Enhancing the Imago Dei: Can a Christian Be a Transhumanist?

Transhumanism is an ideology that embraces the use of various forms of biotechnology to enhance human beings toward the emergence of a “posthuman” kind. In this article, I contrast some of the foundational tenets of Transhumanism with those of Christianity, primarily focusing on their respective anthropologies—that is, their diverse understandings of whether there is an essential nature shared by all human persons and, if so, whether certain features of human nature may be intentionally altered in ways that contribute toward how each views human flourishing. A central point of difference concerns Transhumanists’ aim of attaining “substrate independence” for the human mind, such that one’s consciousness could be uploaded into a cybernetic environment. Christian anthropology, on the other hand, considers embodiment, with its characteristics of vulnerability and finitude, to be an essential feature of human nature—hence, Christians’ belief in bodily resurrection. Despite Christianity and Transhumanism having fundamental differences, I contend that Christians may support moderate forms of enhancement oriented toward supporting our flourishing as living, sentient, social, and rational animals.

Legal Roots of Christian Anthropology

Purpose of the article is to reconstruct the legal sources of Christian anthropology. Theoretical basis. The methodological basis of the article is the understanding of the fundamental foundations of Christian anthropology in the context of Roman legal understanding. Originality. From the point of view of the Christian religion, man is a dual being: his body is part of the material world, but his soul is not from this world, he is born directly from God. The transcendent origin of the soul gives it the right to communicate with God, but this right can be realized only with the help of the Church, which is seen as the "bride of the Lamb" and the mystical "body of Christ". Interpretations of the essence of church organization correlate with the principles of organization of the Roman community. The principle of universal priesthood correlates with the idea of "post-Tarquinian democracy", recognizing the people of Rome as the supreme bearer of the empire of Jupiter; catholicity – with the idea of the senate as a meeting of the most deserving leaders of the community; apostolic succession – with the institution of republican magistrates, who even though received their power from the community, but through "consultations with the gods" (auspices). In essence, Christian dogmatism is Roman law applied to the Middle Eastern religion; the Bible was interpreted as a legal document, and theologians acted as lawyers. Conclusions. In the ancient Churches (Catholic, Orthodox, Armenian, Coptic, etc.) the ideal of Roman law was realized as the right of impersonal law, standing outside and above the individual. The latter has no ontological value, it is a "servant of God", but the union of men into the mystical "body of Christ" makes the latter empowered to represent God on earth and to act on his behalf. The Renaissance paved the way for the Reformation, in which a powerful "Greek" ("philosophical") lobby declared itself. Despite the fact that many leaders of the Reformation had a personal dislike for philosophy, they were spontaneous philosophers, believing themselves entitled to interpret the will of God independently, regardless of the authority of the councils. They were strict rationalists who only changed the object of their reason: if the ancient Greeks tried to comprehend the world rationally, the Protestants set themselves the goal of rationally comprehending the Book. Ultimately, the main question of Christian theology is the question of man’s attitude to God, and the differences between the anthropological systems within Christianity are the options for answering this question.

Homo digitalis – Homo medialis. Digitális média és keresztyén antropológia

Homo Digitalis – Homo Medialis. Digital Media and Christian Anthropology. Digital media and virtual community existence define our present and our everyday life to such an extent and poses such new challenges that Christian ethics cannot escape the responsibility of guidance. However, it is not just a question of what ethical norms apply to the online space and appearance therein but also of how online identity redraws a person’s image of him-/herself and of the other. Can Christian ethics speak of homo digitalis and homo medialis without confronting Christian teaching about humans? The present study seeks to critically illuminate new phenomena in the digital world along the topoi of classical Christian anthropology (creation, divinity, alienation, shame, sin, fellow human beings). Keywords: media, digital lifestyle, virtuality, online identity, Christian anthropology

Nemesius of Emesa on Desire, Pleasure, and Sex

This article investigates the views of Nemesius, the bishop of Emesa in Roman Syria at the end of the fourth century CE, on desire, pleasure, and sex, mainly from his work, De natura hominis, asking specifically how Nemesius’s account represents what we might term the “medical making” of an early Christian sexual culture. Nat. hom. was most likely composed at the end of the fourth century CE, and represents the first full and formal Christian anthropology, incorporating views from Christian and non-Christian philosophy (especially Plato and Aristotle) and, of course, extensively utilising (and often even quoting verbatim) ancient medical literature (especially Galen). The study commences by providing a descriptive account of Nemesius’s framework on the dynamics of desire, pleasure, and sex, and then draws some conclusions on how these views of Nemesius translate into a very particular Christian sexual culture in late antique Syria.

