Rethinking theology in an age of information: A creative appropriation of Niklas Luhmann's systems theory.

摘要

This study is a theological appropriation of Luhmann's systems theory as a response to the rise of the Information Age. We re-envision theology as a complex communicative system dedicated to optimizing both religion's "observation" of divine manifestations, and its "interpenetration" with society, via recursive interactions mediating between religion and social systems.;Chapter 1 highlights challenges of the Information Age and the merits of Luhmann's systems theory. Chapter 2 articulates its essential features and conceptualizes theology as a quasi-system of semi-self-referential discourse, highlighting its complexification. Chapter 3 conceptualizes God as a self-referential communicative system sui generis characterized by non-contingency, infinite complexity, supratemporal autopoiesis, and the medium of agape, proposing a communicative model of the Trinity---Father as Selector/Sender of divine communication, Son as Encoder, and Spirit as Decoder---as an alternative to the standard (psychological, social, and process) models. We also conceptualize creation as God's other-observation, and the evolutionary process as divine mediatization, rendered possible through perfect code couplings between divine media ad intra (Logos, Spirit) and the world systems.;Language evolution is critical to Chapter 4, which envisions the imago Dei as Homo medialis or codified co-codifier , the focal point being that humans are active participants in divine mediatization. In this view, sin is dissonant codification; Christ is the proto codified co-codifier in perfect resonance with divine codification; revelation is religion's observations of the God-world interpenetration. Chapter 5 appeals to both canonization and transversality, arguing that theology functions as the interpenetrating zone mediating between religion's observations and other systems'.;Chapter 6 refers to a theory of optimization, promoting an open society, which fosters public feedback interactions between disparate social systems to seek to optimize "global justice" by adjusting "local justice" in view of "transcendent, holistic visions of justice." We also argue that theology disseminates religion's transcendent vision of justice by participating in critical exchange with other social systems and offering critique of ideologies; in this sense, theology is an autopoietic discourse of hope.