Abstract
Although theological reflection on human enhancement technology is more developed in Christianity than it is in other religions, we are still at the very early stages, and it will be necessary to enhance that conversation if the transhumanist agenda is going to be adequately framed and discussed from a Christian perspective. In this chapter, I will endeavor to address from a Protestant point of view transhumanist scenarios, especially as they relate to the body
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Notes
Physicist Barry G. Ritchie, for example, makes the case that practical immortality achieved through science is very unlikely. See “The (Un)Likelihood of a High-Tech Path to Immortality,” in eds., Hava Tirosh-Samuelson and Kenneth L. Mossman, Building Better Humans? Refocusing the Debate on Transhumanism, which is vol. 3 in Beyond Humanism: Trans- and Posthumanism, ed. Stefan Lorenz Sorgner (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2012).
For views that extreme longevity, for example, is not only attainable, but likely, see some of the selections in Immortality Institute, The Scientific Conquest of Death: Essays on Infinite Lifespans (Buenos Aires: LibrosEnRed, 2004).
Many of these themes are touched on by various authors who have competently begun the conversation about the body in Christianity as it relates to transhumanism. Nigel M. de S. Cameron, Ron Cole-Turner, Ted Peters, and Brent Walters are among those who have made important contributions, and by no means do they agree on their assessment of things. Noreen Herzfeld brings a number of theological themes together in “Human-Directed Evolution: A Christian Perspective,” in James W. Haag, Gregory R. Peterson, and Michael L. Spezio, eds., The Routledge Companion to Religion and Science (New York: Routledge, 2012), 591–601. For more general discussions of the body in Christianity, see Elisabeth Moltmann-Wendel, I Am My Body: A Theology of Engagement (New York: Continuum, 1995)
and Lisa Isherwood and Elizabeth Stuart, Introducing Body Theology. Series Introductions in Feminist Theology 2 (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1998).
R. E. Schweizer; “Body” in: D. N. Freeman, ed., The Anchor Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1992), vol. 1, 768.
There are numerous studies of Paul that address Paul’s notions about resurrection. See, e.g., James D. Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1998);
Herman Ridderbos, Paul: An Outline of His Theology, trans. J. R. De Witt (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1975), especially pp. 537–50;
and Richard A. Horsey, “Pneumatikos vs Psychikos: Distinctions of Spiritual Status Among the Corinthians,” Harvard Theological Review 69(3/4) (1976): 269–88.
A recent excellent work is Turid Karlsen Seim and Jorunn Okland, eds., Metamorphoses: Resurrection, Body and Transformative Practices in Early Christianity. Series Ekstasis: Religious Experience from Antiquity to the Middle Ages 1 (New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2009).
James Hughes provides helpful information about what religious and non-religious transhumanists think in “The Compatibility of Religious and Transhumanist Views of Metaphysics, Suffering, Virtue and Transcendence in an Enhanced Future,” Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies (May 8, 2007). To access this article, see http://ieet.org/archive/20070326-Hughes-ASU-H+Religion.pdf (accessed July 6, 2012). Another helpful study shows that people are more open to enhancements that they do not perceive to impact traits fundamental to self-identity (e.g., social comfort). They are more willing to enhance traits that they do not think are fundamental to self-identity (e.g., concentration ability). See Jason Riis, Joseph P. Simmons, and Geoffrey P. Goodwin, “Preferences for Enhancement Pharmaceuticals: The Reluctance to Enhance Fundamental Traits,” Journal of Consumer Research 35 (October 2008) 495–508.
Peters, Playing God? Genetic Discrimination and Human Freedom (New York: Routledge, 1997).
For a more recent discussion of this concept, see C. A. J. Coady, “Playing God,” 160–61, in Julian Savulescu and Nick Bostrom, eds., Human Enhancement (New York: Oxford University, 2009), 155–80.
This concern is well expressed by Terence L. Nichols, “Radical Life Extension: Implications for Roman Catholicism,” in Derek F. Maher and Calvin Mercer, eds., Religion and the Implications of Radical Life Extension (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 140–44.
Jeanine Thweatt-Bates, Cyborg Selves: A Theological Anthropology of the Posthuman. Series Ashgate Science and Religion (Burlington: Ashgate, 2012).
See also Ted Peters, “Perfect Humans or Trans-Humans?” in Future Perfect? God, Medicine and Human Identity, ed. Celia Deane-Drummond and Peter Manley Scott (New York: T & T Clark, 2006), 25–29;
and Noreen Herzfeld, Technology and Religion: Remaining Human in a Co-created World. Series Templeton Science and Religion (West Conshohocken, PA: Templeton Press, 2009), 56–90.
For discussions of human nature from a Christian perspective, Zygon 47(4) (December 2012) contained several helpful articles organized around the theme of “Human Nature in Theistic Perspective.” The following were particularly helpful for the conversation about transhumanism: Celia Deane-Drummond and Paul Wason, “Becoming Human in Theistic Perspective” (870 –74), Mikael Stenmark, “Is There a Huma n Nature?” (890 –902), A lan J. Torrance, “Is There a Distinctive Human Nature? Approaching the Question from a Christian Epistemic Base” (903–17), Alistair McFadyen, “Imaging God: A Theological Answer to the Anthropological Question” (918 –33), and Celia Deane-Drummond, “God’s Image and Likeness in Humans and Other Animals: Performative Soul-Making and Graced Nature” (934–48). See also Stanley Rudman, Concepts of Person and Christian Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1997);
Andrew Lustig, “Are Enhancement Technologies ‘Unnatural’? Musings on Recent Christian Conversations,” American Journal of Medical Genetics Part C (Seminars in Medical Genetics) 151(C) (2009): 81–88;
and Philip Hefner, “The Animal that Aspires to be an Angel: The Challenge of Transhumanism,” Dialog: A Journal of Theology 48(2) (2009): 158–67.
A good recent discussion, although not from a religious angle, is Craig T. Nagoshi and Julie L. Nagoshi, “Being Human versus Being Transhuman: The Mind-Body Problem and Lived Experience,” pp. 303–19, in, Hava Tirosh-Samuelson and Kenneth L. Mossman, eds., Building Better Humans? Refocusing the Debate on Transhumanism (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2012). They argue for the role of “mythos, namely, lived experiences self-understood and shared through inherently subjective, personally meaningful, bodily based narratives…” (303).
Antje Jackelen, “The Image of God as Techno Sapiens,” Zygon 37(2) (2002): 289–302.
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© 2014 Calvin Mercer and Derek F. Maher
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Mercer, C. (2014). Protestant Christianity—Sorting Out Soma in the Debate about Transhumanism: One Protestant’s Perspective. In: Mercer, C., Maher, D.F. (eds) Transhumanism and the Body. Palgrave Studies in the Future of Humanity and Its Successors. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137342768_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137342768_9
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