How Should Christians Respond To Transhumanism?

Transhumanism has emerged in the early twenty-first century as the cutting edge challenge to Christianity and other traditional religions, picking up on the Enlightenment idea of progress and promising to overcome all human ills, in particular suffering and death through science and technology, in the end perhaps dispensing with humanity itself.

The Institute for Human Ecology presented an extended discussion of the challenge of transhumanism and the problems associated with in a panel discussion on May 15. Jan Christoph Bentz, Lecturer at Blackfriars Studium in Oxford, England led a panel which also included Father Michael Baggot, Professor Aggregato of Bioethics at the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum in Rome, and Wael Taji Miller (publishing as Wael Taji), a systems theory researcher, an editor at the Axioma Center “the first Christian faith-based think tank in Hungary,” and a doctoral candidate in neuro-science at Semmelweis University in Budapest. Bentz reviewed transhumanism from the standpoint of philosophy, Taji from science, and Father Baggot from theology.

The Philosophy of Transhumanism

Bentz said that “transhumanism seems to be one of the great umbrella terms of all kinds of interesting … and potentially even dangerous thoughts about human nature, how to conceive of human nature and specifically how to conceive of a certain type of humanism and how to overcome that humanism.”

The clearest way to understand transhumanism is as a kind of utopianism. Utopianism, he said, should be understood as an ideal which is unattainable, and which we should not strive for. It “is to politics what heresy is to the faith.” In particular it is an “heretical inversion of the order of being … Utopianism is the obstinate post-Christian denial of the fallen condition of man, and the rejection of historical, social, and moral limits that must be acknowledged in any just political order.” The idea of human nature is rejected and final redemption, or eschatology, is understood to result from scientific and technological progress. The result is a “hyperbolic and warped image of the political good, of the common good.” While it may begin from a legitimate political order, utopianism exaggerates its abilities and responsibilities and advances “misplaced hope,” resulting in an ideology and an eschatology that denies reality. It is a project that tries to “immanentize the eschaton.” Most utopianism, he said, “thrives on this core idea.” Rarely do transhumanists “talk about the negative side effects” of their efforts, but only about the desired eschaton.

Among the important features to note about transhumanism are that “it absolutizes autonomy,” so that the self-sufficiency of the individual is the ideal to strive for. The individual should be “independent, on his own … and perfectly free.” In particular, people ought to be independent of any “divine source.” Secondly, “it denies the permanent features of human nature and proposes instead an ever changing flux that culminates in a new man.” But the transhumanists have no clear idea of what the “new man” would be like (beyond being truly, rather than aspirationally, autonomous). Thirdly, transhumanism and its utopia “confuses progress with redemption.” Thus, “progress becomes salvific, it’s something that is intrinsically positive.” This is connected with the idea of a “gnostic return to the original innocence.” Finally, it replaces metaphysics with ideology. He said that “philosophical realism … is replaced with blueprint thinking.” The result is finally “empty words and empty promises.”

Bentz called utopian rhetoric “a second order mythology.” While presenting ideals, utopianism lacks “divine orientation.” It is a “gnostic metaphysics, focusing on the self-perfecting humanity.” He pointed out three important transhumanists: Yuval Noah Harari, Ray Kurzweil, and Nick Bostrom.

A fundamental idea in transhumanism is that evil is external to the individual. There is thus, as with Rousseau and the revolutionary and humanist thinking that followed him, a denial of original sin at the outset. Making people self-sufficient is essentially a software problem. There is a gnostic belief that “the body is basically a cage,” and this imprisonment results in a flawed humanity. In this, Bentz said, Harari in particular takes a distinctly physicalist view, denying an immaterial soul and regarding people as “hackable animals.” Bostrom regards human nature as “mutable,” and has the objective is “overtaking evolution,” while Kurzweil says that “human biology is a temporary phase.” Offering hope of indefinite life which sets death aside, transhumanism proposes that “consciousness can be uploaded” into an artificial system. The Gnosticism which is involved here believes that “human nature is false.” Yet it also believes that there really is “a true self that needs to be discovered.” People are not aware of their true selves, but its discovery is “the goal of your life.”

As far as the implementation of transhumanism is concerned, Harari believes in a global data system which will be based on “algorithmic optimization.” The failure of past humanisms and past utopian visions means that we must go beyond humanity to achieve self-sufficiency, Harari believes. Bostrom “proposes a superintelligent framework for engineered evolution.” Kurzweil focuses on “the singularity” as a way of achieving “human-machine merger.” Consistent with these proposals, it is claimed that “salvation comes from gnosis (from knowledge).” Also consistent with Gnosticism, this is knowledge which is really “held by an elite group of people.” They can “see reality for what it is.”

