This paper addresses the seemingly insurmountable challenges the problem of personal identity raises for the prospect of radical human enhancement and synthetic consciousness. It argues that conceptions of personal identity rooted in psychological continuity akin to those proposed by Parfit and the Buddha may not provide the sort of grounding that many transhumanists chasing the dream of life extension think that they do if they rest upon ontologies that assume an incompatibility between identity and change. It also suggests that process (...) ontologies that take change to be primary, such as those that align with contemporary systems biology, offer a better way out of the personal identity dilemma. But the solution in this case, which regards biological organisms as processes rather than things, may constrain the possibility of biologically inspired superintelligent aliens (BISAs), which Schneider (following Bostrom 2014) posits as possibly the most common form of (extraterrestrial) superintelligence in the universe. (shrink)

Christians have always been concerned with enhancement—now they are faced with significant questions about how technology can help or harm genuine spiritual transformation. What makes traditional and technological enhancement different from each other? Are there theological insights and spiritual practices that can help Christians face the challenge of living in a technological world without being dangerously conformed to its values? This book calls on Christians to understand and engage the deep issues facing the church in a technological, transhumanist future.

Technological change and the growth of technocratic approaches to government have gone hand-in-hand with the development of secular transhumanism in the West. The result is a perfect storm for the onset of cultural or “soft” totalitarianism in what during the Cold War was known as the “Free World.” Accelerating political opposition to traditional and biological definitions of sex, and to traditional marriage and family networks in Christian contexts, has undermined anthropological and value assumptions basic to self-government. Paradoxically, in this (...) post-Cold War environment, Russian culture now provides a model for renewing the Christian understanding of sex related to defining freedom as self-restraint. Specifically, that model is that of the Russian Orthodox Christian anthropology of sex and its related theological tradition. (shrink)

The transhumanist train has pulled out of the station and is now racing toward its destination: technoutopia. Via GNR--Genetics, Nanotechnology, and Robotics--the H+ engineer is guiding us toward posthumanity where our descendents will enjoy superintelligence in digital, disembodied, and immortal form. How far will the Christian want to ride this train? I recommend that the Christian board the H+ train and ride the rails of technological progress as far as improved medical therapies, increased longevity, advanced robotics, and other enhancements in (...) human well-being and flourishing. But, I further recommend disembarking before the unrealistic and even undesirable posthuman utopia which would amount to the end of the line for humanity. (shrink)

Transhumanism is an ideology that embraces the use of various forms of biotechnology to enhance human beings toward the emergence of a “posthuman” kind. In this article, I contrast some of the foundational tenets of Transhumanism with those of Christianity, primarily focusing on their respective anthropologies—that is, their diverse understandings of whether there is an essential nature shared by all human persons and, if so, whether certain features of human nature may be intentionally altered in ways that contribute (...) toward how each views human flourishing. A central point of difference concerns Transhumanists’ aim of attaining “substrate independence” for the human mind, such that one’s consciousness could be uploaded into a cybernetic environment. Christian anthropology, on the other hand, considers embodiment, with its characteristics of vulnerability and finitude, to be an essential feature of human nature—hence, Christians’ belief in bodily resurrection. Despite Christianity and Transhumanism having fundamental differences, I contend that Christians may support moderate forms of enhancement oriented toward supporting our flourishing as living, sentient, social, and rational animals. (shrink)

This book explores the impact of developments in pharmaceutical medicine in the twentieth century on a Christian ethical evaluation of transhumanism and future 'hi tech' medical enhancement technologies. It suggests that the Christian ethical assessment of proposed future radical transhumanist biomedical technologies should be conducted in the light of responses to past medical advances. Two specific case studies are featured, focusing on the oral contraceptive pill and on Prozac and SSRI antidepressants. Whilst future biomedical technologies may have therapeutic benefits (...) for the relief of disease and contribute to improving human health and welfare, the book considers the implications for society and their acceptability as therapies from a Christian perspective. Stressing the inadequacy of natural law alone, the author proposes an ethical framework for assessing novel biomedical technologies according to the effects on personal autonomy, embodiment and bodily life, and on the Imago Dei. (shrink)

