; the latter two are interior manifestations of technology. Dyer later notes Stephen Kline's four-layer model of technology, implicitly acknowledging the need for a more complex, nuanced definition.

We also find much common ground between the authors in characterizing technology as non-neutral. Schuurman also uses the term "value-laden", borrowing from RT. Although neither author intends it, these terms can be misinterpreted to indicate that technology itself has agency—that the tool itself can make moral choices. The term "biased" might be somewhat more descriptive. Technology is biased because the tool not only embodies the intentional wishes of the designer but also because it embodies the unintentional inclinations of the designer. For example, "although none of the early automobile innovators probably thought about it, the car now has embedded in it the value of allowing an individual to travel wherever, whenever." We—the engineer specifically, society more generally—build in values that we intend, but also values we don't recognize and thus produce consequences we didn't foresee. Here is it helpful to differentiate the technological object from the technological activity. The activity of the human designer embeds our human biases into the object.

The contextual approach to technology differs between the books. Schuurman sets technology within a philosophical context centering on Dooyeweerd's modal aspects, especially as normative principles to guide development of technology, again following RT. Here too, Schuurman is less rigorous than RT, and again this seems wise. While some of the discussion on particular norms is a bit light (historical, lingual, social, aesthetic, faith), his exploration of justice (the juridical norm) includes some fascinating excursions into the digital divide, surveillance technology, intellectual property, and open source software. Likewise, he fleshes out the ethical norm with insightful analysis of video games, design with respect for the visually impaired, responsibility for accidents due to software bugs, and war by proxy with remotely executed battles using robots and automated aircraft. These are good first steps beyond RT. In future publications, I hope Schuurman will continue exploring how we might use these guides to technological development and perhaps consider adding some additional norms. For example, I have long thought humility was a virtue that could be adapted advantageously as an additional norm for technology. Though Dyer spends more time painting historical background (placing technology within a historical context, rather than a philosophical one), he does describe some underpinnings for his approach in terms of the media ecology of Marshall McLuhan and Neil Postman. The "medium is the message" is a particularly important theme that he applies to multiple technologies.

Although they come from different theological traditions, both authors frame their books in terms of the metanarrative of the goodness of creation, the stain of sin, the grace of redemption, and the hope of restoration. For example, both authors point to the imago dei in the creation story, noting that human creativity exhibited in technology is part of our reflection of the Creator. In regard to the fall, Schuurman provides some nuance, recognizing that scientism and technicism come up short as universal cure-alls because they do "not recognize that our problems are due to sin, not just a lack of knowledge." Later Schuurman demurs in deciding whether to lay the blame for computer software bugs at the feet of our fallen human nature or our finite ability to work with complex systems. As created beings we were always finite, but sin makes us also fallen. Should we blame bugs on our finite nature or on our fallen nature? The best answer may be to blame both.

Both authors warn us of the dangers of electronic communication compared to face-to-face dialogue. For example, Schuurman writes that email and social networking are "no substitute for face-to-face communication" because they leave out "nuances of body language, facial expressions and intonation." Similarly, Dyer says "the older medium has more of you and less of the machine while the newer medium is more machine and less you." It would be nice to hear the authors' thoughts on why video conferencing is not sufficient, since one can see the body language, observe facial expressions, and hear intonation. Even more so, what about anticipated virtual reality technologies where even higher resolutions of these subtle indications could be replicated? I suspect that there is something even more fundamental about face-to-face conversation, something about how the authenticity of our physical presence places expectations on our listener. For example, most technological channels of communication give us a way to mute the conversation and tune out the speaker. When the person is physically present with us, we have less control and we will likely be more hospitable and respectful in our listening.

While much of each book advocates for caution when using technology, or even outright resistance to its allures, the authors occasionally acknowledge its benefits. This approach, weighted more heavily toward the dangers, is not unusual among Christian perspectives on technology. The power of technology is so great that it makes many vices particularly beguiling and particularly harmful at the same time. Too often, we are the sorcerer's apprentice, quick to summon power that is beyond our ability to control. Thus it is not surprising that these books spend more time on the vices than virtues enabled or amplified by technology. Nevertheless, after warning us of the intrinsic dangers, both authors end on positive notes. Schuurman sees the power of technology to do good in Christ's name. In the penultimate chapter examining the future direction of our technological endeavors, he exhorts us all to focus intentionally on care for our neighbor and all of creation when developing and using technology. He adds the insight that our answer to the question of "who is my neighbor?" takes on a new character in a globally connected world.

I recommend both books as helpful next steps in the conversation about technology, developing some existing ideas a bit further as well as providing some new metaphors and new applications. Either book could be readily used for personal study or in a group setting such as an adult church education class, using the discussion questions the authors provide. In addition to these fine first books, it is no surprise that each author also maintains an online presence: Dyer's blog is titled Don't Eat the Fruit, while Schuurman's is Digitally Speaking.

Steve VanderLeest is professor of engineering at Calvin College.

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