Perhaps you are aware of the “Wounded Warrior Project.” This endeavor intends to support those many soldiers who have suffered terrible loss during their service in Iraq and Afghanistan. Most especially, the project assists those who have lost limbs—hands, arms, legs. Television advertisements show those who have received “new limbs,” mechanical arms and legs that allow the wounded a remarkable capacity to do daily activities. What is remarkable is that such mechanical limbs often perform at a higher level than do our “natural” limbs. They may give the human person greater strength, greater endurance than ever before. A wonderful advance in medical treatment?
What we should be aware of, however, is that this mix of the human and of the mechanical has been the stuff of science fiction for years. My son loved to play with his Transformers when he was young. Our culture is filled with tales of creatures, good and bad, who are a hybrid mixture of the human and the mechanical. Who does not recall Robo Cop, or The Terminator or the Six Million Dollar Man? And what we should be aware of is that this “stuff of science fiction” has become to an incredible extent reality and is, as well, the material content of serious science.
One of the earliest heresies the church had to confront was Gnosticism. Among other things, Gnosticism denied the human reality of Jesus. This heresy raised questions. If Christ came to save “me,” then why did He come as a fully embodied person? Is my body of flesh and blood essential to what it means to be “me”? Am “I” distinct from the particularities of my body? The Creed asserts that for our salvation Christ was “incarnated and made fully human.” Such a claim seems to demand that to be “fully human” and to possess “flesh” are essential aspects to our “human being.” Yet, in many ways that understanding is under attack in our culture. The current debate concerning homosexuality certainly raises precisely this question: is our personal identity defined in any significant way by our physical body? It is commonly claimed that our gender identities are merely social or personal constructs. That is, we are not essentially male or female persons. Rather we partake of masculine and feminine qualities which can be altered—enhanced or eliminated—by our choice and that choice can be effected by medical procedure. The point is this: our culture is filled with the conviction that there is no such reality as human nature. The human person is rather a construct of choices, the ever-flexible result of a personal will. And, the only limitations to what we can become lie in the present limitations of our technological capacities. As those capacities are extended and made more sophisticated, however, what the human person can become is to the same extent extended.
What is often called “postmodernism” expresses broad-based and powerful cultural convictions which are reinforced and given a sense of inevitability by our technological and computer-driven society. Three such convictions may be mentioned:
Subjectivity—Human identity is the outcome of an ongoing process of self-creation and expressive acts. Central to human personhood is freedom and autonomy, the sheer non-constraint to overcome and transcend any arbitrary limitations. Among such limitations may be size, gender, strength, infertility. Technology can be the instrument for the enhancement of the body toward whatever end is willed or desired. The claim that there is an integrity to the body which must be respected is largely ignored or denied outright.
Malleability—In the postmodern world, all materiality is plastic. There is no “nature” which possesses it own form. Although, perhaps somewhat resistant to the reception of new forms, that which is material can be enhanced or complemented or replaced by new forms generated by the limited patterns of generated information (virtual realities). What is truly real is the mind. The body is a rather crude addition to the mind and “awaits” its transformation to something better and higher.
Mastery—The truly free person has an unfettered freedom of the will. Mastery, then, suggests the goal and the vision of controlling one’s destiny through a refusal to accept traditional or “natural” limitations.
Such postmodern convictions, along with an increasing technological savvy, has given rise to a remarkable movement which is deeply challenging to traditional ideas about the human person and human nature. This movement goes by various names: Humanity+, Posthumanism, Transhumanism. The idea is that the body is a rather crude prosthesis of the mind, more of an accident of nature rather than something essential to human life and happiness. Moreover, the body is to a great extent a “weight” which limits through aging, sickness, weakness and the like. Transhumanism foresees a time when technology is not merely an instrument for the alleviation of human suffering and limitation through the mechanical exchange of natural body parts for manufactured body parts (like Wounded Warriors). Rather, technology should be used to enhance the body in such a way so that the body is itself transcended and ceases to be a limiting factor to human freedom, choice and creativity.
The giant strides in computer technology are giving this vision its potential and its confidence. Says one website: “The problem to overcome is that information is always embedded in a medium and must be extracted. To become posthuman requires the ability to remove the information constituting a personality from the body and to place it in a superior substratum.” Or this: “A new and radically different chapter of evolution is about to begin.” This will be a “burst of self-directed hyper-evolution” in which “we must leave the flesh and most of its evolved habits behind.” This will occur through “enlightened self-fabrication” in which we become “one with our technologies, guided by our rational desire to become like our finest imaginary gods: omniscient, eternal, omnipotent.”
While the vision of posthumanism may seem strange, even wild, we should at least take note of the rapidly evolving world of iPads, iPods, information structures and the increasing use of technology in cloning and genetic engineering. Nor are the leaders of this movement insignificant and powerless. As one informed observer wrote to me, “We are not talking about a handful of science fiction geeks. These are major intellectual powerhouses with world class platforms with world class budgets.”
For example: a recent conference at Yale was entitled, “The Adaptable Human Body: Transhumanism and Bioethics in the 21th Century.” The conference was co-sponsored by the Yale Interdisciplinary Bioethics Program’s Working Group on Artificial Intelligence, Nanotechnology and Transhumanism. Speakers came from major universities throughout the world. A quick “Google” search of “transhumanism” or “posthumanism” will inform that this movement has already pervaded academia as well as the cultural imagination of science fiction and the cinema.
In one sense this article is not for information. It is a plea that the church recognize the deeply challenging developments of science in our day and spare no expense to enlist the brightest minds to think Christian thoughts on these things. We must be aware of the implications of technology in our societies. Indeed, the majority of our citizens have already accepted the proposition that technology exists to make life easier and happier and that it might properly be used to reduce or eliminate suffering and extend life.
Traditional Gnosticism called the body into question. The contemporary rejection of the body is wholly different. The body is not regarded as an entity; it is regarded as pure form, capable of other forms. So the modern Gnostic question is, “Why these bodies?” What is the value to human happiness and to human virtue of the experiences that these bodies impose upon us? To answer such questions as these, I submit, are foremost among the challenges and problems facing the church in the coming decades.
Traditional Gnosticism called the body into question. The contemporary rejection of the body is wholly different. The body is not regarded as an entity; it is regarded as pure form, capable of other forms. So the modern Gnostic question is, “Why these bodies?” What is the value to human happiness and to human virtue of the experiences that these bodies impose upon us? To answer such questions as these, I submit, are foremost among the challenges and problems facing the church in the coming decades.
Reprinted with permission from “For the Life of the World,” February 2012, the publication of Concordia Theological Seminary.