Magnifica Humanitas: Rediscovering Humanity Amidst the Machines

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The release of a Pope's first Encyclical is always noteworthy, and when a Pope named Leo releases an Encyclical on the 135^th anniversary of Rerum Novarum, it is clearly a signal for all interested in Catholic Social Teaching (CST) to pay attention, and consider carefully.

Early reactions, from Catholics, and from a wide readership outside the Faith, have been broadly appreciative, earnest and serious-minded, with comparisons to earlier documents in the CST lineage, discussion of options to reign in and manage a sprawling “technocracy”, and even memes drawn from Frank Herbert’s Dune series.

While the document is too new, rich, and diverse to reduce or even summarize easily, it is helpful to circle around some of the themes and dimensions activated by this provocative new work.

Christian Truths as Sovereign Over Worldly Forces

It is typical of Papal writings on CST that they are aware of and responsive to massive, high-impact developments in temporal affairs, but not led or swayed by them. Accordingly, Magnifica Humanitas takes the measure of permeant trends affecting individuals, families, communities and societies. But in the Magisterial voice, it reminds us that God and His Truth are the pre-eminent considerations. And this calls us to domesticate these trends. We must lift them above the mere flux of human events, and steer them away from the fallen, twisted uses to which innovations may always be directed.

Following Pope Francis, Pope Leo identifies a still-emerging threat on this front: the “technocratic paradigm” --- a zealous project to objectify all of reality for manipulation and often exploitation and domination.

The ideologies of Socialism, Communism, and untrammeled Capitalism have long been part of the pathologies addressed by CST, especially in their materialistic, adversarial, and power-centred perspectives.

The technocratic paradigm has come into sharper relief as a common threat after the polarizations of the Cold War. And it has been greatly ACCELERATED and made much more invasive by digitization in all its forms.

The truths proclaimed by the Church have not changed, do not change. But the praxis of turning technocratic threats into the promise of a technology in service of the Good is always in motion.

Getting Anthropology Right

While aggressive technology is the visible expression addressed pointedly in Magnifica Humanitas, there is a much deeper and older theme which has once again been coming into sharp relief for the Church, and for worldly philosophers and observers: anthropology, or the question, “What is Man?”

The title alone is instructive about the broader framing of the Encyclical. “Humanitas” is of course the term advanced within the tradition heavily received through the early Renaissance, to cover the general and lofty quality we aspire to embody, as people, in the Christian Humanist paradigm.

While the emergence of an emphasis on Humanitas somewhat mirrored a forward surge of commercial and technological instruments in Latin Christendom, it is always possible for a spirit of innovation, business and improved techniques to be put to the service of God, Man, and the Good.

Massively powerful computational models, and the iterative application of algorithms have emerged as powerful, double-edged swords. In particular: an immense upsurge in awareness and concern is occasioned by the widespread and unsettling effects discernable from the rapid proliferation of neural computing, simulated intelligence, large language modelling and other techniques and concepts commonly grouped under the "AI" label.

The Created and the Artificed

This wave of novelty calls on us not only to formulate new responses, but to remember ancient and perennial truths. However much the workings of a neural network may resemble human thought or judgement, the difference remains between a living being, a person, CREATED by God, and instruments devised by Man and his arts.

Man is Created with the intention of reflecting the Divine as Man fully, in the image of Christ.

When Man builds, he can do so according to two models limned by Leo: he can build willfully, to his own purposes and preferences, however selfish or discordant, and with disregard for obedience to God. The result is Babel.

Or, he may build in a spirit of piety and deference to God, and in seeking unity and harmony with those around him – to restore lost and damaged goods. When he builds in this spirit, the result may mirror the rebuilding of Jerusalem after exile.

Power, Fraternity and Charity

The problem of power in this Encyclical is central, but it also moves along multiple axes. There is for example of whether we use our energies to build brotherhood, Charity and mutual care, or to maximize our control and leverage. Related to this is the question of whether we see God’s Creation and Creatures, or only manipulable objects.

But there is also the matter of distributive Justice in power and objective goods. If power of some kind is essential to effecting Justice and if the basic goods of life are destined by God for all, then it matters greatly whether technological power, and the objective goods it can multiply, improve the lives or all, or merely a few.

This in closing is where Magnifica Humanitas must be seen as deeply OPTIMISTIC. The forces arrayed within the technocratic paradigm are immense, and the prudential forms to govern it are barely nascent, and in fact still unclear. However, the Church can and must help discern the path to just and merciful solutions, and the whole world can heed the Church’s voice with great profit. In that hope, Pope Leo’s first Encyclical must be seen as a significant and encouraging early step.

Miles Smit

CAPP Canada member