Article: Christian Transhumanism: An Analysis of Singualarity, Imago Dei, and Teilhard by
Debbie Clingingsmith is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Debbie
Clingingsmith
12/18/2011
Christian Transhumanism: An Analysis of Singularity, Imago
Dei, and Teilhard
Introduction
The February 10, 2011 cover of Time Magazine heralds a new coming. The
cover article proclaims: "2045: The Year Man Becomes Immortal."
For many transhumanists, including Ray Kurzweil who calculated the date, 2045
is the projected year for singularity, the occasion upon which technological
change will happen so exponentially fast that computers will be powerful enough
to merge with human beings. They also will be able to self-replicate and
perhaps surpass their human creators in intelligence. Singularity is a
projected event in which transhuman or posthuman existence becomes a reality.
Transhumanism is a descriptive term
which describes a number of social movements which have the goal of improving
the human condition using technological advancements. As Wikipedia defines it, " Transhumanism,
often abbreviated as H+ or h+, is an international intellectual
and cultural movement that affirms the possibility and desirability of
fundamentally transforming the human condition by developing and making widely
available technologies to eliminate aging and to greatly enhance human
intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities."
The World Transhumanist Association, now known as Humanity+, defines the goals
of Transhumanism in "The Transhumanist Declaration", adopted in 2009,
which states in parts 7 and 8:
(7) We
advocate the well‐being of all sentience, including
humans, non‐human animals, and any future
artificial intellects, modified life forms, or other intelligences to which
technological and scientific advance may give rise.
(8) We
favor allowing individuals wide personal choice over how they enable their
lives. This includes use of techniques that may be developed to assist memory,
concentration, and mental energy; life extension therapies; reproductive choice
technologies; cryonics procedures; and many other possible human modification
and enhancement technologies.
Transhumanists embrace all technologies
which may eliminate human suffering, extend and enhance life, and reduce aging
perhaps by postponing death indefinitely through all scientific and
technological means available now and in the future. Singularity in particular
points to a future convergence of technology and human consciousness, currently
predicted to occur in 2045, which will allow humans and computers to merge,
giving the choice of living as cyborgs (part human and part machine) or in
virtual realities.
According to Hughes, most transhumanists
are atheists,
although there is a small group of Christian
transhumanists interested in engaging in dialogue with other Christian
denominations. In particular, the work of Frank Tipler, a physicist, claims its
origins in the writings of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's Christology. We will
examine themes in Tipler, Chardin, and imago Dei in an attempt to investigate
the beginnings of a transhumanist Christology.
Imago Dei
The International Theological Commission
document, "Community and
Stewardship: Human Persons Created in the Image of God", released on 7/23/2004,provides us with an explanation of
imago Dei. The document begins with identifying Genesis 1:26, "Then God said: Let us make human beings in our image, after
our likeness",
as the source for two themes in imago Dei. The first is that the whole of a
person is created in the image of God, body and soul indivisibly. Consequently,
imago Dei is not located in one or a few aspects or qualities of being human
such as in walking upright or having a mind. The second is that, since God
created both male and female, humans are not meant to live in isolation but instead
in relationship with one another and God. The New Testament adds to imago Dei
the doctrine of imago Christi, that humans find their completion in Christ who
is the perfect image of God. Since Christ is the perfect image of God, humans
need to conform to the image of Christ and are transformed into the image of
Christ through the sacraments. Restoration of imago Dei from corruption or
"salvation entails the restoration of the image of God by Christ who is
the perfect image of the Father".
Christ is the image of God who restores the disfigurement of the likeness in
humans caused by original sin.
Officially, the Church rejects the goals
and claims of transhumanists in two documents, the already cited
"Community and Stewardship: Human Persons Created in the Image of
God" and in a Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith document released
in 2008 entitled "Dignitas Personae." In the first document,
transhumanist goals of genetic enhancement, human cloning, and stem-cell
research are not condoned on the basis of imago Dei. Humans are created in the
image of God, and are not Creator who creates ex nihilo, from nothing. Since
God is the Creator, a human does not have
the "right fully to dispose of the
body [which] would imply that the person may use the body as a means to an end
he himself has chosen" As
a result genetic enhancement to create superhumans is not allowed. Human
cloning is not a fruit of conjugal love of married man and woman in a love
relationship, and is not allowed. Stem cell research, since it results in the
destruction of embryos, is not allowed. Dignitas Personae, which also uses the
theme of image and likeness, repeats the first three prohibitions and adds
hybrid cloning of humans and animals together, therapeutic use of stem cells
from illicit sources, and use of biological material of illicit origin to make
products such as vaccines. These
are all scientific means endorsed by transhumanists. It seems on the surface that
there is little about transhumanism with which the Church agrees.
However,
in his dissertation, Transhumanism and
imago Dei: Narratives of Apprehension for Hope, Garner introduces one
possible method of reconciling theological differences stemming from imago Dei.
If humans are made in the image and likeness of God, then as the perfect image
of God, it is the image of Christ (imago Christi) toward which Christians must
be transformed. Central to this Christology are the two dogmas of Incarnation
and the Trinity. Christ is true God and true human. The Trinity is one God in
three persons, one ousias and three hypostases "existing in a state of
mutual interpenetration, interrelation, partnership and dependence (perichoresis).
