Joseph Cardinal Höffner CHRISTIAN SOCIAL ... - Ordo Socialis

commandment to man to subdue the earth. Man may and should investigate the hidden laws
of nature with the superior strength of his mind and through technology and technological
civilization take the forces of matter into his service and thus rule over the earth and the universe,
over the present and the future (through probability calculations and long- range planning).
Every conquest in the realm of the material is a victory of the spirit over matter. Pope
John Paul n calls technology „man's ally.“ He refers to „highly perfected machinery“, the
„electronics and microprocessor technology“, „miniaturization“, „communications“ and „telecommunications“,
but also warns against the dangers of an uncontrolled technological development
which would „cease to be man's ally and become almost his enemy.“ 12
In the modern economy, modernization and technological progress are necessary in the interest
of competitiveness und thus also in the interest of the employee. Here, however, it should
not be overlooked that factories, offices, and administrative centers are places where people
perform their daily work. Even for technological rationalization man is the „apple of God's
eye“ with an inviolable „extraneous dignity“ and not an expensive and, at that, refractory production
factor. An organization of the work place that shows consideration for man will there
strive to adapt the work space, the work time, and the things connected with work (machines,
tools, raw materials etc) to man in a suitable way.
Pope Paul VI warns: „The reign of technology -technocracy, as it is called -can cause as much
harm to the world of tomorrow as liberalism did to the world of yesterday“ (Populorum progressio,
34). This exhortation also holds with respect to environmental protection. In 1971,
the Roman Bishops' Synod rightly called it a presumption of the rich nations so „to increase
their material demands. ..that the danger of destroying the very physical foundations of life on
earth is precipitated“ (Synodal document Proclaiming Justice and Peace III:7).
According to the Christian understanding, man should indeed subdue the earth, but do so with
wisdom, discipline, and calculation, while preserving the hierarchy of values. The: technological
industrial age has recklessly accelerated economic progress and let it proliferate like a
cancerous ulcer. In the Middle Ages the Benedictine and Cistercian Orders cultivated the land
with an entirely different attitude. „Subdue the earth“ means „Make the earth a living space
worthy of man.“ The objection that Christianity has taught people to subdue the earth and
thereby opened the door for modem technology, which has led to the pollution of the environment,
is untenable.
Man should not do everything he can do. 13 This becomes apparent particularly in the realm of
nuclear energy. Pope Pius XII adjured those responsible in science, economics, and politics
„to support with all their strength the efforts aimed at harnessing these energies to a degree
adapted to human needs“ (April 4, 1957). Without the courage of renunciation, this goal cannot
be realized.
The effects of automation, which is gaining importance in the production process as well as in
offices and administrative centers, are noticeable in a particular way in their impact on working
people. The only working procedures naturally suitable for automation are those which
are repeatable in constant uniformity and which can be programmed by tables and formulas.
Electronic steerings and controls are made use of here above all which automatically supervise
the individual working procedures as well as the volume and quality of production. In
this way, automatic islands of production have arisen in many industrial plants, i.e. selfsteering
assembly lines manned no longer by people but by machines and operated by machines.
A reversal seems to be at hand precisely through automation such as could not be
12 Laborem exercens, 5
13 Cf Joseph Höffner, Der technische Fortschritt und das Neil des Menschen, in Gesellschaftspolitik aus christlicher
Verantwortung (Münster in Westphalia, 1966), 139-158; idem, Sittliche Probleme der Automation, ibid,
193-200; idem, Mensch und Natur im technischen Zeitalter, in Zukunft der Schöpfung -Zukunft der Menschheit
(Bonn: German Bishops' Conference, 1980)
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