Radical Life Extension, Transhumanism and Catholicism

James Hughes, PhD
Secretary, Humanity+
Executive Director, Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technology

Greetings from Humanity+, the global transhumanist association.

I would like to make several suggestions for your consideration during your week of reflection on life extension, transhumanism and Christianity. These are based on five years of dialogue between transhumanists, Christian theologians, and lay people who consider themselves both Christians and transhumanists.

1) Although transhumanism is part of the family of secular Enlightenment philosophies, many of its elements are compatible with Christianity.

The transhumanist movement is largely secular. About two thirds of self-identified transhumanists are atheists or agnostics. But among the other third one can find members of all the world's faiths, including Roman Catholicism. Empirically, Christian transhumanists do not find transhumanism, life extension and human enhancement incompatible with their faith even if many on both sides believe they should.

There are specific areas of incompatibility, however, such as around the Church's "theology of the body." Many transhumanists embrace reproductive technologies which the Church would forbid. Transhumanists endorse a consciousness-based personhood rather than the Church's human-only ensoulment-based personhood. That difference of opinion poses problems for the treatment of the embryo and brain dead, as well as for the moral status of great apes, human-animal hybrids, and copies of human personalities in a machine ("uploads"). On the other hand, there is much common ground with Christians who adopt a more grounded, relational or "emergent" view of the soul.

On the specific issue of radical life extension there are, I believe, far fewer theological conflicts. Life is a divine blessing which we are obliged to make as rich and long as possible. The Church embraces the healing arts as not only acceptable but a moral obligation for a compassionate society. There is no Biblical indication of a maximum acceptable life span, and there are Biblical figures who lived for hundreds of years.

2) Although some aspects of the transhumanist movement may resemble classical heresies, these are marginal similarities. Transhumanism is not trying to be a life philosophy or religion.

Some Christian critics of transhumanism have argued that transhumanists are modern "Gnostics," seeing the body as a trap from which the spirit needs to escape into silicon immortality. Conversely, other Christian critics have argued that transhumanists vainly worship the body because we want indefinite health and life. However most people interested in transhumanism or life extension are not at these extremes of body-worship or body-hatred.

Furthermore transhumanism and the human enhancement movement are not heresies because they offer no competing understanding of life's meaning and purpose. Most enthusiasts for human enhancement are all too aware that they will always be limited, faulty, and in need of greater meaning and purpose. Most transhumanists simply adopt the spiritual posture of Reinhold Neibuhr's "serenity prayer:"

Give us grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things
which should be changed,
and the Wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other.

The problem is not that the transhumanists have too little serenity with the things that cannot be changed, but that too many Christian critics of human enhancement have too little courage to change what can be changed.

We would like to be as healthy as we can be for as long as possible, and translate our minds to non-biological platforms if that becomes possible. In the meantime we all need to find meaning and purpose in life, and some peace in the face of inevitable losses and regrets. Transhumanists must find those answers in philosophy or faith.

3) Transhumanists are not really interested in "immortality," but only in reducing unnecessary death.

Many Christians see "immortality" as a heretical or hubristic goal. But transhumanists only want people to be able to live as long as they want to live, and not be limited by premature illness and disability.

Some critics have argued that transhumanism is hubristic, attempting to make Man "godlike." But, as Ted Peters argues, this suggests a non-doctrinal, Greco-Roman theology. No matter how enhanced human beings become they can never challenge the authority of the omnipotent, omniscient God of Abraham. No matter how long humans attempt to live they cannot escape divine judgment or live longer than was divinely planned.

Some Christian critics also argue that radical life extension is selfish, because of the social and ecological consequences of longer lives. We believe that Christians should be more critical of these misanthropic, neo-Malthusian arguments, and that it will be possible to create a sustainable world and flourishing societies with long healthy life spans.

4) Human enhancement technologies, especially neurotechnologies, can support moral behavior and spiritual self-understanding.

The growing understanding of the brain and the biological basis of behavior gives humanity a growing number of tools to treat personality disorders such as inability to concentrate, drug dependence, sexual compulsion, aggression, and neurotic self-absorption. These give suffering people support in avoiding vices and developing their virtues. As we come to understand and control the biological bases of compassion, temperance, equanimity, courage and steadfastness many faithful will apply these technologies to self-perfection. As the sources of religious experience are identified in the brain we will be able to use neurotechnology as a complement and aid in spiritual life.


The Church accepts many medical and psychiatric technologies today that it once viewed with suspicion. We believe that the same will hold true for human enhancement and radical life extension over time. We look forward to continuing the dialogue between the transhumanist movement and the Church in order to understand how to use these new powers to support a flourishing, spiritually fulfilling human future.


These issues are explored more fully in my essay "The Compatibility of Religious and Transhumanist Views of Metaphysics, Suffering, Virtue and Transcendence in an Enhanced Future"

Also see Max More's contribution to the Italian conference, "Why Catholics Should Support the Transhumanist Goal of Extended Life."