Each of the three within the Trinity functions in an unbroken fellowship of
love with the others." In
the Trinity, God embraces difference in three persons who are unified, who are
distinct but not simply component parts of God. As made in God's image, this unity
and difference spills over into the visible creation -- calling creation to participate in the infinite life of the
"immanent Trinity" that embraces both identity and difference and allows us to have conversations about it. As
Garner summarizes, "These interactions within the Godhead, and between God
and creation, assert a measure of hybridity to both human and divine life. In
the breaking down of boundaries and categories that would typically exclude,
identity can be found in the inclusion of that which is different, and that
difference is maintained because it is constitutive of identity." It
is perichoresis, mutual inter-penetration and indwelling in the Trinity. So, as
finite beings, our human identity is shaped through participation in this infinite
life of the Trinity.
In
a Christian transhumanist theology, the metaphor of cyborg holds within it images
of existence as both organic and inorganic, non-human and human, male and
female -- holding them in a dynamic tension. The cyborg metaphor embraces the
notion of hybridity. According to Garner, hybridity is a theme common in
traditional Christian imagery where, for example, humans are seen to be body
and soul occupying a contested space between matter and spirit. In Genesis 2:7,
for example, humans are made of dust yet bear the likeness of the divine, are
both matter and spirit. The Incarnation of Christ as both human and divine, as
affirmed at Chalcedon, is a mystery and a paradox. The divine enfleshed in the
person of Jesus brings together two separate realities in the uniqueness of a
single identity in a dynamic tension.
According
to Kull, hybridity brings two clashing ontological realities, that of human and
machine, together into a single identity in a dynamic tension. When ontologies clash, Kull asserts that it
is useful to consider Jesus Christ who chose to be a hybrid creature. The
Incarnation allows us to have conversations about cyborg hybridity as a
reflection of the Christ, the perfect image of God, toward whom Christians are
to conform their lives. According to Kull, as summarized by Garner, Christ in
the Incarnation "demonstrates the hope that exists when identity is forged
out of differences held in dynamic tension."
According to Garner, Chalcedon identified our understanding of the Incarnation,
but it did not specifically define the dynamic between Christ's human and
divine natures. Our understanding of what it means to be human and what it
means to be divine is not exhaustive. Our understanding of what it might mean
to be cyborg, of what it means to be human and machine, is not yet exhaustive.
In coming to understand the meaning of cyborg hybridity, Kull maintains that
the Incarnation helps critique two aspects of the post-human vision. First, it
stands against those who would want to flee from fleshy, bodily existence into the
incorporeal, into robotics or virtual reality. Second, it rejects the vision of
those who hold that only embodiment matters, that the body -- possibly
selecting from as many bodies as possible, is all there is. Kull maintains, as
summarized by Garner, that the Incarnation tells us "that this body in
this place is enough. Together both elements for transcendence and embodiment
are to be celebrated and weaved together in a whole."
Teilhard
and Transhumanism
The
theology of Teilhard de Chardin has influenced the development of
transhumanism. In 1986, John Barrow and Frank Tipler, both physicists,
published a book entitled The Anthropic
Cosmological Principle, in which they expounded a cosmology they entitled
"Omega Point" -- the term taken from the works of Teilhard. According
to transhumanists, Omega Point occurs when the increasing complexity of stored information
and of computer processing power in the universe becomes infinite. In
essence, transhumanist Omega Point cosmology was an early articulation of the
term, Singularity -- the event Kurzweil predicts will occur in the year 2045. Some
transhumanists use the terms Singularity and Omega Point interchangeably.
Teilhard,
according to philosopher Eric Steinhart, was the first person to articulate
transhumanist ideas. In an article entitled "Teilhard de Chardin and
Transhumanism," Steinhart describes Teilhard as one of the first to
consider the future of human evolution seriously since he advocated both
biotechnologies, such as genetic engineering, and intelligence technologies. Teilhard,
Steinhart says, foresaw the emergence of a global computational communication
system, perhaps being the first to envision the Internet, and advocated the
development of a global society. Steinhart asserts, "Teilhard is almost surely
the first to discuss the acceleration of technological progress to a
Singularity in which human intelligence will become super-intelligence." He
recommends, even though most tranhumanists are secular while Teilhard is deeply
Christian, that transhumanists study the works of Teilhard in order to engage
in meaningful and fruitful conversations with Christians who represent a very
powerful cultural force in the world.
In
claiming Teilhard as being an early transhumanist, and in using his terminology
and conceptual framework, transhumanists leave out the Christological
foundation of Teilhard's theology. The figure of Christ is at the center of his
theology:
"By
the Universal Christ, I mean Christ the organic centre of the entire universe
. .
. This universal Christ is the Christ presented to us in the Gospels,
and more particularly by St. Paul and St. John. It is the Christ by whom the
great mystics lived . . . it is now that we should make plain this
eminently Catholic notion of Christ alpha and omega."