Transhumanism’s ideology is marked by a commitment to the “progress” or “perfection” of the human species through technological means. What transhumanists are after is not just therapeutic intervention or optimization of current human capabilities, but an ontological change from human to posthuman. In this article, I critique transhumanist ideology on the grounds that it fundamentally misunderstands human moral perfection as resulting from forces acting upon us (i.e., technological interventions), rather than an internal change of character. This misunderstanding reflects an (...) impoverished view of the concept of motion brought about by the rise of modern science, which entails certain ontological commitments that are not Christian in nature. I conclude transhumanism is untenable because it rests on a shaky foundation of Newtonian physics, and reduces the world to mere matter and forces. Furthermore, Christian transhumanism is especially flawed, because it is complicit in this severing of creation from its sacramental ontology, from the Being of God. (shrink)

The problems of transhumanism cannot be considered in isolation from the very rapidly changing advancements of modern technology which has become an immanent part of the modern scientific paradigm and is beginning to affect all people more and more. Focusing the discussion on epistemological and ethical issues alone, while identifying the utopian assumptions of the transhumanism ideology, does not allow to create any useful tools that could restrain the negative phenomena in the world of technoscience. Understanding certain technological (...) concepts developed in environments sensitive to the transhumanist ideas requires appropriate expertise. Many of them touch on the most important aspects of Christian anthropology. In order to understand them properly, it is necessary to investigate the most important results of scientific research carried out in the last few years in the largest scientific laboratories. (shrink)

Transhumanism traces its roots to Enlightenment humanism and claims to be the harbinger of the next phase of humanistic activity through designer evolution. In this essay, I briefly trace medicine’s relationship with transhumanist philosophy to the philosophy of medicine and show that each accepts a kind of ambiguity of the body at the heart of its metaphysical assumptions. I show that these metaphysical assumptions are committed to a power ontology, and that this power ontology is fundamentally at odds with (...) the traditional Christian lifeworld. (shrink)

This piece brings into critical conversation Christian resurrection hope, virtual versions of transhumanism, and intellectual disability and demonstrates that Christian resurrection provides a more cogent hope for people with severe intellectual disabilities than transhumanism. I argue that transhumanist virtual futures are theologically problematic, as bodily resurrection is neither required nor desirable. It is particularly problematic for people with severe intellectual disabilities given the way they would be excluded from these futures. Disability theology also raises issues with the traditional (...) notions of “healing” in the resurrection and the implications for the value and identity of persons with intellectual disabilities. Starting with these problems, I explore the nature of Christian hope, noting the inadequacies of a virtual transhumanist future with respect to both resurrection faith and intellectual disability, and address how resurrection hope can account for issues raised in disability theology, and so properly include people with intellectual disabilities. (shrink)

Transhumanism advances an ideology promising a positive human advance through the application of new and as yet unrealized technologies. Underlying the whole is a libertarian ethos married to a very Christian eschatology promising a miraculous transformation that will answer human needs and redress human failings. In this paper, the supposedly scientific basis on which transhumanist promises are built is critiqued as futurist imaginings with little likelihood of actualization. Transhumanists themselves are likened to the affable con man Professor Harold Hill (...) who, in The Music Man, describes as dire social problems whose solution is a youth band he seeks to sell but has no intention of building. Even were some of the transhumanist imaginings to be realized, I argue, the result would be a dystopia in which the few received benefits denied to the many. In advancing imaginary technologies as a solution to human needs, transhumanists and their bioethical fellow travelers handily avoid discussion of or advocacy for the kind of pedestrian social actions that demonstrably could achieve many of their purported goals. So their enthusiasms, I conclude, are not merely fanciful but damaging to the humanist goals they pretend to advance. (shrink)

Asking whether transhumanist hopes of overcoming ageing and cognitive and other shortcomings are realistic, this paper pitches a Christian anthropology against a transhumanist anthropology. It is shown that on critical examination many of the technologies proposed by transhumanists in order to better or extend human life raise questions about dualism and materialism, about our nature as relational beings, and indeed even about what it means to be alive.

