Transhumanism: A Critical Analysis
- What is Transhumanism?
- What is Posthumanism?
The Technological Imagination and Human Flourishing
Technology and Current Issues: Resources for Engagement
Theological Anthropology for a Technological Age: A Contemporary Ecumenical Perspective

Transhumanism: A Critical Analysis

During the first year of the project, a team of researchers convened to provide a critical overview of the current state of transhumanism, asking the following questions as platforms for further inquiry: What are the basic tenants of the transhumanist movement? Is it unified or discordant within itself? What does human flourishing look like according to technological culture? Their findings are represented in the content below, which explores these questions and more.

What is Transhumanism?

The State of Transhumanism

Dr. Anders Sandberg

Dr. Anders Sandberg discusses some very specific problems which transhumanism faces as a movement. He sketches a broad overview of transhumanism, referring to philosophers and fiction writers from past decades and centuries.

On Identifying as a Transhumanist

Dr. Anders Sandberg

Dr. Anders Sandberg discusses what it means for him to identify as a transhumanist and some of the questions facing transhumanism today.

Embodied Cognition and the Neo-Gnostic Roots of Transhumanism

Dr. Thomas Fuchs

Dr. Thomas Fuchs engages with a fundamental inclination of transhumanism: that human beings are imperfect, imperfections and limitations of the body.

Who Am I? Personhood, Consciousness, and Transhumanist Visions

Dr. Jens Zimmermann

Dr. Jens Zimmermann addressess modern understandings of human consciousness and argues for a model rooted in the incarnation.

Return to top⭡

What is Posthumanism?

Critical Posthumanism and Human Flourishing

Dr. Scott Midson

Dr. Scott Midson takes us on a tour of posthumanist theory and practice, offering probing suggestions for theological engagement in this important area of research.

Transhumanism and Critical Posthumanism: Relationship and Difference

Dr. Scott Midson

Dr. Scott Midson describes the difference and relationship between “transhumanism” and “critical posthumanism.”

The Benefit of Critical Posthumanism for Theology

Dr. Scott Midson

Dr. Scott Midson suggests that critical post-humanism can offer theology important critical tools in analyzing what it means to be human.

Return to top⭡

The Technological Imagination and Human Flourishing

Transhumanist efforts to improve human nature by means of technology are rooted in distinct visions of human flourishing. In this section, scholars examine some of the ideas which have captured the imagination of technological culture.

Living Souls to Software Selves: The Movements of Enchantment through Western Metaphysics

Dr. Robert Doede

Dr. Robert Doede delineates some of the key conceptual shifts in the history of the West that have crucially contributed to the conceivability and perhaps even the plausibility of the contemporary transhumanist project of engineering mind uploading.

Abandoning Earth: Personhood and the Techno-Fiction of Transhumanism

Dr. Jens Zimmermann

Dr. Jens Zimmermann examines transhumanist visions of human flourishing and argues that they are rooted in a fundamental misconception of human personhood.

Transhuman Utopias, De-Extinction and Deep Time

Dr. Celia Deane-Drummond

Dr. Celia Deane-Drummond examines the role of human agency in evolutionary theory.

Augustine and Transhumanism

Dr. Celia Deane-Drummond

Dr. Celia Deane-Drummond engages Augustine’s account of curiositas to critique transhumanist approaches to human flourishing.

Death and the Technological Imaginary

Dr. J.P. Bishop

Dr. Bishop explores how technological innovation shapes human perception of time, life, death, and meaning. In the “technological imaginary,” ageing and death seemingly may be infinitely deferred.

Human Nature, Technology, and Mind-Uploading

Dr. Robert Doede

Dr. Robert Doede traces the history of ideas around human nature and examines the progression of thought which has made possible the transhumanist concept of “mind uploading”.

The Neo-Gnostic Flight from What Matters

Dr. Robert Doede

Dr. Robert Doede examines the Neo-Gnostic impulse, which he argues can be recognized today in the thought of various transhumanists.

On the Shared Values of Transhumanism and Religion

Dr. Anders Sandberg

Dr. Anders Sandberg suggests points of contact between transhumanism and religion, especially as relates to human flourishing and self-improvement.

A Transhumanist Perspective on Human Nature

Dr. Anders Sandberg

Dr. Anders Sandberg discusses the transhumanist perspective on human nature and how technology might soon allow for a transformation of key aspects of humanity.

The Good Life According to Transhumanism

Dr. Anders Sandberg

Dr. Anders Sandberg explores different transhumanist articulations of the good life, of human flourishing.

A Critical Posthumanist Perspective on Human Nature

Dr. Scott Midson

Dr. Scott Midson discusses the critical posthumanist suggestion that human nature is not so easily known and indicates the central importance of relational networks for understanding human nature.

The Ethics of Critical Posthumanism

Dr. Scott Midson

Dr. Scott Midson offers an approach to ethics from a critical post-humanist perspective, suggesting that “the good life” is discovered in deep relationships of responsibility between ourselves and a whole range of “others”—human and otherwise.

Critical Posthumanism and Theological Anthropology in Dialogue

Dr. Scott Midson

Dr. Scott Midson suggests the need for a robust dialogue between critical posthumanism and Christian theological anthropology.

Return to top⭡

Technology and Current Issues: Resources for Engagement

Science and Anthropology

Being Human in an Age of Technology

Dr. Michael Burdett

Dr. Michael Burdett addresses key areas for theological engagmenent including gene editing, designer babies, human enhancement, information technology, AI, Robotics, and personal formation.

