CyberGrace: The Search for God in the Digital World [Hardcover]

Jennifer Cobb (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 5, 1998

Theologian and high-tech consultant Jennifer Cobb combines her expertise to create a new theory of the Divine in the Information Age.

As computers and artificial intelligence systems become more sophisticated, the question of whether we can find spiritual life in cyberspace is beginning to be asked. CyberGrace: The Search for God in the Digital World is a bold, thought-provoking, affirmative answer to one of the most intriguing inquiries of our time.

Until now, an unbridgeable schism has separated the world of the spirit and that of the machine. According to an increasingly compelling concept known as emergence, the gulf may be an imaginary one. Fifty years ago, Jesuit paleontologist Teilhard de Chardin combined his lifelong passions of God and science to predict the emergence of cyberspace, based on his studies of evolution. Using Teilhard's theories as a starting point, Jennifer Cobb asserts that as technical systems become more complex--with simple, predictable mechanisms coalescing into hierarchies of increasing organization--something elegant, inspired, and absolutely unpredictable simply and suddenly "emerges." Many observers today see this "hand of God" showing itself in disparate disciplines, from evolutionary theory to artificial intelligence--and especially in the furthest realms of cyberspace, where brute computation seems to give way to divine inspiration.

CyberGrace offers paradoxical evidence that our machines may be conduits to a deeper spirituality. With daily headlines announcing dizzying advances in science and information technology, many people wonder about their--and their children's--ability to lead lives imbued by a sense of the sacred. In the new world, where the search for spirituality may seem scattered and unfocused, Cobb brilliantly uses the most popular and prevalent phenomenon of our times--the computer--to find a world filled with meaning and love.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Is there something of the divine on the Internet? Conventional wisdom sees a division between the spiritual and the world of the machine. Yet the theological and philosophical theory called "emergence" suggests that the chasm between the two may be of our own creation. Using the writings of the eminent 20th-century theologian Teilhard de Chardin, Jennifer Cobb sees something more in how our technological complexity often produces something elegant and inspired. Rather than seeing creation as a one-time event, some theologians think that the creative power of God can be part of the evolutionary process. That creative power would then extend to the computer and cyberspace.

Cobb writes, "Nature has spawned us. We have spawned machines. Any line between these realms quickly becomes arbitrary." She encourages us to reject the sort of dualism between mind and body that has driven so much of Western thought, philosophy, and theology. "Real life," she states, "is never that tidy. As our days unfold, the contents of our boxes--mind, body, God--continually spill into one another, creating both personal confusion and a philosophical morass."

While investigating a wide range of questions that inform spirituality--such as "What is life?" and "Is there something other than us?"--Cobb writes with level-headed exuberance about her own experiences in finding the spiritual in computing. In her chapter on virtual ethics, she lays out a framework that can aid others in making that same connection. This is a unique and intelligent book for those who are concerned with the consequences of technology with regard to our humanity and our spirits. --Elizabeth Lewis

From Kirkus Reviews

A heady, provocative search for the Deity via the Internet. Cobb, a theologian and computer consultant, has a large philosophical framework to work withinand against. She begins by ascribing human beings' preoccupation with materialism to the rise of Modernism, which, not coincidentally, gave way to the ascent of atheism. Cyberspace, however, is less about material objects (i.e., computers) than it is about the spaces in between. We can transcend modern materialism, then, Cobb suggests, by finding divinity via creativity. Here she is describing a kind of divinity not far removed from the ideas of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Cobb goes on to investigate some very lifelike aspects of cyberspace, such as the ability of certain programs and of artificial intelligence both to mimic life in the traditional definition of the word and to replicate and actually evolve in a neo-Darwinian sense. She cleverly counters the observation that under the canonical definitions these phenomena are not ``life'' by noting that neither is a virus, which self-replicates and can even take over a host, but does not possess the other aspects of life in the taxonomical sense. In this framework, she observes the God-like nature that humans may gain in cyberspace and warns that we must proceed with caution. Cobb's work then deconstructs the Cartesian mind/body dualism that is the backbone of much theology. Virtual reality, she reveals, is a place of neither mind nor body, but of process, and process undermines the tidy rational linearity of the purely scientific worldview. A world of process is a world of relationality, of circularity, a world where all is connected to all. . . . It is an excellent apparatus for dissolving the subject/object nature of human reality and promoting, instead, a more Buberian I/Thou relationship with one's self and, by extension, with one's God. Cybergrace should get tongues wagging about cyberspace in a new, stimulating, and more philosophical way. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 258 pages
• Publisher: Crown; 1 edition (May 5, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0517706792
• ISBN-13: 978-0517706794
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,226,192 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #76 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Religion & Spirituality > Religious Studies > Science & Religion

