This Might be the Next Step for Humanity. No Body is Welcome.

The issue of AI and the counterfeit gospel of transhumanism.

May 06, 2023

This is The Church and AI, a newsletter exploring both the practical and philosophical realities of AI and the Christian faith. In our first week, we’re kicking off with two articles, starting with an important deeper-than-usual dive into a concerning issue.

In 2004, when I was little more than a grumpy, mop-headed, skateboard-carrying, Nirvana-obsessed teenager, American political scientist Francis Fukuyama wrote what is now an oft-cited article describing transhumanism as “the world’s most dangerous idea.”

Frankly, I’m not sure about that. Here’s what I do know:

If it isn’t, it’s not far off.

Almost two decades after Fukuyama’s poignant words, the reality of transhumanism is closer than ever. It espouses ideas that could change how we think about ourselves and possibly our very purpose in life, so as Christians, we must engage with them.

In this article, we’ll discuss two key concepts in artificial intelligence: transhumanism and the singularity. We’ll explore why they contradict the Christian Gospel message and how we should respond as believers.

What is Transhumanism?

Over at Big Think, Sachin Rawat summarises the concept well (his whole article is worth reading). He writes:

“Transhumanism is a philosophical movement that aims to free the human body and mind of their biological limitations, allowing humanity to transcend into a future unconstrained by death.”

As an idea, transhumanism is not new. It is heavily influenced by the Enlightenment belief that we can achieve real progress through reason and science. Such an emphasis has—understandably—led to growing faith in the ability of technology to overcome the obstacles posed by the limitations of the human condition.

As far as I can tell, the earliest use of the word transhumanism is attributed to Sir Julian Huxley’s 1957 essay of the same name. Seven years after Alan Turing introduced the imitation game (and what would eventually be known as the Turing Test) in a seminal paper on machine intelligence,1 Huxley wrote that "once there are enough people" who believed in transhumanism, "the human species will be on the threshold of a new kind of existence . . . consciously fulfilling its real destiny."2 It's no coincidence that this paper followed Turing's; machines were the vehicle in which this so-called destiny would be achieved.

That’s not all. The 20th Century also saw science fiction popularizing transhumanist thinking: Julian Huxley’s brother explored these ideas decades earlier in the dystopian classic Brave New World, and later even 2001: A Space Odyssey and—so I’m informed by my friend Jorin—even Star Trek.

However, as we’ll discuss below, transhumanist thinking has distant echoes of much older schools of thought.

But let’s be clear here.

In many ways, aspects of this sort of thinking have been phenomenally positive for the human race.

I’d hazard a guess that you know someone who has had a hip or knee replacement (or two), cochlear implants to counteract hearing loss, or any other number of technological enhancements to overcome the frustrations of biological hindrances. Maybe you’re even wearing glasses to read this article. Transhumanism is simply the extreme conclusion of the direction we’re already headed.

Meghan O’Gieblyn notes this in her book God, Human, Animal, Machine. She observes that transhumanists believe "we'll have similar neural-implant technologies that will replace and improve our auditory perception, image processing, and memory."3

So far, so good.

However, the tone changes abruptly.

What O’Gieblyn writes next is startling:

According to this thinking, consciousness can be transferred onto all sorts of different substrates: our new bodies might be supercomputers, robotic surrogates, or human clones. But the ultimate dream of mind-uploading is total physical transcendence—the mind as pure information, pure spirit. “We don’t always need real bodies,” Kurzweil writes in The Age of Spiritual Machines. He imagines that the posthuman subject could be entirely free and immaterial, able to enter and exit various virtual environments.4

Ok, now we’re starting to see where this is going. If you’re not concerned, keep going, dear reader. O’Gieblyn isn’t finished yet. What you’re about to read matters because, by some estimates, we might be there by the 2040s.5 This is where we get to the heart of the transhumanist discussion:

In his book You Are Not A Gadget, the computer scientist Jaron Lanier argues that just as the Christian belief in an immanent Rapture often conditions disciples to accept certain ongoing realities on earth—persuading them to tolerate wars, environmental destruction, and social inequality—so too has the promise of a coming Singularity served to justify a technological culture that privileges information over human beings. “If you want to make the transition from the old religion, where you hope God will give you an afterlife,” Lanier writes, “to the new religion, where you hope to become immortal by getting uploaded into a computer, then you have to believe information is real and alive.”6 (Emphasis mine)

Wow.

