Question
What Does the Tower of Babel Teach Us About Technology?
The Tower of Babel narrative depicts a recurring human pattern: when human capacity is unrestrained and unguided by God’s word, it organizes itself toward unity, security, and ascent on its own terms — and that pattern is reenacted in every technological era, including ours.
Babel is not primarily a story about a tower or about language. It is a story about the trajectory of human capacity when it operates apart from God’s instruction. The builders gather around a shared project: “let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves” (Gen 11:4). The project is impressive. The capacity is real. What is missing is any reference to God’s purposes for humanity (Gen 1:28), and the project ends with God’s intervention not because human ingenuity is sinful but because unrestrained capacity organized around self-defined ends produces something other than what humans were made for.
The pattern recurs. Each generation develops new tools that promise security, prosperity, or unity — echoes of Babel’s tower rising again and again from the plains of human ambition. Digital IDs, AI systems, global data networks, biotechnology — the forms change, but the underlying pattern remains: human beings striving to transcend their limitations apart from God. Recognizing the pattern allows Christians to engage technology without panic and without naïveté, refusing both the dystopian dismissal and the utopian embrace.
Key Takeaways: Babel as Recurring Pattern
Core Concept: Unrestrained human capacity, unguided by God’s word, organizes itself toward security and ascent on its own terms.
Scripture: Genesis 11:1-9; Genesis 1:28 as the missing reference.
Modern Echoes: Digital IDs, AI, biotech, data networks — different forms, same pattern.
The “So What”: Christians read technology as a chapter in a long story rather than as either unprecedented threat or unprecedented salvation.
About the Author
James Spencer, PhD, is a theologian, author, and host of the Thinking Christian podcast, where he writes and speaks on Christian formation, political theology, and technology. He holds a PhD in Theological Studies from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and completed the Institute for Educational Management at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He serves as President of the D.L. Moody Center in Northfield, Massachusetts, as adjunct faculty in Wheaton College’s MA in Leadership program, and as an Associate Research Fellow at the Kirby Laing Centre for Public Theology. His writing has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Times, Christianity.com, and Sojourners. His forthcoming book is Discipleship and Discernment in the Digital Age (InterVarsity Press, Fall 2026). Learn more at jamesgspencer.com.
SECTION 3
Formation, Virtue, and Attention