Humanity’s finish, Friedrich Nietzsche claims, is at all times to turn into one thing extra. Man should be overcome. He isn’t an finish, however a bridge unfold throughout a chasm between animal and overman (Thus Spoke Zarathustra, §3–4).
And what’s this human bridge turning into? Nobody but is aware of!
Transhumanism is the Nietzschean imaginative and prescient of man reframed by way of trendy science. It sublates human limits by negating points of our finitude, preserving choose options of humanity, and projecting them into the next, newly imagined kind. It thereby envisions a brand new type of humanity or perhaps a posthuman existence.
The Bible tells one other story about what it means to be human. Scripture tells us God created us in his picture with limits and ends that he himself has given us. Whereas we must always get pleasure from the items of know-how to restore, increase, and enhance our lives, we must also concentrate on the bounds God has given us. In spite of everything, I can’t flap my arms and anticipate to fly, however I can construct a aircraft to hold me throughout the globe.
What’s transhumanism?
Mark Coeckelbergh defines transhumanism as “The assumption that people ought to improve themselves via superior applied sciences and on this approach remodel the human situation: humanity ought to transfer to a subsequent stage.”
The language of transformation is why it’s referred to as transhumanism. Whereas nobody denies the goodness of medication or know-how to restore, increase, or prolong our lives, transhumanism goes one step additional by aiming to sublate human nature into a 3rd factor: The method of transhumanism normally has its finish in posthumanism. This can turn into clearer under.
What do transhumanists consider?
Transhumanists kind a motion with particular objectives. As Jacob Shatzer explains, “The transhumanist motion seeks to enhance human intelligence, bodily energy, and the 5 senses by technological means.” Maybe essentially the most well-known transhumanist advocate is Bryan Johnson, whose non secular slogan is “Don’t die.” His want is to beat the last word restrict of being human: loss of life itself.
What drawback is transhumanism making an attempt to resolve?
If people are organic machines, then mastering humanity like we grasp nature is the objective. No matter drawback we encounter, whether or not infertility or mortality, we see it as an issue to be solved by technical experience.
Therefore, transhumanists use ideas of bodily science and apply them to humanity, as if we have been machines or mechanisms. Bryan Johnson’s whole technique is to min-max human biology by way of quantification in order that he can discover a approach to keep away from loss of life, which is seen as a bug in a organic system to be corrected.
What does the Bible say concerning the nature & goal of humanity?
The Bible tells us God created people on the sixth day in his picture in an effort to be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth (Gen 1:26–28). Their vocation to have a tendency and preserve the backyard by way of marriage and household makes concrete what Genesis implies about being human (Gen 2). To be human is to have what all different creatures have and extra. We’re made from matter just like the earth. We develop just like the crops. We reside, reproduce, and transfer just like the animals. However people alone are in God’s picture, containing inside themselves the attributes of all creation whereas but being extra.
What does it imply to be made within the picture of God?
To be in God’s picture is outlined in Genesis 1:28 because the human vocation to take dominion over all of God’s creation as stewards.
This standing appears to be tied to the distinctive approach by which God made people, by respiration life into them (Gen 2:7). This in-breathing factors to humanity’s elevated standing in creation. People alone commune with God within the cool of the day (Gen 3:8). And God offers with people for the sake of the entire world.
The actual limits and duties God provides by way of this picture inform us what our life is about, what we’re for. What’s the chief finish of being human? Because the Westminster Catechism places it, “To glorify God and revel in him without end” by way of the pure (household, marriage, and so on.) and gracious (gospel, Bible, and so on.) items he has given us.
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How does the Bible outline human limits & dependence on God?
The Previous Testomony teaches us two necessary classes.
- God’s grace signifies that he intervenes to maintain his folks secure in a world that’s harmful and fallen. The e book of Joshua, for example, reveals this actuality as Israel conquers its enemies.
- God judges or punishes by allowing us to reside with out his supernatural grace to guard us. The e book of Judges, in distinction, reveals this aspect of actuality. With out God, we are able to do nothing.
With out God, the world can be in chaos. And due to our rejection of him, we undergo enormously and in the end will die (Gen 2:17).
Whereas God has given people good items akin to music, metallurgy, poetry, ranching, and metropolis infrastructure (e.g., Gen 4:17), he’ll generally permit us to bump up towards our pure limits for our religious good. So the matriarchs in Genesis usually have been barren, and God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac as a take a look at (Gen 22). However God works by way of these limits in order that we might depend on him. Our religious good comes from figuring out our pure limits and counting on God’s grace to deliver us by way of them. We depend all of it pleasure once we undergo numerous trials, James explains, as a result of it should make us full (Jas 1:2–4).
Our religious good comes from figuring out our pure limits and counting on God’s grace to deliver us by way of them.
Does transhumanism distort the Bible’s account of human identification?
It could actually, however solely underneath the next criterion: Does the transhumanist objective sublate or bypass our God-given pure limits, and so inhibit our religious progress?
