Autonomous Vehicles

Many have tried to imagine what it will be like to live in a world of autonomous vehicles. How in the world can you trust in these limited systems to know and anticipate everything that needs to be considered in an ever-changing world? How, indeed!

But we already live in a world of vehicles who seem to think that they are autonomous. And it’s making this world into a bigger mess all the time. The vehicles to which I am referring are humans - silly humans who think they are autonomous vehicles.  

 
Cinderella used to sing, “In my own little corner, in my own little chair, I can be whatever I want to be.” To be fair, I think she was using her imagination to picture a situation where she would not be subject to the cruel whims of her step-mother/sisters. But today, people are singing that song as though they can decide for themselves who they will be and how they will live their lives.

How in the world can you trust limited persons to know and anticipate everything that needs to be considered to live and behave in an ever-changing world? We fail to fathom the wisdom with which we were designed by God. We diminish the liabilities that have befallen us in the Fall, or that we have incurred due to our own sin and guilt. We have no idea about the ends for which we were designed, whether living completely for the glory of God and not for ourselves, or what it means to serve God’s purposes and not our own. So how in the world can we pretend that an experiment in living our lives as autonomous vehicles will result in anything but disaster?

We are finite creatures, and will never escape that finitude. Our privilege is, rather, to live in right relationship with our Creator and Father who is infinite. We are created male and female, and fantasies or feelings about being or changing to something different is based in just that - feelings and fantasies - rather than in the fact that we created creatures, and only the one, true God is Creator and Sustainer of the only Reality that is real, found and focused in Jesus.

You can pretend to be an “autonomous zone,” but you’re not. You can pretend to know it all, but your ignorance will soon reveal itself. You can pretend to have it all, but your deep need that cannot be cured by money will still cry out for help. Why? Because none of us are autonomous vehicles.