CALL FOR PAPERS

(Co-)Creator, Creativity and the Created.

GoNeDigiTal Annual Conference, 3-5 June 2025

Creativity has in theological traditions been understood as a divine attribute, an attribute that extends to humans who in some ways mirror God. This divinely originated impetus to create is manifested in a range of human activities to which most technology is integral. From language to media technologies, the arts, buildings, and machines, human creativity is intrinsically tied up with technology. Technological artefacts are the outcome of human creativity which in the hands of users fuels further processes of creativity leading to change and transformation. However, creativity is a divine gift which needs to be handled with care. It raises questions about the relationship between technological creation and natural creation, and how each impacts the other. In many religious traditions, human making mimics or reflects divine making: it is marked by beauty and order of creation, but also unintended outcomes including suffering and violence. In the hands of both gods and humans, it gives life and brings death. 

Call for Papers 2025

The expansion of digital technologies in contemporary societies has for better or worse unleashed creative forces causing unprecedented social and global change and challenges. This technological expansion is fuelled by human imagination, new innovations are creatively negotiated by users, and digital cultures become sources of artistic expression. More recently creativity has taken a new turn as technology itself seemingly becomes ‘creative’. Advances in generative AI invites reappraisals of the nature of creativity, its limits and origins, both immanent and transcendent. These new technologies unleash forces of creativity which radically increase the possibility of unintended consequences that put at risk human and non-human life, the rest of the created order, whilst at the same time opening new frontiers of opportunity for planetary transformation and improvement. Theological interrogation of creativity in this context is an urgent and pertinent task. 

This conference, then, seeks to create a space for conversations that cover an array of topics related to creativity, theology, and digital technology and culture. Approached from a number of theological and disciplinary vantage points, we explore topics such as the relation between the divine and the created, the nature and limits of creativity, where beauty can be found in digital culture, how AI changes our notions of creativity, what technological creation tells us about createdness, and more.

We welcome paper proposals addressing topics such as:

  • The possibilities and limits of creativity in digital culture

  • The creative communication of the gospel/theology in digital culture

  • The relationship between the created and God

  • Human self-understanding, creativity and technology

  • Creativity by machines

  • Artistic expressions in digital culture

  • Unbiasing creative future

  • Creativity, responsibility and ethics

  • God’s creativity versus that of humans and that of AI

  • Anthropocentric creative bias

  • Ecotheological implications of digital creativity

  • Human Centred AI design and sustainable creation

  • Uncreating - what are we undoing by pursuing AI

  • Real and actual AI and the potential of AI

  • Creativity, technology, sin and evil

  • Technological embodiment of Christian virtues

  • Liberative theologies of creativity and technology

  • Imagination, creativity and Sci-Fi (Or: Imagination, Sci-Fi, and the human story)

  • AI creativity and intellectual property rights

  • A New Earth: human and divine visions of the future

  • Is AI ‘artificial?’ Delineating artifice and nature in digital technology

  • Techno-theodicy: the theological role of errors, accidents, and black boxes

  • Digital technologies, creativity and theological education

Please submit your abstract (max 300 words) to info@gonedigital.media by 31 January 2025. 

The intention is to create a conference volume based on select papers.

In person gathering in conjunction with the Theologies of the Digital III workshop in Chicago

Please note that all papers will be presented online. There will however be an opportunity to gather locally at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, Chicago. This gathering will be held in conjunction with the Theologies of the Digital III workshop. This in person workshop focuses on biases as a constant feature of our digital lives: They guide our digital perception and structure knowledge in the digital world. Thereby, they suppress important voices and shape interpretation. For theology and religious studies at the intersection of technology and ethics, they have a hermeneutical, ethical and technical dimension to adress. The workshop will take place 5-7 June 2025 in Chicago at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary sponsored by the Stead Center on Ethics and Values. Please find the CfP and more information on: https://www.theologies-of-the-digital.org/

More information about the logistics about this will soon follow on our website.