For Teilhard,
the universe begins and ends in Christ. As Udias notes: "Teilhard
discovered the presence of the cosmic Christ at the very heart of the material
universe. In fact, the very foundation of his Christian vision of evolution and
the core of his mysticism is the conception of the role of the person of Christ
in the evolution of the world."
Teilhard names the evolutionary process of the universe moving toward the end
point in Christ, Christogenesis. In his theology, the entire universe is
evolving toward a convergent focus. Humans in particular, no longer evolving
physically in a biogenesis, are evolving spiritually and mentally in a level of
global mind Teilhard calls the noosphere. He calls the process of increasing complexity
in the noosphere, a progressing toward
increasing consciousness, noogenesis. When global human consciousness in the
noosphere reaches a critical level of complexity, facilitated by advances in
such areas as biotechnologies and intelligence technologies as well as
deepening spirituality, humans will evolve to the next level. The critical
instance of evolution to the next level Teilhard calls the Omega Point. For
Teillhard, the Omega Point happens in an through Christ. As Udias observes,
"Once his conception of evolution converging in an Omega Point was
established, he identified the Omega Point with Christ, so that the whole
process of cosmogenesis becomes a true Christogenesis." The Omega Point is
a return of creation to Christ, the alpha and the omega. In Teilhard's words,
“Through the incarnation God descended into nature in order to super-animate
and take it back to him.”
The cosmic Christ to which creation returns is the incarnated Christ in Jesus.
Transhumanists
claim Teilhard to be one of their own. In the opinion of Delio, Teilhard is not
a transhumanist. Specifically, the nature of humanity envisioned by Teilhard
after Omega Point is not the one described by transhumanists. In an address
delivered at the Teilhard for a New
Generation Conference in November 2010, Delio makes a distinction between
these visions. Specifically she asks, "But is Teilhard's transhumanism on
the same level of Kurzweil and others who anticipate a post-biological era
marched by techno-sapiens? . . . He described the noosphere as the next step
in evolution, a level of global mind that leads not to trans-humanism but to
ultra-humanism, a deepening of human life through technologically-mediated
collective consciousness."
For Teilhard, the Omega Point is a convergence in the cosmic Christ of an
ultra-heightened human consciousness, communal and in love. In contrast, Delio
notes that the transhumanist goal in progressing toward Omega Point is
perfection of self. The transhumanist vision involves complete freedom of
self-determination, freedom from suffering and pain -- and even death, and
superhuman abilities of one's choosing through a merging of human with machine
intelligence. Delio ends her talk by observing, "The techno-sapien is not
an informational network, a seamless web of biology and machine. Rather, the
ultra-human of the nooshpere is an ultra-lover because evolution is an
adventure of love." Though transhumanists use Teilhard's terms
and concepts, they do not share in his theology.
Summary
We
have examined transhumanism from three different views. In the view from the
Magisterium, very little about transhumanism is valuable or condoned. In
seeking perfection of self, many transhumanists envision post-humanism to be a
state in which they have freedom to determine, perhaps solely in cyberspace,
just about every aspect of their attributes -- health, intelligence, gender.
They envision trans-humans creating their own worlds, existence, and destiny.
In imago Dei, the Magisterium notes that only God is Creator, and that ex
nihilo. Most transhumanists, who are atheists,
do not see a problem in "being god." They do not see a problem
with totally abandoning corporeal existence, if they are able. Though the
Magisterium would say that physical and spiritual human existence is
indivisible and inseparable. Imago Christi, and conforming to the perfect image
of God is Christ, is not part of the transhumanist agenda. The Magisterium and
transhumanists have very little common ground upon which to begin a dialogue.
For
the few transhumanists who consider themselves to be Christian, there are
possibilities for beginning conversations of Christ-as-hybrid, of Christ in a
dynamic tension between divine and human. The metaphor of a hybrid imago
Christi allows the possibility of a
metaphor for a hybrid imago Dei. For transhumanists who see in Teilhard a
kindred spirit, the processes and means (evolving through emerging
technologies) are more similar than the goal, than the divergent visions of
what Omega Point might entail. The initial foundation of transhumanism as a
movement occurred fewer than 30 years ago. There is need for further reflection and
conversation between transhumanists and Christians -- and there is an interest. Philosopher, James
Hughes, invites conversation in an open letter, "An Epistle on H+ to
Italian Catholics," giving four reasons why Italian Catholics should
dialogue.
(The article was translated into Italian.) As Hughes notes, about two-thirds of
transhumanists are atheists. Of the remaining one-third, there is a group of Christians
interested in engaging in conversations in order to clarify terms and issues.
If, as Kurzweil maintains, 2045 is the date for Singularity, there are 34 years
left for talking.
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Context switch: My friend, Franklin Fong, OFM, does calligraphy as a meditative practice. He gave me one yesterday. It reads: The purpose of life is to live it: explore dream discover Above the calligraphy is the Chinese symbol for prosperity. (Franklin gave the homily at the FST Mass yesterday also. He is one of the most insightful people I know.) Once school is out, I'm going to experiment with making paper that might be useful for calligraphy.