How Does Technology Affect Our Humanity?

Dr. Michael Burdett

In this interview with BioLogos, Dr. Michael Burdett explores how technology affects our humanity.

Who We Are and How We Know

Dr. Jens Zimmermann

In this interview with BioLogos, Dr. Jens Zimmermann addresses foundational questions for epistemology and anthropology.

Tradition and Verification in Science and Religion

Dr. Jens Zimmermann

In this interview with BioLogos, Dr. Jens Zimmermann addresses issues of tradition and verification in both science and religion.

Who Was Michael Polanyi

Dr. Jens Zimmermann

In this interview with BioLogos, Dr. Jens Zimmermann discusses the philosopher Michael Polanyi and his influence on epistemology.

Is Transhumanism Really About Humans?

Dr. Jens Zimmermann

In this interview with BioLogos, Dr. Jens Zimmermann answers the question, is transhumanism really about humans?

Ordinariness and Disembodied Bioethics

Dr. Brent Waters

Dr. Brent Waters discusses his recent research on topics of ordinary, lived existence and disembodied bioethics, and how these two topics relate to technology.

Technology, Distractions, and the Care of the Body

Dr. Brent Waters

In this essay, Dr. Brent Waters reflects on three phases of bioethical history, emphasizing the importance of the ordinary for assessing the impact of technology on healthcare.

The Lost Soul of Early Hominins

Dr. Celia Deane-Drummond

In this lecture, Dr. Celia Deane-Drummond addresses several recent archaeological discoveries about early hominins, discoveries that help us think theologically about their probable inner mental world.

Features of Our Humanitas in a Cyborg Age

Dr. Celia Deane-Drummond

In this essay, Dr. Celia Deane-Drummond introduces theologians to the concept of “extended evolutionary synthesis”. She examines how this theory differs from others, and opens some questions for the conversation between theology and science.

Christian Theology, Evolutionary Science, and Technological Advances

Dr. Celia Deane-Drummond

Dr. Celia Deane-Drummond discusses her current research in the relationship of Christian theology to evolutionary science and technological advances.

Return to top⭡

Disability and Aging

Being Human in a Technological World: Pointers from Patristic Anthropology

Very Rev. Dr. John Behr

Dr. John Behr queries the erasure of death from the horizon of sight in the modern Western world: what challenges does this erasure raise for our understanding of ourselves as embodied human beings?

Dying to Live? Or How To Become A Human Being?

Dr. John Behr

In this essay, Fr. John Behr considers death and finitude, concluding that “If we don’t ‘see’ death today then, bluntly, we will not see God, and we will not see the transcendence of voluntary self-sacrificial love to which we are called.”

Theological Anthropology and Extending Life

Dr. Michael Mawson

In this essay, Dr. Michael Mawson asks “How should Christians understand and respond to recent technologies aiming to extend the human lifespan?” In response, he explores the key category of finitude for theological anthropology.

Technology and the Human Lifespan

Dr. Brent Waters

Dr. Brent Waters suggests some troubling impacts of technology on how we understand human birth, growth, aging, and death.

Bonhoeffer and Theology of Disability

Dr. Eleanor McLaughlin

Dr. Eleanor McLaughlin opens up her research in theology of disability and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, asking whether technology can help us overcome certain human limits, or whether there are limits we ought to live within and not transgress.

On Embracing Human Limitation

Dr. Eleanor McLaughlin

Dr. Eleanor McLaughlin explores the notion of human limitation, suggesting a fruitful tension between the inevitability and importance of limits and the possibility of using technology to overcome certain limits.

Expanding Theological Discussions of Embodiment

Dr. Eleanor McLaughlin

Dr. Eleanor McLaughlin suggests possibilities for further research and conversation, emphasizing the need for listening to different experiences of human embodiment.

The Problem of Aging

Dr. Michael Mawson

Dr. Michael Mawson discusses his research in the experience and reality of human aging, how it is perceived as a problem to be overcome, and also how “human flourishing” may not be applicable to exploring the notion of aging.

Technology and Aging

Dr. Michael Mawson

Dr. Michael Mawson suggests that technology is shaping the way we understand aging.

Medical Intervention Leading Up to Death

Dr. Michael Mawson

Dr. Michael Mawson discusses the increasing prevalence of medical intervention leading up to death.

Suffering in Martin Luther and Julian of Norwich

Dr. Michael Mawson

Dr. Michael Mawson directs our attention to two Christian theologians, Martin Luther and Julian of Norwich, and how they can contribute to a theology of aging and suffering, emphasizing God’s presence to us in the suffering Christ.

Aging, Technology and Identity: Reflections with Jean Améry

Dr. Michael Mawson

In this essay, Dr. Michael Mawson explores the thought of philosopher Jean Améry on the topics of aging and technology.

Death and Glory

Dr. Michael Burdett

Dr. Michael Burdett discusses his research in the relationship of death and glory, considering different ways of relating human death to the meaning of human flourishing and the good life.

Technology, Death, and Human Nature

Dr. Michael Burdett

In this interview, Michael Burdett explores three topics: the recent history and changing experience of death, the impact of technology on contemporary forms of relating and being social beings, and the transhumanist suggestion that “information” lies at the root of all existence.