Before we unpack the enormity of what we’ve just read, let’s just pause and explore what is meant by the term “singularity.”

What is the Singularity?

For the sake of simplicity, we'll describe the singularity as the possible event in which artificial intelligence surpasses the intellect of humans (superintelligence). At this point, “technological progress becomes so rapid and exponential that it . . . [results] in a future in which machines can create and improve upon their own designs faster than humans can.”7

Superintelligence and the singularity are closely related, but the former specifically relates to AI surpassing human intellect in almost all areas. However, the latter is broader, referring to the point when technology changes so rapidly that the human race is fundamentally transformed.

So what does this all mean for the Church?

white robot near brown wall — Photo by Alex Knight on Unsplash

Transhumanism is Unbiblical

Earlier, I mentioned that transhumanism echoes the ideas of much older schools of thought.

That school of thought was Gnosticism.

Gnosticism refers to a religion that found some prominence in the early years of the Church. Its adherents shared some similarities with Judeo-Christian values but were markedly different in enough key areas that the global Church deemed them heretical.8 Some of the key differences for our discussion were as follows:

Dualism: Gnostics believed that the material world, including the human body, was inferior or evil compared to the things of the spiritual world. This is because it was created by the Demiurge, a separate being from God, and the reason there were imperfections and suffering in the world.
Salvation: Gnostics believed that salvation could be attained through gaining secret knowledge, which involved understanding the “true nature” of the universe.

Can you see those echoes yet?

Both gnostics and transhumanists share the idea of “transcendence.” Gnostics sought to transcend the limitations of the material world through special knowledge. In the same way, transhumanists seek to transcend the limitations of the human condition through special knowledge (and resultant technology). Indeed, the ultimate goal is to move beyond the material altogether.

The similarities are startling and ultimately, as prominent Church Fathers like Justin Martyr and Irenaeus noted in the first centuries after Christ, they are antithetical to the Christian faith.

It’s important to highlight describing transhumanism as a genuine Gnostic heresy would be an overstatement. While there are echoes of the same reasoning, transhumanism is fundamentally secular, whereas Gnosticism is spiritual in nature.

HERE’S THE POINT

The Early Church rightly rejected some of the core tenets of transhumanism when it was presented as Gnosticism. We should be quick to do the same.

Time won’t allow us to press any further into this. There are, I believe, larger issues at stake.

Transhumanism and the Image of God

As Christians, we believe that every human being is created in the image of God (Gen. 1:27). At its furthest conclusion, transhumanism effectively rejects the work of the Potter and aims to manufacture a cheap 2D image of the Clay. It’s like taking a photo of the Mona Lisa, airbrushing it in Photoshop and declaring it an upgrade on the original. Transhumanism and the hypothetical singularity undermine the wonder of God’s creation by reducing humans to nothing more than machines or data points. We risk undermining the very beauty of the Creator’s work and plugging into the Matrix with no red pill to escape. It’s little more than a simulation without substance.

But even this isn’t the focus of the issue.

A Cheap Counterfeit Gospel

Let’s return to Lanier’s statement, as found in God, Human, Animal, Machine:

“If you want to make the transition from the old religion, where you hope God will give you an afterlife,” Lanier writes, “to the new religion, where you hope to become immortal by getting uploaded into a computer, then you have to believe information is real and alive.”

I believe that at its extreme, transhumanism is a false Gospel. Here’s why:

THE TRUE GOSPEL

The Gospel of Jesus Christ tells us that we live in a fallen world damaged by the effects of sin and separate from a holy, loving God. (Gen. 3; Rom. 3:23). The just punishment for our sin is death (Rom. 6:23).

