To Transcend the Imago Dei

When I was a teenager my friends and I were avid Role Playing Gamers. One of the Role Playing Games (RPG) we played was called Cyberpunk. It took place in a future that was littered with technology - technology that was not just used but also worn and implanted. These technologies helped characters in both solid reality and virtual reality. Night vision implants; nanobots; wire jacks into the brain; microchip brain implants to increase cognitive functions, the list went on and on. The possibilities were limitless. BUT, with these upgrades and bio-mods came "humanity costs."  The more metal and plastic upgrades you add to your character's body the more they begin to lose connection to being human.

The Cyberpunk Player's Guide says:

In the 2000s, we call this cyberpsychosis; a mental disease in which the addition of cosmetics causes an already unstable personality to fragment. At first, the victim begins to relate more to machines than to humans. Soon he starts to ignore people - parents, friends, lovers. Eating, sleeping all become less important. Finally, human interactions begin to irritate, culminating in a terrifying rage that consumes the victim entirely (73).

Now, this post is not going to be an overly dramatic jaunt down memory lane or a terrifying warning of possible things to come. But, I do hope to bring up an issue that I see not only in our culture but in the church. It is the notion that technology is our personal and collective savior.

Cyberpunk came out in the early 90s when little was known about the future of technology. We had a vague notion of the internet and computers were quickly becoming household staples rather than just things we encountered in our jobs or at our schools. Even then, computer labs were new in our schools - machines lined against a wall in the library. At least that's the way it was for me in Minnesota.

As we moved through the 90s and into the 2000s technology evolved at an exponential rate. Desktop computers gave way to laptop computers. Large brick-like cell phones gave way to sleek and stylish flip phones. Flip phones gave way to Blackberries, which gave way to smartphones. With smartphones came apps and with apps came Social Media. Now technology is wearable. We can check our emails, status updates, texts, health stats, and myriad other bits of data not just on our phones but on our watches. It is said that the average American will spend 7 hours looking at a screen every day. Nicholas Carr in his article, "How Smartphones Hijack Our Minds" notes that the average iPhone user checks their phone 80 times a day for a total of almost 30,000 times a year (Wall Street Journal, October 7, 2017, C1). I'm guessing that average is much higher in 2022.

In his book Transhumanism and the Image of God, Jacob Shatzer writes that, "there is an ambiguity...in 'human making.' We can read that with humans as either the subject or the object of the making. Human making can mean humans as the ones doing the making. We could also read it as humans being made. Humans as the maker or the made, as in 'humans making technologies' or as 'technologies making humans'" (6).

Technologies have always been with humans throughout our evolution. The issue is how humans have integrated and continue to integrate those technologies into our societies. In the past, humans had generations to get used to technologies and how those technologies affected everything from industry to science to philosophy to politics to entertainment to war. It was a slow-going process. But as technology evolved faster and faster humanity's ability to integrate that technology became more and more problematic. Mostly because humanity's collective conscience and conscious did not evolve at the same pace as technology. We got the tech, but we weren't mature enough to use it wisely. 

The first evidence of a new technology being used in the Bible is at the tower of Babel (Gen. 11.1-9). In the story humanity comes up with a new technology - the brick, but not just any brick but bricks that have been burned thoroughly and held together with bitumen for mortar (Gen. 11.3). This might not sound like a big deal to us, but the creation of bricks that could sustain large amounts of weight was important in the construction of a tower that would reach to the heavens so that humanity could "make a name for ourselves" (Gen.11.4). The technology is not made for the glory of God - the Transcendent - or for the construction of buildings that can house the vulnerable, sick, marginalized, orphan, refuge, or stranger. 

No. 

The technology was used to create a vanity project that would glorify human beings...And not just any human beings but the most powerful and wealthy. What humanity wanted was to transcend their own humanity and become God. They wanted to transcend the mortal world and reach beyond the heavens so that they too could exist in the heavenly realm - the place where God lived. They didn't try to live into their humanity in a way that was life giving or life affirming. They didn't try to live a life that cultivated creation. They didn't want to live lives that were human...They wanted to be gods.

This is the issue with the transhumanism movement - it basically says that humanity has very limited potential without the aid of technology. It says that being human is a flawed enterprise that must be overcome, dominated, and abandoned for a posthuman existence that is painless, powerful, and eternal. It is a movement that says "I am the god of my own world. There is nothing that transcends me."

Now, some folks might be saying, "What's wrong with wanting to avoid suffering or pain?" or "What's wrong with wanting to live a longer, healthier life?" And I would say that there is nothing inherently wrong with either one of those hopes. 

I would argue, though, that to suffer is to understand suffering, which helps build empathy. I would say that knowing that death is an inevitable part of life helps us understand that moments and relationships have meaning and value. When there is only a finite amount of something it gains value. Clinging to life, health, wealth, power, status, influence, and the myriad other ego-driven desires leads us to focus on one thing...Us. If something threatens that we lash out at that threat and try to do away with it. We see us and them. Mine and not mine. It is not a pretty picture because our consciousness and conscience hasn't evolved to properly integrate technology into our lives. We have a tendency to weaponize our tech or use it for purposes that do not encourage the flourishing of humanity. Modern technology tends to encourage the flourishing of our ego. Or the flourishing of our tribe.

Now, I don't want to downplay or demonize the importance of technology. We need technology to evolve. But the transhumanist model of existence is a model that denies that human beings are exceptional creatures. It denies the fact that we are spiritual beings that have not yet even begun to tap into our bio-spiritual potential. It is a model of existence that says that the material world is it, the spiritual world is a vacuous lie, and that we are meat machines that need plastic and metal to maintain a viable existence and worth; and when that fails then we can simply upload our consciousnesses to the cloud and live as 1s and 0s in an intangible cyber "reality." 

Thomas Merton once wrote in his book No Man is an Island, that, "...no matter how terrible man's despair may become, as long as he continues to be a man his very humanity continues to tell him that life has meaning" (9) - pardon the male-centered language. This is what we ultimately desire in life...for life to have meaning. However, it would seem that the world the transhumanist movement embraces sees no meaning in life save for the next bio-mod or mind upload - bio-mods and uploads that only the wealthiest will be able to afford. 

As Christians we believe that life's meaning transcends comfort or ability. We are commanded to take up our cross and follow Christ; we are commanded to lead lives of selflessness and devotion. This life we lead is a gift from God that we are meant to treasure and use for the flourishing of humanity regardless of our situation. We also believe that we are made in the Image of God; we are God's beautiful creations. The more one modifies, alters, replaces, and integrates the human person with technology the less human one becomes. And if the goal is to become human consciousnesses living in a cloud-based server farm then the question could be asked: is that even still human? Isn't there something to be said about living lives that are incarnated with all of the limitations that imposes on us? Science tells us that our brain body connection is essential to our existence - our brains are not just isolated supercomputers processing information in our heads; they are part of a deeply integrated system in which the body and mind play off of one another to create things like emotions -those things that make us, well, human.

The long and short of it is this - and the intent of this post was not to be exhaustive by any means, the intent was to generate discussion - we are incarnated beings that have not even scratched the potential of our bio-spiritual natures. We have not devoted enough time individually or collectively to developing our consciousnesses to fully understand our potential. And we have not yet allowed our consciences to fully comprehend how our lives best intersect with technology that is evolving at a rate we just can't deal with.