CIB5016FBC2005

The Word of God and the electronic writing, Dei Verbum Conference, Rome September 14th-17th, 2005,

ENGLISH SUMMARY

The electronic writing has now invaded all the fields of human communication, replacing the alphabetical writing that was at the roots of the Biblical culture and has shaped history in mediterranean and western countries up to the present time.

Writing was a reduction of the living word. To overcome this reduction and save humanity as created by God, the Word of God (Dei Verbum) became flesh. His dead and resurrection opened a new freedom for development in mankind (sciences, technologies, arts, reflection, biological knowledge, etc.) With the electronic writing and its very large spreading as the new basis for human communication, is the written text of the Bible still relevant as a matrix for the new culture shaped by the characteristics of the electronic writing?

The electronic writing is characterized by its robustness (controled), its versatility (instanteneous), its speed (light), its use of space (terabytes on nanochips) and its universality (sound, image, graphs, all around our planet).

New ways of expression take place, recuperating image and sound notably, for human communication (against the long reduction to the written, and the printed text). It allows new opportunities for mankind to grow to its full stature if humans can find the way of saving what is specific to mankind: freedom, remembrance, judgment, relationship, etc…

Two paradigm may help to see in which direction mankind has to develop using without fear the electronic writing and its developments:
1) it has to help building the cosmic Body of Christ;
2) it has to help to be consciously co-creator of our planet and the universe around, surpassing both homo faber (physical forces mastered) and homo sapiens (mental forces mastered) by becoming homo creativus (the human taking care of the creation of God).