The Doomed Defiance of the Promethean Delusion

Promethean Delusion
noun

The Promethean impulse—named for the mythic thief who stole fire from the gods—now animates the fantasy that technological optimization can transform humans into frictionless, quasi-divine beings without cost or consequence. In this delusion, machines are no longer tools that extend human capacity; they are ladders to transcendence. Power is mistaken for wisdom. Speed for meaning. Anything that resists optimization is treated as a design flaw waiting to be patched.

Limits become intolerable. Slowness is framed as inefficiency. Mortality is treated as a bug. Kairos—the lived, sacred time through which meaning actually forms—is dismissed as waste, an obstacle to throughput. What emerges is not liberation but derangement: expanding capability paired with a shrinking sense of what a human life is for.

So what does it mean to be human? The answer depends on which story you choose to inhabit. The Promethean tech evangelist sees the human being as an unfinished machine—upgradeable, indefinitely extendable, and perhaps immortal if the right knobs are turned. All problems reduce to engineering: tighten this screw, loosen that one, eliminate friction, repeat.

The Christian story is harsher and more honest. It begins with brokenness, not optimization—with mortal creatures who cannot save themselves and who long for reconciliation with their Maker. To reject this account is to rebel, to attempt demigodhood by force of will and code. As John Moriarty observed, “The story of Christianity is the story of humanity’s rebellion against God.” The dream of becoming frictionless and divine is not progress; it is a doomed defiance. It does not end in transcendence but in collapse—moral, spiritual, and eventually civilizational.