Francis Bacon’s seventeenth-century manuscript “New Atlantis” serves as the foundation for a compelling analysis by technology investor Peter Thiel and researcher Sam Wolfe in their widely-circulated First Things essay. The piece examines how contemporary society’s embrace of boundless scientific advancement has fundamentally altered traditional religious conceptions of human purpose and redemption.
The core argument presented by Thiel and Wolfe does not constitute an outright rejection of scientific endeavor or technological
development. Instead, they maintain that Bacon’s vision—and the modern civilization built upon it—fundamentally redefines what salvation means. Traditional Christianity understands redemption as a divine gift that exists beyond historical boundaries. Bacon’s framework, however, positions salvation squarely within the realm of human achievement and control. This transformation creates a dangerous situation where societies confuse raw power with genuine wisdom, particularly as we navigate an era marked by extraordinary
technological capabilities.
Bacon’s narrative centers on Bensalem, a fictional island society that initially appears peaceful, religious, and compassionate. Its citizens display devotion, maintain order, and treat others with kindness. The society’s governing body, Salomon’s House, dedicates itself to nature’s systematic study with the goal of improving human conditions. Bacon portrays scientific investigation as a sacred calling, wrapped in Christian symbolism and ethical boundaries.
Yet Thiel and Wolfe caution that this surface-level tranquility masks a fundamental shift in humanity’s connection to the natural world, knowledge acquisition, and the divine. They contend Bacon’s actual objective extended beyond mere scientific advancement—he sought to supplant the classical-Christian recognition of human limitations with an agenda of complete technological dominance. Knowledge in Bacon’s framework no longer aims at moral development but instead targets domination and manipulation. Nature ceases to be understood within a traditional moral framework and becomes something subject to conquest and transformation.
This transformation carries weighty consequences. Bacon’s scientific approach implicitly offers what religion traditionally provided: safety, healing, plenty, and even a version of eternal life. By packaging these assurances within an ostensibly Christian structure, Bacon obscured the extent to which his vision gradually pushed divine providence to the margins. In his fictional Bensalem, God maintains a presence but increasingly functions as a symbolic endorsement of human achievement rather than humanity’s ultimate arbiter.
The authors interpret this displacement through an apocalyptic framework. Referencing biblical themes, they propose that Bacon’s ideal society mirrors the false peace described in end-times literature—a peace attained not through spiritual transformation or divine reconciliation, but through human cleverness and concentrated authority. The threat manifests not as obvious oppression but as something more alluring: a world so streamlined and secure that it fails to recognize its spiritual emptiness.
The essay’s most disturbing implication suggests modern technological society might represent an apocalyptic trajectory rather than a benign accumulation of useful instruments. Scientific advancement does more than expand human abilities; it reshapes human assumptions about what lies ahead. When technology claims it can eliminate want, pain, and mortality itself, it necessarily occupies the space once held by religious faith. Modernity thus rechannels religious yearning by replacing divine grace with technical solutions.
Thiel and Wolfe argue this replacement proves fundamentally unstable. Technological capability expands far more quickly than ethical understanding, and faith in technical solutions for every challenge blinds communities to questions about purpose, accountability, and restraint. As humanity grows more dependent on systems it only partially comprehends—including artificial intelligence and genetic modification—it increasingly risks subjugation to forces it cannot fully master or ethically defend.
The essay gains particular relevance as humanity now controls technologies capable of redesigning life itself. Political and corporate leaders increasingly speak in utopian language, suggesting innovation will resolve social tensions, environmental destruction, and even moral disputes. Without reintegrating technological progress into a moral framework acknowledging natural limits on human power, progress becomes its own justification, and power transforms into an end rather than a means. The greatest peril facing technological civilization may not be disaster but rather achieving a
technology-managed existence that no longer comprehends its own purpose or meaning.