In this book, the contributors examine how various religious traditions engage with transhumanism and its vision for the future.

Religious views of the future often include detailed expectations of profound changes to nature and humanity. Popular American evangelical Christianity, especially writers like Hal Lindsey, Rick Warren, or Rob Bell, offer extended accounts that provide insight into the views of the future held by many people. In the case of Lindsey, detailed descriptions of future events are provided, along with the claim that forecasted events will occur within a generation. These views are summarized and compared to the secular idea of (...) a coming “intelligence explosion” or technological singularity as advanced by Ray Kurzweil, which is described in terms of its history as an idea and in terms of its specific proposals for the coming transformation of the cosmos, which is also predicted to occur within a generation. While profoundly different in important ways, these two perspectives share many features with each other—for example, in their respective predictions of distinct stages in the unfolding of the future of the cosmos. (shrink)

The core issues explored by transhumanism raise profound questions about the goods and evils that define human existence and about the nature and meaning of human life. Christian faith, too, has long provided answers to questions about the directionality and meaning of human life. In a world brought into being by a loving God, what were we meant to be in our original created nature? Which features of our current experience are the result of the distortions of human sinfulness, (...) and which remain part of our created goodness? What will life be like if our self‐created distortions are removed and our eschatological hopes of salvation are realized? In Transhumanism and Transcendence: Christian Hope in an Age of Technological Enhancement, thirteen essays by Christian theologians and ethicists indicate that there are points of convergence and divergence for Christianity and the more ambitious transhumanist visions. (shrink)

Transhumanism promises us freedom from the biological limitations inherent in our nature. It aims to enhance physical, emotional and cognitive capacities thus opening up new possibilities and horizons of experience. Since many transhumanist aspirations resemble those within the domain of religion, this paper compares Christian ethics to transhumanist ethics with respect to the body and the environment and offers a critique of transhumanism. Three areas of contention are discussed: the modification of our given human nature, the radical extension (...) of our lifespans and our relationship to the natural environment. It argues that in these three areas, the underlying values being transmitted to future generations about the body and the environment are incompatible with Christian principles. (shrink)

SummaryHumans are now entering a post-human era. Through technological advancements and their applications for humans themselves, humans as homo sapiens might change into a different species. Depending on individual decisions about whether to embrace certain technologies, the co-existence of humans and post-humans is also possible. Christians and theologians must ponder this trajectory for the technology will affect all domains, including religions, in society at large. In this regard, this article introduces and examines transhumanism. Transhumanism is a movement based (...) on the convergence of ideology and scientific technology which aims to liberate humans from their biological constraints, thereby bringing about human well-being. This article argues that the transhumanist ideology should be critically examined while its technology can be embraced and even supported from a theological perspective because this ideology determines the direction of technological advancement and application. Regarding ideological problems, I highlight transhumanists’ disembodiment propensity, optimistic belief in the progress of human civilization, and individualism. These features are embedded in and originate from transhumanism’s succession of classical humanism and the Enlightenment. If these features are not rectified, transhumanism and its technology might repeat disastrous incidents in human history such as eugenics and exacerbate social inequality. As a theologian, I critically examine the ideological features of transhumanism, proposing an alternative understanding with regard to human beings and existence. This effort helps to remedy potential problems of transhumanism in the future, relieve anxiety relating to these problems, and prepare a dialogue between transhumanism and Christian theology. This dialogue will eventually contribute to the robust development of transhumanism and the opening of a new era of the post-human. (shrink)

