The artifice of eternity : transhumanism and theosis

Abstract

The Christian doctrine of theosis teaches that the natural end of creatures is union with the Holy Trinity, the supernatural end of nature – both human and non-human. However, through certain developments in modernity, there occurred a separation of the natural and the supernatural, and later a dualism between nature and culture. In this essay, I argue, on the one side, that a secularised transhumanism can be seen as a parody of theosis, now reframed within this modern bifurcation between nature and supernature, replacing teleology with technical efficiency and the beatific vision with an immanentized eschatology. However, on the other side, I also wager that the figure of the transhuman or posthuman does nevertheless challenge the separation of nature and artifice, the human and non-human, and that rather than continuing this unsustainable division we should resource alternative theological traditions that have blended nature and artifice with the aim of articulating a Christian vision of theandric humanism.