#97 Living into a New Consciousness The Cosmic Vision of Teilhard de Chardin
by John F. Haught
This folder concludes the Précis by
Helene O’Sullivan, MM
#12~ TRANSHUMANISM
Technological expertise is on the brink of reshaping the human world and its environment more dramatically than ever before. The complexity of earth’s noosphere is increasing almost daily.
Current scientific developments and expectations in the fields of genetics, robotics, nanotechnology, information science, artificial intelligence, evolutionary biology, and neuroscience are raising unprecedented scientific, ethical, and theological questions about the world’s future.
How far may those who have control of the emerging technologies go in trans-forming human beings, and indeed the whole of terrestrial life? How far may they go, both practically and morally, in altering what Christians have for centuries understood to be God’s creation?
New scientific ideas and techniques are opening up the prospect of radically tailoring not only what it means to be human, but also what it means to be part of the natural world.
Will new technologies eventually take us to a point where clearly defined human nature, at least as known by earlier generations, no longer exists? In evolutionary terms, will there be a time when a sharply delineated “human species” will be supplanted by something quite different?
In this chapter, with the help of Teilhard’s cosmic perspective, we explore the contribution that Christian theology might make to the building of a worldview appropriate to any future application of the emerging new technologies.
I argue that Christian faith and its rich traditions, but especially the biblical motifs of divine promise and liberation, can provide fertile constraints within which any future technological transform-ation of human persons and our planetary habitat may be carried out.
A continually more nuanced scientific understanding of the subatomic world, the manipulability of genes, the plasticity of brains, the rules of evolutionary change, and a host of other scientific insights now provide Homo Faber (the human being as maker or creator) with a nearly irresistible opportunity to revamp everything in our world radically, including ourselves. But should we do so, and, if so, how far may we go?
To ignore this concern would be irresponsible theologically since the future of human existence and creation itself is now at stake.
Theologically, how can people of faith informed by Christian tradition interpret transhumanism within the context of a biblically based world-view? However, Teilhard’s Christian hope for the ultimate fulfillment of the entire universe may enlighten theological attempts to under-stand and respond to transhumanist adventures.
The Complicity of Human Beings in Renewing the Face of the Earth
We should assume that the universe has abundant creative potential in reserve and that the natural urge of human beings to create must be allowed to express itself as an essential feature of human dignity.
Isn’t it conceivable that God’s vision of new creation includes the complicity of human beings in renewing the face of the earth ~ not just by conservation but also by reasonable invention and prudent intervention? The anticipatory approach seeks to be faithful to the biblical sense of promise and hope, as well as to our new awareness that the cosmos still has the opportunity for more-being.
Above all, this means following and promoting the cosmic convergent trend toward deeper unity, but only if this unity also promotes differentiation. To be responsible in a brave new world means to be concerned that all future creativity adheres to the general formula by which more-being has already been emerging in the drama of an awakening universe.
We find in the cosmic story so far at least three inviolable rules or cosmic criteria that any enhancement of creation by human beings must follow as a condition of appropriate future transformation.
Three Cosmic Criteria
FIRST, a concern for an intensification of vitality rather than diminishment of it. Life must increase rather than decrease.
SECOND, an increase in the intensity of subjectivity. Here Teilhard has much to contribute. Reflection on the fact of striving leads us to posit in each living being at least a minimum of centered-ness, interiority, or what I have been referring to as subjectivity. An undeniable trend in the evolution of the universe so far has been that of bringing about a gradual increase in sentience, perceptivity, consciousness, and at least in human beings~self-awareness, moral aspiration, freedom, the longing for love, and other qualities of inner experience.
All vital striving must have a subjective center in which the experience of trying, succeeding, or failing is registered. Otherwise, living beings would be indistinguishable from physical objects that do not strive or feel in any sense. The center of striving in each living being lies in subjectivity.
THIRD, an increase in creativity. Creativity means increasing rather than diminishing the vitality, subjectivity and aesthetic intensity that the universe has already brought into being before us and without us.
Theologically, creativity means participa-tion in the divine task of bringing something new into existence. It means not only conservation, which is absolutely essential, but also a realization that the world remains open to new creation up-ahead.
It is the function of a biblically based transhumanist praxis not only to conserve life systems on our planet but also to take measures that will foster opportunities for the emergence of unprecedented forms of life and the enhancement of vitality, subjectivity, diversity, relationality, and creativity in the up-ahead. As long as transhumanist projects contribute to this enhancement, they would seem to be justifiable.
I believe that, before participating in any transhumanist trials, Teilhard would want us to take measures to ensure the liberation of life, a respect for persons, and a mutual flourishing of both nonhuman and human communities, as conditions for the ongoing creation of more-being in the cosmos.
The Promise of Nature
Our God is the God of Promise, who opens up an ever-new future ~ not just for Abraham, Israel, and the Church, but also for the whole universe. The divine invitation to move into an open future of new possibilities applies to the nearly 14 billion-year-old cosmic process and not just the human future. Hence, I believe that the idea of the “promise of nature” ideally provides the basis for a scientifically informed Christian theological understanding and evaluation of transhumanist projects.
Thus, as I have proposed, from a study of the cosmic process we may glean a baseline set of criteria (vitality, subjectivity, and creativity) that place necessary boundaries around all efforts we make toward future transformations of nature, life, humanity, and the cosmos.
Beginning with the premise that nature is pregnant with promise, we may favor a metaphysics of the future and view the universe as anticipatory (looking to the future). In the context of biblical hope, let us highlight the fact that from its very beginning the universe has been open to a whole series of dramatic future transformations.
Transhumanism reminds us that we may anticipate still more dramatic outcomes in the future. Theology needs to take into account scientific cosmology, planetary science, and evolutionary biology in order to understand and appreciate the inherently restless and adventurous character of cosmogenesis, so as to awaken our own creative restlessness intelligently, responsibly, and reverently.