Transhumanism first offers itself as a means to save oneself from an embodiment that is judged as being far from perfect. One needs to ask in its wake what comes of desires to escape limitations that come from the body, as they are means of an overcoming of the self. The AI project seems to be governed by norms for what the mind is, that could easily be judged inconsistent. Religious and theological traditions have looked at what the meaning (...) of an ineliminable image of God could mean. We try to map the meaning of extending this further into God’s resemblance. We then try to map this on a relationship of image and resemblance that would not have God come into competition with the doings of man. (shrink)

The conference did not target only the U.S. Christian right for opposing such things as stem cell research. It challenged every faith community that believes a human being is more than just one more biological product. The weekend of Aug. 7 was organized by the World Transhumanist Association. In 2005 its conference will be in Caracas, Venezuela, where this small band of transhumanists will continue to challenge all larger faith communities to review what they have to say about a "brave (...) new world" that would carry us far beyond the engineered manipulations that seemed so distant when Aldous Huxley wrote in 1932 about creating babies in test tubes. (shrink)

The article offers an overview of the (dis)continuities between the major Abrahamic religions (especially Christianity) and transhumanism, as well as some possibilities envisioned by scholars for their ongoing dialogue. Important points that come up along the way include: ecology vs. space exploration; the neglect of injustices suffered by past generations; the importance of bodily and mental imperfections for the development of culture; and our all-too human expectations for what posthumans may desire.Also presented is a review of various possible criticisms (...) against wildly ambitious projects, such as Frank Tipler’s attempt to fuse transhumanism with Christian eschatology. It is argued that process theology and James Gardner’s “Biocosm hypothesis” offer a more intriguing view: a salvation which is not predestined but merely possible, and whose details are being negotiated through specific historic events and even through our day-to-day decisions and deliberations. Such a view overcomes Nietzsche’s notion of eternal recurrence by stressing the importance of rethinking, redaction, and creating variations of what already exists. (shrink)

Transhumanism is a modern expression of ancient and transcultural aspirations to radically transform human existence, socially and bodily. Before the Enlightenment these aspirations were only expressed in religious millennialism, magical medicine, and spiritual practices. The Enlightenment channeled these desires into projects to use science and technology to improve health, longevity, and human abilities, and to use reason to revolutionize society. Since the Enlightenment, techno‐utopian movements have dynamically interacted with supernaturalist millennialism, sometimes syncretically, and often in violent opposition. Today the (...) transhumanist movement, a modern form of Enlightenment techno‐utopianism, has evolved a number of subsects, from the libertarian utopians funded by billionaire Peter Thiel, to religious syncretists like the Mormon Transhumanist Association, to the left‐wing technoprogressives and their bioliberal intellectual allies. In reaction to accelerating technological innovation and transhumanist ideas, apocalyptic Christians, and even secular catastrophists, have begun to incorporate human enhancement into their End Times scenarios. With all sides believing that the fate of humanity hangs in the balance, there is a growing likelihood of violent confrontation. (shrink)

Transhumanism seeks to transgress the human, regarding finitude and suffering to be fundamental problems that must be overcome by radical bioenhancement technologies. Christianity and transhumanism have been compared as competing deifications via grace and technology, respectively. I argue that the grace of deification is partly accomplished in union with Christ by way of suffering unto divine filiation. First, I explore how the grace of deification is accomplished through suffering, looking at Maximus the Confessor’s dyothelitism. Christ in Gethsemane expresses (...) the fulfilment of divine filiation, aligning Christ’s human will with the divine will. Second, I examine deification in light of Luther’s theologia crucis and how suffering leads to ‘Christosis’. A human’s divine mode of existing is filial and cruciform and thus Christoform. Third, I look at deification and Augustine’s totus Christus. The Church is transfigured into Christoformity as the members of the body suffer with one another in compassion. Taken together, dyothelitism critiques transhumanist exaltation of the will, theologia crucis critiques transhumanist power ontology, and totus Christus as shared suffering critiques transhumanist individualism. I conclude that suffering is transfigured: suffering, not transhumanism, is the way to true human enhancement. (shrink)

