Eschatology and the Technological Future

Risk and Sacrament: Being Human in a Covid‐19 World

“…By now there is a burgeoning academic field of transhumanism with its own journal, Journal of Posthuman Studies , and increasing links with other academic fields. Notable theological contributions, after the remarkable, early, and controversial The Phenomenon of Man by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (written in the 1930s but only published posthumously in 1955), have been made by Celia Deane‐Drummond and Peter Scott (2006), Ronald Cole‐Turner (2011), Michael Burdett (2015), and Jacob Shatzer (2019). Central themes explored in this literature include the place of human hope in the search for perfection, technological dreaming, visionary approaches to technology, utopias, the Incarnation, human identity, and God's promises.…”

The Theological Debate Over Human Enhancement: An Empirical Case Study of a Mediating Organization

“…This is called deification or “theosis,” and is more traditionally associated with Eastern Orthodoxy than Western Christianity (Lustig 2008, 47). Historically, the most known figure to hold this view was Teilhard de Chardin, who advocated humans evolving toward deification in the “Omega Point” (Burdett 2015). In contemporary debates, a similar position is held by Ronald Cole‐Turner, who argues that “the primary question for Christian theology is not about the specific technologies that may be employed to produce these changes, but whether these technologies play any role in God's transformation of humanity” (Cole‐Turner 2015, 155).…”

“…For example, Teilhard de Chardin's eschatology involved humans engaging with technology to move toward a more Christ‐like human. In contrast, Jacques Ellul has a more pessimistic engagement with technology in his eschatology (Burdett 2015, 36, 80). I hypothesize that those who see a stronger role for technology would see human enhancement as contributing to bringing about the Kingdom.…”

“…This is the perspective of the transhumanist movement which argues for, in their language, designing, and creating humanity 2.0 to replace the flawed humanity 1.0 currently populating the planet. Transhumanism is “the intellectual and cultural movement that affirms the possibility and desirability of fundamentally improving the human condition through applied reason, especially by developing and making widely available technologies to eliminate aging and to greatly enhance human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities” (Burdett 2015, 81). Much of the theological literature is devoted to showing that transhumanism is the functional equivalent of a religion (Peters 2005; Waters 2011; Trothen 2015).…”

Deification and Creaturehood in an Age of Enhancement

“…3 As Burdett has argued as well, important Christian virtues (mercy, grace, humility and love) arise in the context of a community that acknowledges its plurality, limitation and weakness (like the disability community) because the members all have to rely on one another. 4 Brent Waters and Gerald McKenny also emphasize the role that limitation, an important marker for creaturehood, has for genuine human flourishing. For Waters, birth and mortality are distinctive features of creaturehood that ought to be maintained in the face of human enhancements that might seek to overcome them.…”