Editor’s Note: This is a slightly edited version of a presentation the author made to the Annual Summit in Silicon Valley of the technology site Always On. – Robert Royal

Silicon Valley will continue to change the world – but in what ways? What kind of world will it produce?
That will depend in large part on the vision of the creators and entrepreneurs of the Valley: in how they use the new technologies they develop, and the new wealth that flows from them. And that vision in turn may depend on whether they recognize the connection between their accomplishments and the heritage – moral and intellectual – that made these accomplishments possible.

Christianity became ascendant in Europe and the Mediterranean by the late Roman Empire, and helped morph that empire into what came to be called the West. Significantly for the future blossoming of science and technology, although Christianity is of course grounded in belief in a transcendent, and thus in a not fully knowable God, it also accepts and even rejoices in the rationality of the universe that God created.

In fact, this religion refers to the Second Person of the Triune God as the Logos, a Greek term that does not just translate into the English “word,” in the sense of vocabulary, but also encompasses the idea of Reason.