Teilhard is among the first to seriously explore the future of human evolution. He advocates both bio-technologies (e.g. genetic engineering) and intelligence technologies. He discusses the emergence of a global computation - communication system (and is said by some to have been the first to have envisioned the Internet). He advocates the development of a global society. He is almost surely the first to discuss the acceleration of technological progress to a Singularity in which human intelligence will become super-intelligence. He (...) discusses the spread of human intelligence into the universe and its amplification into a cosmic-intelligence. His work has been taken up by Barrow and Tipler; Tipler; Moravec; and Kurzweil. Of course, Teilhard's Omega Point Theory is deeply Christian. For secular transhumanists, this may be difficult. But transhumanism cannot avoid a fateful engagement with Christianity. Christian institutions may support or oppose transhumanism. Since Christianity is an extremely powerful cultural force in the West, it is imperative for transhumanism to engage it carefully. A serious study of Teilhard can help that engagement and will thus be rewarding to both communities. (shrink)

Critiques of transhumanism from Christian theologians and philosophers often focus on the movement’s disdain for the human body. These criticisms are expressed in a number of different ways. Some argue that the transhumanists’ disdain is a new form of Gnosticism, while others argue that it leads to real violence against real human bodies. When such criticisms turn to identify the particular sin of which transhumanism is guilty, they sometimes identify vainglory as the besetting sin, but more often than (...) not pride is the sin named. After all, what is transhumanism – with its various proposals for bringing about the posthuman, which is some future being with capabilities so far beyond the human so as to border on godlike – but the latest iteration of the primal sin of humans wanting to become God on their own terms? -/- While such criticisms are valid, they do not capture the depth of transhumanism’s offense from a Christian perspective. Pride and vanity are indeed two of the deadly sins of transhumanism, but there are others at play as well. Moreover, pride is the root of all sin, so saying that pride is the problem is not necessarily helpful. We must find the particular ways in which pride manifests itself. I will argue that the sin of acedia (sometimes spelled accidie), found in ancient lists of the deadly sins, is a primary sin of transhumanism. In so doing, I hope to contribute to a more complete diagnosis of the transhumanist project from a Christian perspective, and I hope to further show why transhumanism is at odds with Christianity, contra the claims of the Christian Transhumanist Association. It should also be stated up front that this article may raise more questions than it answers. Accordingly, it should be seen as an invitation for further research, not as a definitive assessment of acedia in transhumanism. (shrink)

Review of the book edited by R. Cole-Turner Transhumanism and Transcendence: Christian Hope in an Age of Technological Enhancement.

Reservations concerning the ontologies of theism, transhumanism and posthumanism compel an explicatory discourse on their influences on Nursing and rehabilitation healthcare. Key journals in Nursing and health sciences have recently devoted themed issues on intelligent machine technologies such as humanoid healthcare robots and other highly technological healthcare devices and practice initiatives. While the technological advance witnessed has been a cause for celebration, questions still remain that are focused on the epistemological concerns. The purpose of this article is to discuss (...) theistic ontologies such as the Judeo‐Christian, Shinto‐Buddhist and Islamic religious belief systems on transhumanism and posthumanism in the assimilation of symbiotic technological beings in Nursing and rehabilitation healthcare practice. In view of the approaching technological singularity dominating arguments regarding the future of human beings, a treatise on Nursing and rehabilitation health care is positioned well within the realms of human care. Theism, transhumanism and posthumanism are directing discussions regarding human beings and healthcare processes. It is imperative that the beneficial effects of these discussions be acknowledged within the highly technological world of Nursing and rehabilitative healthcare. (shrink)

