Attempted Summary of Ellul in Prose Form

Basic summary of Ellul’s worldview:

Ellul is speaking out of a Christian paradigm. Accordingly, his perspective is such that the ultimate originator and arbiter of existence is God. This God is of course omnipotent, omniscient, infinite, etc. He is unfathomable and ineffable. He is completely unconditioned and acts inexplicably of his own absolute freedom. However, for Ellul, these concepts, while seemingly accurate, are mostly vacuous from the human perspective. God is totality transcendent, totally other. He is not knowable or understandable in his nature or qualities, most definitely not completely. In fact, God only reveals himself to us in a one way circuit (no intellectual reaching out towards a grasping of him is possible), and even in this, we see only his concrete manifestation in the world, placeholders which point the way to who he is. He is the absolute creator of all that is.

At the level of the world, Ellul believes that everything operates dialectically. History is a process of dialectical innovation (devoid of absolute progress). Thinking and communication are at heart dialectical. Our understanding of the word of God and God’s revelation is dialectical. Accordingly, our action in this world must be dialectical in nature. We must constantly be positing an anti-thesis. So Ellul adopts the notion that man’s highest calling is indeed to say “no” to the prevailing order.

Ellul also believes that according the Bible (in Genesis) man has a worldly imperative, namely to attend to the Garden. Thus man has a responsibility in this age to act in such a way as to bring about the health of the world.

According to Ellul’s sociological analysis of western society, the modern world is dominated in an increasing way by Technique. To wit, it is the defining characteristic and determining essence of the modern age. The implications of this are voluminous. Technique is intrinsically totalitarian; it strives for total domination and provides itself with the means to do it effectively. It is self-augmenting, autonomous, and universal. It has incontestable potency. Indeed, it is potency. Additionally, the preponderance of Technique entails the destruction of humanity, culture, and the planet. The strict rationality that it employs entails the utter irrationality thought it terms of human values. Its waste, absurdity, and destructivity resonate with each other until they finally impinge to such an extent that life becomes impossible.

Since technique is and is ever more becoming the prevailing order of the day, Ellul requires that man respond to Technique as an anti-thesis. However, Technique is totalitarian and has the capacity to controvert any antithetical action at the level at which Technique operates. Thus the situation requires that the “no” takes the form of the transcendent. In other words, God, and the manifestation of the Kingdom of Heaven, are the necessary response. Since Technique trends toward a totality or unity, and since a dialectical response must come from outside of it, it must come from outside of the world. It must be otherworldly or transcendent.