Theology, Ethics, and Technology in the Work of Jacques Ellul and Paul Virilio

This book examines biographical and textual connections between sociologist-theologian Jacques Ellul and philosopher-phenomenologist Paul Virilio. Through an examination of Ellul and Virilios embeddedness in the socio-historical context of postwar France, the book identifies a relationship between these critics of technology which constitutes a nascent theological tradition. The author shows from various vantage points how Ellul and Virilios nascent tradition exposes technology as modernitys primary idol; and, how it uses multiple disciplinesincluding history, sociology, philosophy, phenomenology, theology, and ethicsto resist the perilous consequences of the modern worlds worship of power and the kinds of technologies this misdirected worship produces. Jacques Elluls death in 1994 and Paul Virilios death in 2018 may have prevented the maturation of this nascent theological tradition, but Theology, Ethics, and Technology in the work of Jacques Ellul and Paul Virilio aids this traditions ripening through the presentation of an illuminating way to read these two unique, and at times quixotic, intellectuals.