A New History of Redemption

By Francis X. Maier.
But first a note: Be sure to tune in tomorrow night - Thursday, March 13th at 8 PM Eastern - to EWTN for a new episode of the Papal Posse on 'The World Over.' TCT Editor-in-Chief Robert Royal and contributor Fr. Gerald E. Murray will join host Raymond Arroyo to discuss Pope Francis' ongoing health crisis and its implications, the status of the case against disgraced former Jesuit Marko Rupnik, Washington D.C. protests against Cardinal Robert McElory - as well as other issues in the global Church. Check your local listings for the channel in your area. Shows are usually available shortly after first airing on the EWTN YouTube channel...
Now for today's column...
The late great Henry Ford famously argued that "history is bunk." The past, so the reasoning goes, is a millstone around humanity's neck, a depressing, Old World obstacle to progress. And that's clearly one of the conceits buried deep in the American psyche. We Americans are different. We're a "city upon a hill," the kind mentioned in the Sermon on the Mount. We're an entirely "new order of the ages" - words, in their original Latin, that are stamped right on our nation's Great Seal.
We haven't had a war on our home soil in 160 years. We're the wealthiest, most successful republic turned de facto empire in, well, history. We're also the greatest toolmakers. The result is predictable: Optimism is baked into our national assumptions. It drives our faith in technology, a faith with astonishing achievements, a faith with now global adherents.
Later this year the Australian biotech company Cortical Labs will introduce the CL1 - the world's first "body in a box" biological computer - for a mere $35,000 per unit:
The CL1 consists of a silicon chip with lab-grown human neurons cultivated on its surface. These neurons are capable of responding to electrical signals, forming networks that process information similarly to a biological brain. . . .A notable aspect of the CL1 is its ability to learn and adapt to tasks. Previous research has demonstrated that neuron-based systems can be trained to perform basic functions, such as playing simple video games. Cortical Labs' work suggests that integrating biological elements into computing could improve efficiency in tasks that traditional AI struggles with, such as pattern recognition and decision-making in unpredictable environments.
CL1 is the tip of a new-wave technological iceberg. Brain-computer interface (BCI) research is now a robust and expanding field. And isn't that good news? What could possibly be wrong with tools that might one day cure paralysis or mental illness? Maybe just this: Optimism confirmed by optimal results has a habit of eliding into hubris with very different and unpleasant consequences. We use our tools, but our tools also use us by rewiring not just our abilities, but also our appetites and imaginations.
Here's the point: Technology can deliver us from dozens of forms of inconvenience and suffering. But it can never deliver us from the nature of our creatureliness: our awareness of being somehow incomplete; our instinctive longing for something more than this world; the yearning that makes us human; our mortality and the questions it raises.
Real deliverance, the real redemption of our restless hearts, can never come from human hands. It's the work of a loving God and his ongoing love through history - a fact that pervades and provides the framework for Gerald McDermott's excellent 2024 book, A New History of Redemption.
McDermott writes as an Anglican theologian, but Catholics will find little to disagree with and much to draw value from in a text that's both engaging and comprehensive in its review of God's work from Creation to our own time and beyond. McDermott's focus throughout is "on the meaning of Israel and Christ (Messiah) for the nations," with a special emphasis on "the Jewish roots of Christianity." The result is a marvelous read.

McDermott ties the inspiration for his ...