Transhumanism involves re-engineering humanity, and thus sets aside limits. This includes the “suspension of history and transcendence.” Harari maintains “all theology is myth.” There never has been a true theology; it has been now been replaced by science. Against theology, Harari advances the modern “wager,” which is “trading meaning for power.” More generally, there is the idea that “this created world, this material world is an illusion.” Therefore, we find “salvation outside of this illusion.” Since the redemption of the world is in view, transgenderism also gives “a moral justification of coercion.” Bentz finds Harari inconsistent here, since “Harari warns of data control, yet justifies algorithmic governance as something inevitable, and ignoring it, not jumping on board is ultimately doomed to be futile.” Bostrom advocates “defense enhancement ethics” as a method of control, while Kurzweil “has an optimism” about technological progress, but “doubters … are fear driven, and thus would be overridden.”  In the new transhumanist world, “the uninitiated must be left behind, or must be corrected.”

Some “practical examples” of transhumanism in the contemporary world are “the China social credit system … which is based on behavioral optimization,” and the “digital IDs and what they should be linked to.” (They would be linked to bank accounts, and other core information about an individual). Another example of elite control which dovetails with transhumanism was the “vaccine passport” during the coronavirus lockdowns, “and the compliance tools that go with it.”

Implementing Transhumanism using Science and Technology

Wael Taji examined what current proposals transhumanism is advancing. He began by examining how transhumanism is addressing death. Death is believed to be “erroneously written into the DNA” of living beings.  Central to ancient gnostic belief was that “all forms of organic life are bad.” Mind or spirit “the Gnostics equated with consciousness,” and “these are good and transcendent.” There was a belief that physical reality was an illusion “regurgitated by a malevolent demiurge.” Consciousness is what is ultimately real, and “death is ultimately deceit.” Taji noted that in Plato’s cave, the prisoner is “able to exert forces on the natural world that allow him to surpass his limits.”

He observed multi-millionaire Bryan Johnson, who “is seeking to bio-hack his way out of death.” Johnson takes 100 pills a day, and has “an extremely restrictive diet.” Nevertheless, dietary supplements cannot get past “fundamental laws of biological existence. The most important of these … would be homeostasis.” This involves biology resisting a direction that an organism will not naturally go. If for instance, one tries of avoid sleep for days on end, one will soon suffer. The same is true with natural objects; they cannot be subjected to treatment beyond what they can bear. This can be seen as well with “gender re-assignment.” Physiological “kick-back” after opposite sex hormones cease drives the level of hormones of one’s own biological sex “lower even than they were before.” Existence sustained by pills, hormones, or gene editing cannot achieve homeostasis; an impaired organism results.

“Other means to conquer death” include transferring consciousness into some meat machine and “repeating this process each time the new body fails.” Alternatively, it might be possible to transfer our consciousness into machines. Taji said that “coming to this from the perspective of neuro-science, my response to this proposition is not ‘no,’ but ‘why.’” No scientist “has managed to demonstrate that consciousness itself is transferable.” That consciousness is separable from the body has not been scientifically shown. A common Christian view of the human self, that it consists of spirit, soul (or mind), and body is also “not scientifically proven,” nor is it “falsifiable.” But he said that the idea that the mind is “software”  which is running the “hardware” of the body, and can be run on some other hardware doesn’t (to say the least)  “have a robust basis for it.” It is, instead  “wishful speculation,” or utopianism. The “pursuit” of such a vision “can have very dangerous consequences.” Taji believes that also involved here is “a subconscious desire to escape from everyone else.”

Taji then asked “why do we want transhumanism in the first place?” He observed that “the elite, the rich, the powerful, or those aspiring to that status” are the ones most likely to be attracted to transhumanism. There “are three main goals that seem to be driving transhumanism.” First is the desire for “perfection without any repentance.” Thus, “instead of apologizing for my flaws, I simply shed those flaws.” Second, there is a desire “to be saved, without having a doctrine of salvation.” And third, people “want to live forever.”

However, Taji said that if transhumanism is taken at face value, “we really have nothing to live for.” We would still live in a physical reality in which death is a possibility and decay still prevails. Gnostics do not clearly have any idea of “the way to perfection.” Christians, on the other hand, believe in a world in which “death is swallowed up in victory.” The true way to perfection is through the Christian doctrine of salvation, not through more information.

Transhumanism and Theology

Michael Baggot spoke of Nick Bostrom, and his The Transhumanist FAQ document (what Baggot regards as Bostrom’s catechism of transhumanism). Bostrom maintains that transhumanism is both “intellectual and cultural,” and its focus is on “enhancement.” Some of its goals are “becoming stronger, faster, thinner, happier.” Emerging technologies are harnessed to this effort. Transhumanism, Bostrom thinks, is a “step forward” on the road of the “secular Enlightenment.” From this perspective “religion is an outdated set of myths, dreams that have not been fulfilled.” Still, Baggot thinks that there is a “quasi-religious tendency” in a number of contemporary transhumanists. They believe that they are making progress to the goals on which traditional religions have failed, in particular, overcoming “aging, sickness, suffering, death.” However, the transhumanists have lost any idea of a created order, and thus, human beings are seen as “cosmic orphans.”

