Only Jesus offers us a glorified body, not transhumanism and visions of a technological human future

The season of Lent in which we find ourselves once more is a time to prepare for Easter, the high point of the liturgical year in which we celebrate the redeeming work of Jesus Christ. The risen Christ has a glorified body, and our great hope is that we too will rise with glorified bodies. Some Christians believe that transhumanism could help humanity fulfil this great hope.

Transhumanism is a movement which claims that technological advances will enable us to transcend all the limits of our natural existence so that eventually humans will be transformed into superintelligent beings that will live forever.

The theologian Ron Cole-Turner thinks there is something inherently Christian about transhumanism: “It is an affirmation of the radically transformative nature of the hope that lies at the heart of a Christian view of humanity and the cosmos”.

But other philosophers and theologians of a more Catholic persuasion tend to be deeply suspicious of transhumanism. For example, the bioethicist Jason Eberl argues that Christianity and transhumanism are fundamentally incompatible. Technological enhancements of our human existence aren’t ruled out altogether, but limits must be placed on such enhancements in order for human beings not to lose their self-identity and ultimate purpose.

One way to account for these different intuitions about transhumanism is to consider the different ways in which people think about personal identity. According to the Scottish Enlightenment philosopher David Hume, our notion of personal identity proceeds entirely from the smooth and uninterrupted progress of our thoughts along a train of connected ideas, a stream of consciousness. Personal identity doesn’t rely on there being any underlying subject of consciousness.

If Hume were correct, then as long as the technological enhancements of a person did not derail the train of connected ideas, then the physical makeup of the person could be transformed beyond all recognition without undermining the sense of personal identity. Thus, people who agree with Hume’s theory of personal identity are likely to view trans-humanism very positively.

But there is a very different understanding of personal identity inspired by Aristotle. According to this understanding, what constitutes our personal identity is the fact that we each remain the same biological organism throughout the course of our lives. We are each composed of two principles, a body and a soul where our soul is the principle that makes our body to be alive and capable of doing all the activities that are proper to our nature.

It is in virtue of having a soul that our lives have a unity to them so that despite all the physical changes we undergo from the moment of our conception until our death, we still have the same body and still exist as the same person.

In his De Anima – “About the soul” – Aristotle argues that the soul is the form of a living body, and this is the view that the Catholic Church endorsed at the Council of Vienne (1311-12). Because the soul is the form of the body, to do damage to a human body is to do damage to a person’s soul.

Given this Aristotelian understanding of personal identity, there may be some legitimate ways in which technology could be used to enhance a person’s life. For example, consider Elon Musk’s Neuralink, which has been in the news recently. This device is inserted into a person’s skull and is able to read neuron activity which is then transmitted wirelessly to a receiving unit.

If such a device were put into the skull of a paralysed person, then the neuron activity transmitted could be used to trigger leg movements, enabling the person to walk. From an Aristotelian perspective, it would be better not to be paralysed in the first place, but if a person was paralysed, then such a technological enhancement would be entirely legitimate.

On the other hand, if a perfectly healthy person received a brain implant that enabled them to reel off ChatGPT responses to any questions they happened to be asked, this would not actually be an enhancement to the human person, since the speech produced wouldn’t originate from the person’s soul. Moreover, if the person chose to rely solely on this speech generating implant, it is likely that over time their own natural capacity to put sentences together would deteriorate.

Since the Church endorses the Aristotelian rather than the Humean understanding of personal identity, as Catholics, our hope of possessing a glorified body can’t be fulfilled by transhumanism. Our only hope is for a Saviour who will heal our souls and bring our bodies back to life.

It is this great hope that is realised in the redeeming work of Jesus Christ, whose great paschal mystery we now once again prepare to embrace.

(Photo credit: Melpomenem; iStock by Getty Images.)

This article first appeared in the March 2024 issue of the Catholic Herald. To subscribe to our multiple-award-winning magazine and have it delivered to your door anywhere in the world, go here.

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