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A modern version of Augustine's The City of God, June 3, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: CyberGrace: The Search for God in the Digital World (Hardcover)

If you have always yearned to read The City of God by Augustine, but have not had the time or patience, then Cybergrace, by Jennifer Cobb may be your best substitute. Ms. Cobb is well versed in both philosophy and current technology. She draws on this extensive knowledge to create an understanding of "God" and spirit which rises high above the "Master of the Universe" image which resulted from modernism. Just as Augustine's City made his contemporaries feel at home, Cobb's place leaves us with a sense of purpose and wonder. If only for a moment, we are able to put aside our skepticism and distrust for the unseen world and enter into a place that is clearly our promised land. Although it would be helpful to read The Divine Mileau by Tielhard de Chardin as a prelude to Cybergrace, it is not necessary. Cobb delivers her message in a style that would have met with the approval of Thomas Acquinas. It is crisp, to the point, understandable and easily refutated if one so desires. Like Augustine, Cobb fails to deal with the question of evil. So when the glow begins to depleat, fear returns and we must return to the world of violence, death and who knows what on the other side.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Zen and the Art of Bootstrapping, December 20, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: CyberGrace: The Search for God in the Digital World (Hardcover)

Don't let the fact that she mis-spelled it
"Burners-Lee" detract from your enjoyment
of Cybergrace.

I'm a typical left-brained type, and bought
this book partly because I knew some of
the Deep Blue (chess machine) people when
they were at CMU. No theologian am I.

I discovered a well-written, concise, and
engrossing book, and have come to regard Cobb's
book as a little gem. In recent years I've
bought several copies for friends. The book
covered a wide range of topics which were
new to me, and really was a catalyst for
further exploration. The time was ripe for
me, when the book was first published.

Chapter 1 - Spiritual Evolution, creativity
in process

Chapter 2 - Emergence, Whitehead, John B. Cobb,
Process theology

Chapter 3 - Teilhard de Chardin, noosphere

Chapter 4 - Holons, Ken Wilber

Chapter 5 - Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research
(PEAR) laboratory, quantum consciousness

Chapter 6 - Complexity, emergent computation

Chapter 7 - Virtual Reality, Immersive technologies,
asceticism

Chapter 8 - Ethics, Spirit in Action

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The God of Process in the Process World of Cyberspace, June 15, 2001

By 

"gam2saints" (Boston, MA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: CyberGrace: The Search for God in the Digital World (Hardcover)

Jennifer Cobb explores a sense of encounter with the Divine in relation to cyberspace, which she concludes is essentially a world of processes -- and hence a perfect medium for finding the God of Process Theology.

The book has some superb reflections upon the nature of realities that can be found in a cyber dimension of the lives we live. This, in fact, is the great strength of this book. If the reader has a strong appreciation for Process thought, this is a book that will be of interest. Those who come to it with more of a traditional Incarnational theology (rooted in Christianity) may find some of her optimism about disembodied minds to be a bit disturbing -- a disembodied ANYTHING is a problem for Incarnational thinkers. Cobb heightens some of the problems inherent in Process thought and adds to them.

With all of the book's strengths and weaknesses, on balance I feel the book is very good and well worth the read. In fact, I recommend it.