Transhumanism and Health: A Christian Perspective

This paper examines the compatibility of transhumanism with Christian teachings. It focuses upon health in the wide sense of freedom from disease, suffering and life enhancement. Both Transhumanism and Christianity see the human condition as ‘broken’ or defective but differ in their means of repairing this. Both focus upon overcoming death. I argue that both Christianity and transhumanist technologies stress the limitations of the human body and how these can be overcome. I concentrate on four areas pertaining to Christianity and Transhumanism: Abolishing suffering; radical life extension; elimination of death; and resurrection. The paper concludes that transhumanism contains religious themes but there are significant differences from mainline Christianity.