Jacob Tanner:
At its core, posthumanism is a rejection of the humanist tradition in the West of human exceptionalism (the notion that humans are unique in the world) and human instrumentalism (that humans have the right to control and dominate the natural world).
[Posthumanism] seeks to place humans in a much closer networked relation with both machines and nature…through technological means, such as ‘wiring’ human brains directly to computer systems or grafting body parts from other animal species onto human bodies, a process called xenotransplantation.
Further, Plato also provides a helpful definition for transhumanism, explaining:
It is techno-deterministic, keenly progressivist and argues that technological and biological modifications can enhance the human in its present healthy state. At its heart, the transhumanist movement has as its goal the achievement of immortality by entirely human means… [They] regularly invoke transcendent language, talking of immortality, the spiritual capacities of technology, and humans becoming “god-like.”
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…transhumanism advocates for improving humanity through genetic modifications and technological augmentations…there is nothing particularly sacred about the human condition…our bodies and minds are riddled with flaws that not only can but should be fixed.
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Jeremy Peckham:
The human species can, if it wishes, transcend itself—not just sporadically, an individual here in one way, an individual there in another way, but in its entirety, as humanity. We need a name for this new belief. Perhaps transhumanism will serve: man remaining man, but transcending himself, by realizing new possibilities of and for his human nature.
Transhumanism is a class of philosophies of life that seek the continuation and acceleration of the evolution of intelligent life beyond its currently human form and human limitations by means of science and technology, guided by life-promoting principles and values.
Standing Before God Commentary:
Transhumanism is the intermediate state between our current limitations and the posthuman dream.
The key Christian response to this project is to underline what it means to be human, what death is, and who God is.
Human: A human being is utterly unique and special because a human being is the image of God. It is an ontological reality. We are made in His image to share in His life, reflecting His character. As the Son – who the true image of God because He is of one being with the Father and therefore the exact imprint of who He is – has always been loved, known, cared for by the Father, so we also were created to be loved, known, and cared for me God. Furthermore, just as Jesus has had fellowship with His Father in loving Him, knowing Him, enjoying Him, and trusting Him, so also we were made to trust, love, know, and enjoy God in Him. Also note that we were made as embodied souls that we might know God and one another in the way in which God saw fit in order to fully experience what it is to bear His image. Adam and Eve rebelled against God and how He made them. They turned away from their Maker and therefore they also turned away from who they were made to be. The image of God remains, but scarred.
Death: Death is both spiritual and physical. “Physical death is the separation of the soul from the body as the body ceases to function, and spiritual death is alienation from God as a result of sin.”[1] God prevented man from reaching the tree of life out of His graciousness, not wanting man to “live” spiritually dead forever. God does not intend for human beings to be without a body, for He created us as embodied souls to fully know fellowship with Him and with one another as the expression of being made in His image. What is perishable must put on the imperishable, and what is mortal must put on immorality (1 Corinthains 15:54). The body is not an option – not an add-on to what it means to be human. It is intrinsically important, and therefore God will not leave us without it. To be without the body is death (physically). To be in the body without knowing God is also death (spiritually). To be without the body and apart from God is hell; or, as is the goal of transhumanism/posthumanism, the Singularity.
God: God, in Jesus Christ, not only shows us who He is, but who we are made in the image of. We are made in THE image of God, God the Son Himself (see Colossians 1:15 and 18). He is one being with the Father, and of perfectly one heart and nature/character with Him. When we see Him as He is, we see the One in whose likeness we are made, and in whose likeness, we are re-made. Here is a wonderful description from Michael Reeves of what true humanity – true life as humans – really does look like in Jesus:
Our only hope of wholeness is in Christ, the image of God. Humanity can be mended nowhere else. To be out of Christ, whatever we do, whatever we try, is to remain dehumanized by the fall. But to know Christ, to be in Him is to be humanized, to be renewed in the likeness of God. Because in Christ, we see perfect humanity. We see humanity as we should be.
Now we often use a negative word to describe Christ’s life. It was, we say, “sinless.” Which it doesn’t sound immediately very exciting, does it? “Sinless.” But think what it means. That Christ was sinless means He was not selfish, heartless, cruel, abusive, twisted, petty, proud. To be sinless is beautiful. And that is what humanity should be and is destined to be in Christ.
This true humanity that we see in Christ, think, is so full of life. Just think what Jesus was like as a man as you read the Gospels. He was anything but boring and anaemic. Here was a man with towering charisma, running over with life, health and healing, loaves and fishes. Everything abounded in His presence. So compelling did people find Him that crowds would throng round Him – men, women, children, the sick and the mad, the rich and the poor – they found Him so magnetic some just wanted to touch His clothes.
Kinder than summer, He befriended the rejects and He gave hope to the hopeless. And the dirty and the despised found that they mattered to Him. His closest friends found that as the Son of Man came eating and drinking, being with Him, it was like being with a bridegroom at a wedding. He was generous, genial, and firm and resolute. He was always surprising. Jesus was utterly loving, but He wasn’t soppy. His insight would unsettle people, and His kindness would win them.
Indeed, you read the Gospels and you see Jesus was a man of extraordinary and extraordinarily appealing contrasts. You simply couldn’t make Him up. Just try to imagine the perfect man. If you do, you’ll come up with some wooden caricature of a man, a saintly bore. But Jesus is so much more realistic, so much better than any imaginary perfect man.
You see, we would make Him only one thing or the other. But Jesus, you see, He’s red-blooded and human, but not rough. He’s pure, but He’s never dull. He’s serious, but with sunbeams of wit. Sharper than cut glass, He would out-argue all comers in debate, but never for the sake of a mere win. He knew no failings in Himself and yet was transparently humble. He made the grandest claims for Himself and yet does so without a whiff of pomposity. He ransacked the temple. He spoke of hellfire. He called Herod a fox. He called the Pharisees “corpses in makeup.” and yet never do you doubt His love as you read His life. With a huge heart, He hated evil and felt for the needy. He loved God, and He loved people.
So you look at Him and you have to say, “Here is a man truly alive, unwithered in any way, far more vital and vigorous, far more full and complete, far more human than any other.” And so it is for those who come to know Christ. They find themselves being re-humanized in His image, after His likeness.[2]
In God we see what life and humanity is truly all about. Transhumanism and Posthumanism reject this God, and so reject His life and their humanity. For without THE image, they do not recognize themselves. They claw at something more than this decaying death but seek nothing more than deaths’ lengthening. In Christianity we hold out true humanity to the physically and spiritually dead – we hold out Jesus Christ, the true Son and true image of God, in whom we may truly live.
[1] Donald Fairbairn, Life in the Trinity.
[2] Michael Reeves, Michael Reeves: Christ the Image of God, https://youtu.be/tnLWicjZ5aY?si=u3hwZuYgw-BeFJbl
Standing Before God, This We Are and No More 