It can be seen from all this that self-salvation is “the best that we can possibly hope for.” High attention to physical health is part of this, but the goal envisioned is digital immortality. The “post-humanity” that is envisioned is “the full scale liberation from the limits of the body.” Baggot observed that many of the perennial “common enemies” already noted, such as “aging, sickness, suffering, and death” are all problems with the body. Thus, a profoundly materialist belief and practice emphasizing physical health “ends with a profoundly negative view of the body.” The idea of the soul as software, not an immaterial substance but not physical either, which “can be extracted” from the body “so that we achieve the liberation from the body” is a signal feature of transhumanism.

Baggot referred to Megan O’Gieblan, raised as a Christian, later a convert to transhumanism, and ultimately an apostate from transhumanism. She believes that transhumanism is “re-presenting and repackaging these ancient Christian ideas.”  But she found transhumanism “demanded more faith, more hope from her, than her previous Christian beliefs.”

One of the main, perhaps the main, parallel with Christianity is the hope for immortality. The superiority of the spiritual (in transhumanism, the software) to the material is a parallel to the Manichaean heresy, Baggot said, and in some sense to traditional Christianity, as well. The desire “to cast off weakness” (in Christianity, by divine grace) is yet another parallel. But while Christianity emphasizes God’s concern for “the weakest, the poorest, the most marginalized among us,” those are the individuals whom the transhumanist would tend to dispense with. He said that gene editing and neo-eugenics are manifestations of this desire to dispense with the weak. The denial of life to unborn children, this writer would add, is the most striking example of this.

Baggot said that there is also the “tendency to draw on the tradition of the Pelagian heresy.” This is shown in the transhumanist doctrine of self-salvation. Like Adam and Eve, transhumanists seek to become “like gods, apart from God.” But Christianity offers hope through a real spiritual reality, rather than an aspiration. Both Christianity and transhumanism are “acutely aware” of the problems of pain and suffering. But Christianity begins with the gift of salvation. Christ does not save us to dispense with our corporality. Rather, he in the end “perfects it.” Transhumanism is really an impoverished doctrine, relative to Christianity.

Questions about Transhumanism

A religious transhumanist asked Baggot what he saw “as compatible with the Christian faith” in “the realm of stewardship over creation” and participation in the divine nature. Baggot sees “a lot of room for common ground.” He believes it is important to hold to “the givenness of our human nature as co-creators.” However, he believes that it is important to recognize “our secondary causality and our dependence upon the creator,” who is the author of human nature. What Baggot says must be resisted is the tendency to “radical self-definition, self-creation” often found in transhumanism. He believes that “even enhancements” of the human body might be in order without fundamentally altering human nature. Taji said that he agrees that enhancement is not necessarily wrong, but asked “enhancing to what?” He said that it is not easy to make “Christian transhumanism” coherent.

Secular transhumanists indeed recognize order in the physical universe. But Taji said that “they simply detest these laws.” This is connected with the gnostic idea of an evil universe created by a malevolent demiurge. This is radically different from Christianity, which views the natural order as a “stepping stone” to the next world. There is little room for compromise. Much damage can be done on the assumption that the natural order is bad.

A questioner asked if there is any indication of pushback against transhumanism. Baggot said that there is pushback against gene editing, because no matter how genetic make-up is changed, there is always the inevitability of death. This is an important reason, he said, for the interest in artificial intelligence, which is immune from death, and would be a consciousness practically immune from death if it could have consciousness. Even a conscious machine would be finite, and would not be absolutely immune from death. Yet it could endanger ordinary people, and “serous people” are discussing the caution with which scientists should proceed. In responding to transhumanism, Bentz said that in general transhumanists don’t have real political power, but “their influence … is more cultural.” But the “collateral damage” from transhumanist experiments will result in more pushback.

Another questioner asked what particular form of transhumanism is “the largest threat.” Bentz said that any transhumanism which denies stable human nature (which transhumanism itself must in some degree do) is “the largest threat.”  Such a transhumanism sees human nature as “something made rather than something received.” It results in “the paradigm of power, and we have left the paradigm of love.”

Another questioner asked if transhumanism “is the next phase of evolution.” Taji responded that evolution requires death, and passing one’s genes to future generations. But transhumanism endeavors to “defeat death, and … defeat reality itself.” It is therefore a barrier to evolution.

Another questioner asked if transhumanism could “change the norms of natural law … Will the modified human remain human?” What would this do to “moral responsibility?” Baggot said that there might be a new biological species, but not a new rational animal. It would not be “a new philosophical species.” Therefore “natural moral law” would continue to be a guide.

Transhumanism appears to be a long-term challenge to Christianity, and other religions as well, yet it’s most ambitious promise, to sustain consciousness and achieve personal immortality via technology has not been shown to be possible. There appears to be a consensus (which an AI system will confirm when queried), that AI systems do not possess subjectivity, they are based on algorithms that collect and synthesize available knowledge. It also seems inconceivable that consciousness (which so far has only been experienced,  not scientifically explained) could be transferred from a human brain to a machine. However transhumanism develops, it is unlikely to provide satisfying answers to questions about ultimate reality, which answers Christians have by faith received from God.

Read full story here…