Paul's Idea of the "New Man" and Transhumanism

By setting the relationship between human and divine reality in a whole new way, Christian anthropology has provided an authoritative framework for understanding and valuing the dynamics of human life as moving “from the old to the new man”, according to the famous phrase of the apostle Paul. Other great European humanistic traditions with their ideas of man and visions of his progress can be placed in the critical perspective of this Pauline anthropological formula. One of those traditions that relatively recently entered the stage of European intellectual culture is the so-called “Transhumanism”. In this article, a contrast is made between Paul’s understanding of the dynamics of human life and the human enhan­cement with the help of technology in transhumanism.

Will Cyborgs Ever Be Humans in the Image and Likeness of God?

Advances in technology and genetic engineering have rekindled the hopes of some communities for human immortality on earth. Projects aimed at copying the human brain for the purpose of enabling humans to achieve “cybernetic eternity” are emerging. From the perspective of Christian anthropology, it is advisable to ask the following question: is a cyborg a human being in the image of God? It boils down to the criteria for being in the image of God. The first of these is creativity, understood as the actualized relationship of the human with their Creator. For the human is not a product of even the most brilliant minds and technologies, but a creature for whom a personal relationship with the Persons of the Holy Trinity is constitutive in nature.

Nemesius of Emesa on Human Nature

Nemesius of Emesa’s On Human Nature (De Natura Hominis) is the first Christian anthropology. Written in Greek, circa 390 CE, it was read in half a dozen languages—from Baghdad to Oxford—well into the early modern period. Nemesius’ text circulated in two Latin versions in the centuries that saw the rise of European universities, shaping scholastic theories of human nature. During the Renaissance, it saw a flurry of print editions, helping to inspire a new discourse of human dignity. This is the first monograph in English on Nemesius’ treatise. On the interpretation offered here, the Syrian bishop seeks to define the human qua human. His early Christian anthropology is cosmopolitan. ‘Things that are natural’, he writes, ‘are the same for all’. In his pages, a host of texts and discourses—biblical and medical, legal and philosophical—are made to converge upon a decisive tenet of Christian late antiquity: humans’ natural freedom. For Nemesius, reason and choice are a divine double-strand of powers. Since he believes that both are a natural human inheritance, he concludes that much is ‘in our power’. Nemesius defines humans as the only living beings who are at once ruler (intellect) and ruled (body). Because of this, the human is a ‘little world’, binding the rationality of angels to the flux of elements, the tranquillity of plants, and the impulsiveness of animals. This book traces Nemesius’ reasoning through the whole of On Human Nature, as he seeks to give a long-influential image of humankind both philosophical and anatomical proof.

Russian cosmism and transhumanism in the polemic between anthropological voluntarism and providentialism

Comprehension of the finitude of individual existence entails the need to find the answer to question of overcoming death, a salvation path that would allow pass through the abyss of nonexistence. Solution to this question implies various forms of immortality: naturalistic, theological, technocratic, creative, sensually-transcendental, etc. Prolongation of life and gaining immortality has become a central problem of such philosophical movements as Russian cosmism and modern transhumanism, which view the victory over death as the project and purpose of mankind. The object of this research is the ethical content and key ideas of the philosophy of Russian cosmism and modern transhumanism. The subject is the origins and evolution of transhumanist worldview in its genetic link with the ideas of cosmic philosophy. This article aims to analyze the methods and means of how a human can improve and obtain immortality, which are advanced by transhumanists, and juxtapose them with the ideas of Russian cosmist philosophers. The conclusion is made that the central idea of cosmism and transhumanism, which lies in overcoming the finitude of human existence, does not find its global humanistic realization: both concepts offer partial and unnatural solutions (autotrophy, resurrection, cyborgization). Emphasis is placed on solution of the problem of immortality in the Christian anthropology in spiritual-moral ethical-philosophical context

Eastern Church Fathers on Being Human—Dichotomy in Essence and Wholeness in Deification

The article traces the formation of Eastern Christian anthropology as a new religious and philosophical tradition within the Early Byzantine culture. The notion “Patristics” is reasoned as a corpus of ideas of the Church Fathers, both Eastern and Western. The term “Eastern Patristics” means the works by Greek-Byzantine Church Fathers, who in the theological disputes with the Western Church Fathers elaborated the Christian creed. Based on an analysis of the texts of Greek-Byzantine Church Fathers, the most important provisions of Eastern Patristics are deduced and discussed, which determined the specificity of Christian anthropology. In this context, different approaches of the Eastern Fathers to the explanation of the Old Testament thesis on the creation of man in God’s image and likeness and the justification of the duality of human essence are shown. Particular attention is paid to considering the idea of deification as overcoming the human dualism and the entire created universe, the doctrine of the Divine Logoi as God’s energies, and the potential elimination of the antinomianism of the earthly and Divine worlds. The article reflects the anthropological ideas of the pre-Nicene Church Father Irenaeus, the non-canonical early Christian work The Shepherd of Hermas, and the teachings on the man of the classical Eastern Patristics period by Athanasius of Alexandria, Gregory of Nyssa, and Maximus the Confessor.