Christianity vs Transhumanism

"we're not playing God. We're only attempting to set things right. "— Clyde DeSouza *OR, RELINQUISHING THE Singularity via the church . AN OPEN LETTER TO CHRISTIAN LEADERS ON BIOTECHNOLOGY AND THE FUTURE OF MAN Time running out to influence debate on transhumanism Dear Pastor and Christian Leader, Brent Waters, Director of the Jerre L. and Mary Joy Stead Center for Ethics and Values has written, "If Christians are to help shape contemporary culture—particularly in a setting in which I fear the posthuman message will prove attractive, if not seductive—then they must offer an alternative and compelling vision; a counter theological discourse so to speak." Although the Vatican in 2008 issued a limited set of instructions on bioethics primarily dealing with in vitro fertilization and stem cell research (Dignitas Personae or “the Dignity of the Person” [pdf]) and a handful of Christian scientists, policy makers, and conservative academics have hinted in public commentary on the need for a broader, manifesto-like document on the subject, the church as an institution has failed at any concerted effort to focus on the genetics revolution, the government’s interest in human enhancement, the viral transhumanist philosophy capturing the mind of a generation at colleges and universities (not to mention via popular media), and the significant moral and ethical issues raised by these trends. At the time this open letter is being posted, four thousand evangelical leaders from two hundred nations are planning to convene in South Africa to adopt a new manifesto related to missiology and “a statement on Nature.” This gathering is organized by Billy Graham’s Lausanne Committee for World Evangelism (LCWE) and we pray it will include something significant on bioethics, because other than a nearly decade-old Lausanne “Occasional Paper No. 58,” which discussed ways in which bioethics could be used as a tool for evangelism (very important), no documentation we have seen thus far indicates that the new LCWE gathering will substantially debate the moral limits of human-enhancement technologies, which have quietly and dramatically evolved since the brief “Occasional Paper No. 58.” While the Vatican’s Dignitas Personae likewise failed to provide instructions on the greater issue of biological enhancement (as envisioned by transhumanists and espoused by agencies of the U.S. and other federal governments as the next step in human evolution), its positional paper did provide an important bird’s-eye view on the clash developing between traditional morality and the contradictory adoption of transhumanist philosophy by Christian apologists, who likewise have begun to question what it means to be human and whose competing moral vision could ultimately shape the future of society. Immediately following the release of Dignitas Personae, Catholic scientist William B. Neaves, in an essay for the National Catholic Reporter, reflected the new biblical exegesis, causing reporter Rod Dreher to describe it as clearly illustrating “the type of Christianity that is eager to jettison the old morality and embrace the new.” The subtleties behind Neaves’ comments included: An alternative point of view to the Vatican’s, embraced by many Christians, is that personhood [a transhumanist concept] occurs after successful implantation in the mother’s uterus, when individual ontological identity is finally established.... If one accepts the viewpoint that personhood begins after implantation, the moral framework guiding the development and application of medical technology to human reproduction and treatment of disease looks very different from that described in Dignitas Personae. TRENDING NOW The Robot Will See You Now – AI and Health Care Most Popular An illustration of a solar storm in space BACKCHANNEL Here Comes the Sun—to End Civilization MATT RIBEL Air Serbia plane in the sky BUSINESS In Russia, Western Planes Are Falling Apart CHRIS STOKEL-WALKER Internet Explorer icon on computer screen SECURITY The Ghost of Internet Explorer Will Haunt the Web for Years LILY HAY NEWMAN An image from FBoy Island on HBO. CULTURE Reality TV Has Become a Parody of Itself KATE KNIBBS ADVERTISEMENT In the alternative moral framework, taking a pill to prevent the products of fertilization from implanting in a uterus is morally acceptable. Using ivf [in vitro fertilization] to complete the family circle of couples otherwise unable to have children is an unmitigated good. Encouraging infertile couples with defective gametes to adopt already-produced ivf embryos that will otherwise be discarded is a laudable objective. And using embryonic stem cells to seek cures [creating human embryos for research “parts”] becomes a worthy means of fulfilling the biblical mandate to heal the sick. Notwithstanding that the discussion by Neaves was limited to the Vatican’s position on embryos, his introduction of memes involving personhood and “ensoulment” represents worrisome Christian theological entanglement with transhumanist philosophy, further illustrating the need for a solid manifesto providing a conservative vision for public policy with regard to human experimentation and enhancement. In the letter to the church at Ephesus, Paul states the responsibility of the Church as the agent of God's wisdom, concluding this was by divine intention. “His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 3:10). Making known the “righteous” and manifold wisdom of God must include human-affirming virtues of Christian morality that are intrinsic to His divine order and the Great Commission. In every generation, there is no middle ground for preachers of righteousness in these matters. Christian leaders must be actively engaged in ideological warfare for the mind of a generation especially in an age where people are seeking reasons to believe, despite everything they are being told, that the church remains relevant. To fail this responsibility could be to abdicate to a frightening transhuman vision of the future such as was predicted by theologian and Christian apologist C. S. Lewis in The Abolition of Man. Lewis foresaw the day when transhumanist and scientific reasoning would win out, permanently undoing mankind through altering the species, ultimately reducing Homo sapiens to utilitarian products. Here is part of what he said: In order to understand fully what Man’s power over Nature, and therefore the power of some men over other men, really means, we must picture the race extended in time from the date of its emergence to that of its extinction. Each generation exercises power over its successors: and each, in so far as it modifies the environment bequeathed to it and rebels against tradition, resists and limits the power of its predecessors. This modifies the picture which is sometimes painted of a progressive emancipation from tradition and a progressive control of natural processes resulting in a continual increase of human power. In reality, of course, if any one age really attains, by eugenics and scientific education, the power to make its descendants what it pleases [transhuman/posthuman], all men who live after it are the patients of that power. They are weaker, not stronger: for though we may have put wonderful machines in their hands we have pre-ordained how they are to use them. And if, as is almost certain, the age which had thus attained maximum power over posterity were also the age most emancipated from tradition, it would be engaged in reducing the power of its predecessors almost as drastically as that of its successors.... The last men, far from being the heirs of power, will be of all men most subject to the dead hand of the great planners and conditioners and will themselves exercise least power upon the future.... The final stage [will have] come when Man by eugenics, by pre-natal conditioning, and by an education and propaganda based on a perfect applied psychology...shall have “taken the thread of life out of the hand of Clotho” [one of the Three Fates in mythology responsible for spinning the thread of human life] and be henceforth free to make our species whatever we wish it to be. The battle will indeed be won. But who, precisely, will have won it? Lewis foresaw the progressive abandonment of what we would call “moral law” based on Judeo-Christian values giving way to “the dead hand of the great planners and conditioners” who would decide what men should biologically become. The terms “great planners and conditioners” correspond perfectly with modern advocates of transhumanism who esteem their blueprint for the future of the species as the one that will ultimately decide the fate of man. A recent step toward establishing this goal occurred when the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Human Enhancement Ethics Group (based at California Polytechnic State University, whose advisory board is a wish list of transhumanist academics and institutions worldwide) released its fifty-page report entitled “Ethics of Human Enhancement: 25 Questions & Answers.” This government-funded report addressed the definitions, scenarios, anticipated societal disruptions, and policy and law issues that need to be considered en route to becoming posthuman (the full NSF report can be downloaded for free at our Web site: www.ForbiddenGate.com). Some of the topics covered in the new study include: