What is at stake with trans-human projects?
“You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men!” (Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator)
Famous political scientist Francis Fukuyama once described transhumanism as “the world’s most dangerous idea.” He’s right and Christians must take note.
There’s a new movement afoot given the advances in technology and science. You may have heard it called transhumanism (i.e., the view that humans can evolve beyond bodily limitations through science) or the new humanism (sharing with old humanists the belief that value is rooted in humans ultimately, not God, and we can achieve happiness through rationality). But, like the humanism of old there is much at stake with the new humanism.
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One might be forgiven for thinking this isn’t much of a problem for Christians for, after all, only a minority of people publicly affirm transhumanism. Its patterns (aptly described as hollow according to Colossians 2:8) permeate much of our lives at the moment from the “Metaverse, crypto, interplanetary colonization, and transhumanism, not to mention AI.” And, as one author in the Vanity Fair put it: “The moral danger comes from the fact that all four projects embody the first steps toward a realized transhumanism.” Leader and transhumanist of the Davos Report and World Economic forum, Klaus Schwab has declared that we are entering the 4th industrial revolution and transhumanism, using advanced technology, AI, and medicine will radically liberate us from our biological limitations and restructure nearly every facet of life (but he’s certainly not the only leader arguing this way, see Yuval Harrari).
In her recent work, anthropologist Jenny Huberman highlights three aspects that define what we think of as transhumanism: hedonism (i.e., pleasure for the masses or as many as possible), individualism (by expressing yourself), “morphological” freedom (i.e., absolute autonomy over your body and living without constraint by your body). Its these three values that not only drive transhumanism, but drive much of our life today as we become accustom to immediate satisfaction and the constant allure to a better more advanced “you.”
You might be tempted to think: “What's the harm in using advanced medicine and technology?” American Christians have for too long taken the approach that whatever works to improve life is permissible so long as its not inherently evil. But, as we are faced with ever changing technology we are simultaneously confronted with questions about how we are to use technology.
And, the Scriptures are not silent here. The Scriptures guide us to be weary of empty and hollow philosophy as we are in the constant process of renewing and transforming our minds according to scriptural patterns by taking every thought captive to Christ. We can, no longer, approach technology casually and without concern.
We must orient ourselves to realize that all of life is God’s. This means setting our minds on things that are lasting. In other words, we must set our eyes on those things which we ultimately care about, those things that science, technology or medicine really can’t give us.
We must orient ourselves to those transcendent goods that are non-replicable. This means giving up hedonism and that which is generally expedient before it’s too late. This comes with the realization that our biology, our bodies really do matter to us and to God! It requires ancestry, heritage, and the fact that biology matters because, well, family matters. In other words, we can’t escape our history and the ways it matters to our future. We can’t place emphasis on the artificial, the homogeneous ways that technology falsely reduplicates our heredity.
Here are just a few things that are at stake and which we need a reminder.
First, we must realize that place cannot be replaced by space (i.e., virtual space). Given our embodied natures, we are to live, move, and breathe through our bodies. Our bodies give us a place in this world, which cannot be replaced by the metaverse.
Second, we must realize that transcendence is more than living on as a copy of ourselves, a duplicate, a mirror image. You do not have a duplicate. We are not the types of things that can be reduplicated in a lab through embryonic modification. Neither are we are robots and no matter what kind of algorithm or code is placed in the Chatbot, we are not codes.
Third, we must realize that altering our biology through medicine, technology and science will fail ultimately. Just as there are limitations we experience in our bodies, so too there limitations to science.
Fourth, we must know that we cannot use our bodies in any way we like. The old mantra “my body, my choice” has gained significant currency in our US history regarding matters of the unborn. More recently, there has been a not so insignificant uptick both in the US and globally concerning the moral permissibility of gender expression and sexual values to more extravagant practices of body altering (e.g., expressing oneself as animals etc.).
Fifth, we must know that we cannot transcend (and probably shouldn’t in all cases) our given body and its limitations. Our bodies are given to us by God. God has designed us as we know from Scripture as male or female, as human, and as a people that are meaningfully related to our parents. Furthermore, the Scripture’s teach us quite clearly that death is part of God’s plan (“it is appointed to man once to die) as the context for training in godliness.
Sixth, immortality is not merely about unending existence, but about ongoing fullness of life in relation to God. And, going out of our way to short-circuit the process of God’s provision of immortal life with him will inevitably shape and re-shape our desires (by trading in God’s design of the good life for the “cares of the world”).
In other words, what transhumanism dupes us into thinking is that life is found in something other than God’s embodied design that itself has a built-in “time to keep” (as the author of Ecclesiastes impresses on us).
What this means for us as we navigate the new world of cyberspace, chatbots, and unending body modifications is that we may need to get back to our Plato as we re-think our life in light of ever-changing society. Better yet, we must get back to our Bibles that not only help us to know what is true, but to pray, digest, and live what is true concerning our bodies.
We must swiftly reject the illusion of autonomy that we can manipulate our gender, sexuality, and, finally, that we can avoid the inevitability of a decaying body. Ultimate happiness is not the same as pleasure (although many would have you believe just that), and we cannot control everything through scientific means, as the humanists would have you believe. Science will never give us what ultimately matters.
Joshua Farris is a Humboldt Experienced Researcher at Ruhr Universitat Bochum focusing on biologically-engaged theological anthropology. He has been in ministry and teaching off and on for 15 years. He has also worked on topics as vast as theology and medical health, ecclesial authority, abuse, gender identity, racial identity, the afterlife and other topics. His area of speciality has been on the philosophical foundations of religious anthropology and the soul. He has a forthcoming book, The Creation of Self: A Case for the Soul coming out in June 2023.