Jesus Christ, both fully God and fully man, paid our debt on the cross and rose again; victorious over sin and death. Whoever believes in Jesus and puts their trust in him can share in that victory (1 Cor. 15:57) and is no longer bound by death. Instead, they will experience eternity in a restored relationship with the Lord God Almighty in heaven (John 3:16).

THE COUNTERFEIT GOSPEL

The counterfeit gospel of transhumanism tells us that we live in a fallen world where material realities are hindering us from experiencing life in all its fullness. One of these effects is death.

Artificial Intelligence and the singularity, we are told, will find a way for humans to live forever. Whoever believes in transhumanism and places their faith in a special knowledge in relation to superintelligent technology will transcend the bounds of this broken world and experience eternity in an endless conscious existence.

HERE’S THE PROBLEM

There are similarities but some noticeable differences.

With transhumanism, mankind is trying to reach the heavens and make a name for themselves, dangerously excluding the omnipotent, incomprehensibly holy God of the Universe.

It’s a 21st-century Tower of Babel.

As the Church, we must be prepared to engage with a world that no longer questions life after death. From the perspective of an atheist, why should someone put their faith in Jesus for the possibility of eternal life when they could (in their minds) put their finances into a transhumanist company and guarantee it?

It is not beyond the realms of possibility that we will have an increasingly prominent counterfeit gospel with which to wrestle.

From this perspective, it is easy to see why people like Fukuyama would describe it as the world’s most dangerous idea!

So, believers. How do we respond to transhumanism and the singularity?

We celebrate the goodness of God’s truth, provision, and saving work of His Son.

1. We celebrate certain technological achievements.

Of course, it is wonderful that those without sight can learn to see, and those who struggle to hear can be restored. We should be quick to celebrate the God-given wisdom that allows us to experience the fullness of His creation, as well as His mission and purpose for us.

2. But we also celebrate the human dignity found in God’s image.

As believers, we value divinely-created human life from conception to natural death as God’s handiwork (Gen. 1:27; Psa. 139:13-14; Matt. 10:20-31; Eph. 2:10). We embrace the skillful work of the Potter and celebrate the imperfections of the clay.

On the contrary, who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? Will what is formed say to the one who formed it, “Why did you make me like this?” - Romans 9:20

While some technological advancement is good, we are called to honour God with our bodies, not perform some Antiochan desecration of the Holy Spirit’s Temple in the name of “progress” (1 Cor. 6:19-20). We should be quick to promote all humanity’s inherent dignity and worth and encourage the world to steer clear of the dehumanizing effects of transhumanistic extremes. We won’t find happiness in reducing the human race to little more than machines or data points.

3. We celebrate the true Good News of Jesus and reject the counterfeit gospel of transhumanism.

Ultimately, our response to transhumanism and the singularity must be rooted in the gospel message of hope and redemption through Jesus Christ alone. A hope not dependent on AI or technological purgatories, but in the blood-bought hope of a place in a restored heaven and earth with our Saviour.

Eternity as ones and zeroes (or even qubits) is nothing more than an empty, false promise. It is limited by the existence of the finite digital world and most likely no longer a person’s true self. But more than that, even if this existence were truly infinite (which it won’t be), it is still an eternity separated from our perfect, infinite, self-existent, holy, grace-filled, loving heavenly Father.

Is that not the very definition of hell?

We might not be able to force shut the gates of this digital spiral into hell before they are fully opened, but we know that it will not prevail against the truly Good News of Jesus, who will continue to build His church (Matt. 16:17-19).

Our call is to proclaim the wonder of a Christ-won life in all its fullness (John 10:10) that culminates in an eternity in the restored relationship and presence of the one true God.

This is where true hope comes from.

If you’ve found this article helpful, please consider sharing it with friends and pastors to help prepare believers for the future of AI in the Church!

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