Losing Touch? Reaching for a Theology of Touch for a Digital Age

Abstract

Within a theological framework, this thesis asks to what extent human touch is fungible. Advances in haptic technology open the possibility of replicating, synthesising, and mediating aspects of touch, including sexual stimulation, through mechanical or digital transmission. Is there a substantive theological difference between being touched by someone and being touched by something?

After an introductory chapter, chapter two reviews the philosophy of touch in the Western tradition, and its place among the senses. An analysis of touch in the work of twentieth century phenomenologists, especially Maurice Merleau-Ponty, suggests that human touch is an event at which meaning is created and recognised, creating what he calls a “dehiscence”.

Chapter three examines the theological anthropology of Rowan Williams, and his understanding that humans recognise their personhood in the desire of others and of God. Chapter four suggests that this might be extended from reciprocal gaze to touch, and begins to explore what this might mean if applied to interactions between a person and a machine.

Chapter five explores the quasi-sacramental qualities of touch, and its role in opening possibilities of grace, while chapter six offers an overview of the theological and cultural understandings of touch in the Biblical texts.

Chapter seven explores the ways in which touch that is mediated by a machine such as a computer is like or unlike plain human touch, and chapter eight sets out some of the ways in which the nature of touch might change when it is digitised, mediated or commodified.

The concluding chapter suggests that a theology of touch for a digital world belongs in an eschatological context. Machine touch is analogous to human touch, but the latter cannot be wholly replicated or objectified without loss of meaning. Our experience of touch is rooted in space and time, but its ultimate meaning lies beyond both.