How does Scripture describe human struggling, weak point, and mortality—and will these be “overcome” by way of know-how?
We typically name medical methods good after they can restore the perform of our organs. coronary heart surgical procedure restores the perform of the guts. And in God’s widespread grace, he grants us technological success that promotes life. We are able to even see this within the evil metropolis of Enoch, which had metallurgy, ranching, poetry, metropolis infrastructure, and extra (Gen 4:17–26). Whereas evil, God’s grace preserves all because of his mercy. Due to this fact, Christians ought to be life-affirming, which suggests affirming all of the technological developments that profit life.
On the identical time, we should acknowledge that denying what it means to be human by, say, importing our brains to an information heart to turn into immortal machines denies the way in which by which God created us to be human.
What moral considerations come up from transhumanist objectives?
Since transhumanists typically describe human limits (significantly loss of life) as one thing to be overcome, we are able to agree with them on what humanity’s final drawback is. However we see a distinct decision as Christians. Loss of life is the punishment for sin, and Christ rose from the useless in order that we’d have everlasting life (e.g., Rom 6:23).
Because of this, whereas we don’t welcome loss of life, we additionally see it as a simply wage for our sin. It’s the final enemy, and we hope in Christ to beat it. We use medication to lengthen life, to make sure, however we don’t hope to turn into a distinct type of human (machine, digital, or in any other case) to keep away from loss of life. We consider our soul is immortal and persists after bodily loss of life.
Is transhumanism suitable with Christianity?
In its extra excessive variations, it isn’t. God tells us who we’re (creatures), what we’re (picture bearers), and what we’re for (to be fruitful, multiply, fill, take dominion, and so on.). The transhumanist objective to remodel people into one thing else would contradict God’s intent for us. A objective that may bypass God’s given limits on our human nature could stop us from religious progress, which issues for eternity.
At base, altering one’s physique by surgical procedure based on a posthumanist agenda, other than medical necessity, is incompatible with Christianity. Paul says, “For nobody ever hated his personal flesh, however nourishes and cherishes it, simply as Christ does the church” (Eph 5:29). However transhumanist actions that goal to add consciousness or recreate the human physique indicate a “hatred of his personal flesh.” That hatred is towards nature, the character God has given us.
Some types of transhumanism maybe may work alongside Christianity when its objectives parallel medical ethics: to reinforce, restore, or in any other case help pure potential and organisms. However then we might ask whether or not or not this exercise is actually transhumanist or if it simply seems to be.
When does human enhancement cross the road into “enjoying God”?
Once we choose by gene remedy which fetus lives or dies based mostly on sure traits (top, IQ, and so on.), we place ourselves as masters of life and loss of life. However God alone has energy over life and loss of life (Deut 32:39). Additional, we undermine the value of these traits purposefully unselected, devaluing any human life that possesses such traits.
Moreover, anytime we sublate some given human restrict or add one thing that’s new to humanity, and turn into a 3rd factor, we’re in peril of defining ourselves in ways in which God doesn’t.
How ought to Christians discern between medical therapeutic & technological enhancement?
Drugs historically seeks to heal, restore, and restore the wholesome perform of the physique. So a pacemaker, though technological, restores the perform of an organ. The identical is true for prosthetics. Technological enhancement could promote medical therapeutic, and we must always not object to that, per se.
Nonetheless, some medical enhancements will search to bypass nature in methods that don’t restore however goal to refashion one’s personal flesh. I consider top augmenting surgical procedure to elongate one’s legs. Such an enhancement seems to quantity to hatred of 1’s personal flesh (Eph 5:29) and denies the pure limits God has given us.
Conclusion
Oliver O’Donovan explains,
Christians ought to at this juncture confess their religion within the pure order as the great creation of God. To do that is to acknowledge that there are limits to the employment of method and limits to the appropriateness of our making. … Method, too, should have its sabbath relaxation.
I agree along with his judgment. God made the world with limits that we should be cautious of breaching by way of our pursuit of freedom and our mastery of nature.
Whereas know-how is a present of God’s widespread grace, any good factor will be misused. Poetry is gorgeous, and the primary poem within the Bible is a love poem (Gen 2:23). The second poem within the Bible is a vengeance poem that drips with murderous want (Gen 4:23–24). The strategy of poetry is sweet, however it may be misused and abused. Likewise, I consider that a lot of what falls underneath transhumanism falls underneath the class of misused items. Christians ought to be as sensible as serpents as we enter into an ever extra technological age.
Wyatt’s beneficial studying
- Ellul, Jacques. The Technological Society. Translated by John Wilkinson. Classic Books, 1964.
- Grant, George. Know-how and Empire: Views on North America. Home of Anansi Press, 1969.
- Lewis, C. S. The Abolition of Man. HarperOne, 2001.
- O’Donovan, Oliver. Begotten or Made? Davenant Institute, 2022.
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