Sustainability and The Engineer – Control vs. Sympathetic Citizenship in the Kingdom of God

The world is facing a sustainability crisis. Specifically, the pursuit of economic and societal progress is being pursued at the expense of the environment, and this is compromising the inheritance of future generations. Engineers play a role in this crisis in two significant ways – one, because we helped to cause it, and two, because we can play a meaningful role in either deepening it or addressing it. As we consider how to address the current crisis, we must critically examine the ways in which our practice of engineering helped us reach this point, because the paradigms that led us here are highly unlikely to lead us out of it. In this paper I will describe aspects of the traditional engineering mindset, including how engineers are taught to think of themselves specifically and humans generally in relation to the environment (or nonhuman creation), and how this mindset leads to environmental degradation. I will then offer and explore a new paradigm, one that rethinks the relationship between humans and their environment and that places the vocation of engineering in a theological context. By rethinking engineering in terms of these fundamental relationships (between God and engineer, between engineer and environment), we may be able to transform traditional tools and lenses of engineering decision-making to address the current crisis. Finally, I discuss various practical activities and means by which engineers and engineering students can develop this alternative way of seeing and thinking.