The author of the article contrasts the objection to transhumanism, which proceeds from the fact of success technoscience, with the objection, that takes the very fact of technoscience as a problem. Transhumanism itself gives rise to the problematization of science. It is the top of its development, and at the same time it fits into a single line of continuity of the forms of transformation of human nature known in history, as another, new link of it, following Christianity (...) in this serie. The identification of this kind of "religious" roots of transhumanism brings back the relevance of the problem of the connection between science and Christianity and provides additional resources for reviewing this problem today. The author of the article shows the connection between the problem of the mathematization (transformation) of nature, known even to the Eleatics, the new possibilities opened for it by Christianity, and the new European tradition of the I-cogito. The Cogito presented itself as a human nature transformed through union with God, as the very unit that Zeno had once sought, but never found. But while posing as something new to western european philosophy and thus defining its development, the cogito was not what it claimed to be. The transition from Descartes' pseudo-discoveries to Zeno's conclusions was inevitable. It has declared itself as a transition from classical epistemology to non-classical epistemology. In view of the fact that non-classics do not just indicate the failure of the classics, but call into question the very possibility of science, two paths open up: the way back or the way forward. The way back brings us back to the problem of the genesis of science, to a radical revision of its possibility. The way forward is the path of transhumanism as a rehabilitation of the pseudo-unity of the I-cogito in the new, extremely favorable conditions, when postmodernism has already abolished the polarization of the top and the bottom, the upper and the lower, that set the problem of unity. (shrink)

Should or shouldn’t Christians endorse the transhumanist agenda of changing human nature in ways fitting to one’s needs? To answer this question, we first have to be clear on what precisely the thesis of transhumanism entails that we are going to evaluate. Once this point is clarified, I argue that Christians can in principle fully endorse the transhumanist agenda because there is nothing in Christian faith that is in contradiction to it. In fact, given certain plausible moral assumptions, Christians (...) should endorse a moderate enhancement of human nature. I end with a brief case study that analyses the theological implications of the idea of immortal Christian cyborgs. I argue that the existence of Christian cyborgs who know no natural death has no impact on the Christian hope of immortality in the presence of God. (shrink)

What is Christian about Christian bioethics? The short answer to this question is that the Incarnation should shape the form and content of Christian bioethics. In explicating this answer it is argued that contemporary medicine is unwittingly embracing and implementing the transhumanist dream of transforming humans into posthumans. Contemporary medicine does not admit that there are any limits in principle to the extent to which it should intervene to improve the quality of human life. This largely inarticulate, yet ambitious, agenda (...) is derived first in late modernity's failed, but nonetheless ongoing, attempt to transform necessity into goodness, and second the loss of any viable concept of eternity, thereby stripping temporal existence of any normative significance. In short, medicine has become the vanguard of a profane attempt to save humankind by extracting data from flesh. In response, it is contended that an alternative Christian bioethics must be shaped by the Incarnation, the Word made flesh. This assertion does not entitle Christians to oppose the posthuman trajectory of contemporary medicine on the basis of any natural or biological essentialism. Rather, it is an evangelical witness to the grace of Christ's redemption instead of the work of self-transformation. It is Christ alone who thereby makes the vulnerability and mortality of finitude a gift and blessing. Specifically, it is maintained that the chasm separating necessity and goodness cannot be filled but only bridged through the suffering entailed in Christ's cross, and through Christ's resurrection eternity becomes the standard against which the temporal lives of human creatures are properly formed and measured. Consequently, Christian bioethics should help us become conformed to Christ rather than enabling selftransformation. (shrink)

This article examines some of the recent theological critiques of the movement of technological human enhancement known as ‘transhumanism’. Drawing on the comparisons between grace and technology often found in the theological discourse on transhumanism, this article argues that the Thomistic distinction between healing grace and elevating grace can not only supplement the theological analysis of transhumanism and its ethical implications, but also help Christian theologians and ethicists become more aware of how the phenomenon of technology may (...) have implicitly shaped the contemporary understanding of ‘grace’ as well as the task of theology as a spiritual and indeed ethical practice. (shrink)

