Abstract
The Christian doctrine of resurrection of the body is employed to interpret the cryonics program of preserving legally dead people with the plan to restore them when future medicine can effectively address the cause of death. Cryonics is not accepted by mainstream science, and even if the vision is never realized, it is worth the effort to use it as a thought experiment to test the capability of the Christian theological system to address this issue in the unfolding new world of human enhancement. Drawing on the apostle Paul, whose view was based in the Jewish notion of psychosomatic unity, Christian resurrection includes emphases on physicality, radical transformation, and continuity of personal identity. Successful cryonics scenarios can include restoring a person to more or less the same life they had before or, more likely, utilize robotics, tissue regeneration, and other future advances in human enhancement technology to restore one to an enhanced state. Christian resurrection and the more likely cryonics scenario both entail physicality, radical transformation, and continuity of personal identity and, as such, can be understood to be technological expressions of Christian resurrection.
Highlights
Interest in the promising gene editing technique, known as clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR), is just one indicator that we are recognizing, albeit slowly, the dawning of a human enhancement revolution
Resurrection of the body is a Christian doctrine that has emerged as potentially providing a valuable theological framework for understanding some human enhancement technologies (Peters et al 2002; Mercer 2017; Peters 2006, pp. 28–46, 148–50; Steinhart 2014, pp. 84–87, 90–91, 98–100)
Determining if a particular technology can be consistent with Christian theology is a good place to start that process, and that is what this article intends to do with regard to cryonics
Summary
Interest in the promising gene editing technique, known as clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR), is just one indicator that we are recognizing, albeit slowly, the dawning of a human enhancement revolution. In this article I use enhancement to refer to radical transformation as opposed to therapy/healing. The use of cognitive enhancement technologies may speed up the development of other life-extending technologies. Until these extreme longevity technologies are available, some prolongevity advocates think we need stop-gap measures. Our abilities are God-given, nature is a domain of God’s grace, and God can work though radical technologies just like God can work through the hands of the traditional oncologist. In this respect we are created co-creators with God (Hefner 1993).. Determining if a particular technology can be consistent with Christian theology is a good place to start that process, and that is what this article intends to do with regard to cryonics
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