By setting the relationship between human and divine reality in a whole new way, Christian anthropology has provided an authoritative framework for understanding and valuing the dynamics of human life as moving “from the old to the new man”, according to the famous phrase of the apostle Paul. Other great European humanistic traditions with their ideas of man and visions of his progress can be placed in the critical perspective of this Pauline anthropological formula. One of those traditions that relatively (...) recently entered the stage of European intellectual culture is the so-called “Transhumanism”. In this article, a contrast is made between Paul’s understanding of the dynamics of human life and the _human enhan­cement_ with the help of technology in transhumanism. (shrink)

One facet of Stefan Lorenz Sorgner’s scholarship is immediately visible in his diligent academic production: the 21st Century is a leading spatio-temporal unit of his analyses. Although such assessment could be considered a rough generalization, it should not be taken for granted. To be placed in the contextual core of the current epoch is of particular relevance with respect to multiple academic trajectories Sorgner navigates and is almost always an achievement rather than an expected, ready-made content. Namely, more often than (...) not, especially in authorship with transhumanist labels, the temporal and conceptual curves are not subtly controlled and fine-tuned into a well-balanced thinking product that contributes to facing the current and potential issues of the relatively near and projectively feasible futures. Such gross asymmetry has various dangerous consequences Sorgner unequivocally warns about, opting deliberately to be an active chronicler of the ‘history of the present’ instead. This approach entails the dismissal of ‘guaranteed’ futurity vectors, be it Christian linearity or Kurzweilian exponentiality, but no less of petrified presentism or conventional historical layers of any inherited anthropology and the specific ethical account it is built upon. (shrink)

As with many human desires, transhumanist hope often lapses into transhumanist hype, but that recognition usually seems to come from those who fear the prospects. As a result, denunciations are frequently as vague as they are dismissive. Yet, despite potential benefits in the transhumanist agenda, there are legitimate reasons for questioning some of its particular projections and doing so can help distinguish between the hope and hype. Focusing on inherent limitations to cognitive enhancement, for instance, is instructive because that arena (...) is so intimately connected to personhood and is also the gateway to other envisioned forms of improvement. Identifying those restrictions is also germane to considerations of Christian engagement with the realities of a transhumanist future—a future whose “superior” beings can never escape faith. (shrink)

As portrayed in Andy Clark’s extended mind thesis, human minds are inherently disposed to expand their reach outwards, incorporating and feeding off an open-ended variety of tools and scaffolds to satisfy their hunger for cognitive expansion. According to Steve Fuller’s heterodox Christian vision of transhumanism, humans are deities in the making, destined to redeem their fallen state with the help of modern science and technology. In this chapter, I re-examine Clark’s EMT through the prism of Fuller’s transhumanism, with (...) the aim of unearthing a subterranean influence of theological tropes that are sweeping along beneath the naturalistic veneer of Clark’s thesis. Starting from four theological principles, which Fuller regards as foundational to his version of transhumanism, I review the philosophical narrative which, in Fuller’s view, provides the best philosophical motivation for the contemporary transhumanist project. On the basis of my reconstruction, I show how distant intellectual offshoots of the same principles mobilized by Fuller are also at play in Clark’s EMT – dressed up in secular garb, for sure, and in a materialistically inflected form, yet with a recognizably transhumanist bent. Undertaking this “archeology” of the EMT takes us surprisingly deep into the history of Western thought – to a point where Clark’s evocative “natural-born cyborg” image of humanity, with its emphasis on the radical openness of human nature to transcend itself, comes into view as a subtly blended continuation of certain historically consequential articulations of the Christian doctrine that humans are born “in the image and likeness” of God. (shrink)

This article distances the classic Patristic teaching of Eastern Orthodoxy on theosis from the pseudo-religious ideology of transhumanism. By appealing to the Silver Age of Russian theologians a century ago, today’s transhumanist vision is dubbed Mangodhood, an idolatrous construction of a technological Tower of Babel. In contrast, the classical Orthodox teaching of deification or theosis relies on the spiritual grace of the true God, rendering the true goal of religion to be Godmanhood.

Spacetime as we know and love it is lost in most approaches to quantum gravity. For many of these approaches, as inchoate and incomplete as they may be, one of the main challenges is to relate what they take to be the fundamental non-spatiotemporal structure of the world back to the classical spacetime of GR. The present essay investigates how spacetime is lost and how it may be regained in one major approach to quantum gravity, loop quantum gravity.

Several theologians have pointed to resonances between the Greek Patristic doctrine of deification or theosis and recent transhumanist narratives: both discourses indicate death as the final enemy of humankind and invest heavily in a hoped-for transcendence of life as we know it. These resonances will be investigated further by comparing the approach to human nature found in Maximus the Confessor and in the prominent transhumanists Nick Bostrom and John Harris. In addition to sharing with transhumanists a disavowal of death and (...) a trajectory towards transcendence, Maximus also shares a view of human nature that is more dynamic and open-ended than is commonly attributed to his Late Antique context. On the other hand, Maximus also insists on the persistence of this dynamic nature in its integrity even into the eschaton. He does so for a number of reasons that should give Christians pause about any rhetoric that calls for an abandonment of human nature: that theosis depends precisely on sharing a human nature with Christ; that our vocation as mediators in creation depends on our physical bodies as the locus of shared existence with the material world; and that corruption has a providential use in binding us together with our neighbors and in cultivating virtue as we strain for the incorruptible and supernatural gift of theosis. (shrink)

The problem of free will as it is know in Western philosophical traditions is hardly known in China. Considering how central the problem is in the West, this is a remarkable fact. We try to explain this, and we offer insights into discussions within Chinese traditions that we think are related, not historically but regarding the issues discussed. Thus we introduce four central Chinese concepts, namely: (1) xīn 心 (heart, heart-mind), (2) xìng 性 (human nature, characteristic tendencies, inborn capacity), (3) (...) mìng 命 (lifespan, fate, command, allotment, endowment), and (4) zìrán 自然 (self-so, so of itself, nature, spontaneity), and we indicate how these concepts and their discussions can be related to discussions on free will. (shrink)

_Making Sense of Tantric Buddhism_ fundamentally rethinks the nature of the transgressive theories and practices of the Buddhist Tantric traditions, challenging the notion that the Tantras were "marginal" or primitive and situating them instead--both ideologically and institutionally--within larger trends in mainstream Buddhist and Indian culture. Critically surveying prior scholarship, Wedemeyer exposes the fallacies of attributing Tantric transgression to either the passions of lusty monks, primitive tribal rites, or slavish imitation of Saiva traditions. Through comparative analysis of modern historical narratives--that depict (...) Tantrism as a degenerate form of Buddhism, a primal religious undercurrent, or medieval ritualism--he likewise demonstrates these to be stock patterns in the European historical imagination. Through close analysis of primary sources, Wedemeyer reveals the lived world of Tantric Buddhism as largely continuous with the Indian religious mainstream and deploys contemporary methods of semiotic and structural analysis to make sense of its seemingly repellent and immoral injunctions. Innovative, semiological readings of the influential _Guhyasamaja Tantra_ underscore the text's overriding concern with purity, pollution, and transcendent insight--issues shared by all Indic religions--and a large-scale, quantitative study of Tantric literature shows its radical antinomianism to be a highly managed ritual observance restricted to a sacerdotal elite. These insights into Tantric scripture and ritual clarify the continuities between South Asian Tantrism and broader currents in Indian religion, illustrating how thoroughly these "radical" communities were integrated into the intellectual, institutional, and social structures of South Asian Buddhism. (shrink)