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Imago Dei and Trans-Humanism
The understanding of Imago Dei has come under new scrutiny when held up against the movement of Transhumanism which seeks to transform the human through technological means. Such transformation is achieved through pharmacological enhancement, genetic manipulation, nanotechnology, cybernetics, and computer simulation. Transhumanist thought is grounded in optimistic Enlightenment ideals which look forward to the Technological Singularity, a point at which humans engineer the next phase of  human evolutionary development.

Transhumanism’s assertion that the human being exist within the evolutionary processes and that humans should use their technological capabilities to intentionally accelerate these processes is an affront to some conceptions of Imago Dei within Christian tradition. In response, these traditions have erected boundaries in order to establish the appropriate use of trashumanisic technologies using the distinction between therapeutic and enhancement technologies. Therapeutic uses of technology such as cochlear implants, prosthetic limbs, and psychotropic drugs have become commonly accepted in religious circles as means of addressing human frailty. Nevertheless, these acceptable technologies can also be used to elevate human ability. Further, they correct the human form according to a constructed sense of normalcy. Thus the distinction between therapy and enhancement is ultimately questionable when addressing ethical dilemmas.

Human enhancement has come under heavy criticism from Christians; especially the Vatican which condemned enhancement as “radically immoral” stating that humans do not have full right over their biological form. Christians concerns of humans “playing God” are ultimately accusations of Hubris, a criticism that pride leads to moral folly, and a theme which has been interpreted from the Genesis accounts of Adam and Eve and the Tower of Babel. In these stories, God was in no real danger of losing power; however,  Patrick D. Hopkins has argued that, in light of technological advancement, the hubris critique  is changing into a Promethean critique. According to Hopkins, “In Greek myth, when Prometheus stole fire, he actually stole something. He stole a power that previously only the gods had.”

However, within “progressive” circles of Christian tradition transhumanism has not presented a threat but a positive challenge. Some theologians have seen the transhumanist movement as a vehicle by which to re-imagine the Imago Dei. Many of these theologians follow in the footsteps of Donna Haraway's “Cyborg Manifesto.” The manifesto explores the hybridity of the human condition through the metaphor of the cyborg. While the biological flesh/machine cyborg of pop culture is not a literal reality, Haraway uses this fictional metaphor to highlight the way that “all people within a technological society are cyborgs.”

Building off of Haraway’s thesis, Stephen Garner engages the apprehensive responses to the metaphor of the cyborg among popular culture. For Garner, these “narratives of apprehension” found in popular movies and television are produced by “conflicting ontologies of the person.” The cyborg represents a crossing and blurring of boundaries that challenges preconceived notions of personal identity. Therefore, it is understandable that a person’s first reaction to the image of a cyborg would be apprehension. For Garner, the wider scope of Haraway's “cultural cyborg” can be characterized by the term “hybridity.” According to Elaine Graham, hybridity does not only problematize traditional conception of human as the image of God, but also makes terms like “natural” problematic. There is no longer a clear line between the old dualities of human/machine, human/environment, and technology/environment. Brenda Brasher thinks that this revelation of the hybridity of human nature present insurmountable problems for scriptural based theological metaphors bound in “pastoral and agrarian imagery.” Garner, however sees a multitude of metaphors within Christian tradition and scripture that already speak to this reality. He says, that in the three major areas of hybridity in Christianity are eschatology, Christology, and theological anthropology. In eschatology Christians are called to be both in the world but not of the world. In Christology Jesus Christ is a cyborg with his divine/human natures. Finally, in theological anthropology the hybridity of human nature is seen in the concept of the imago of God itself. Humans are both formed “from the dust,” and stamped with the divine image.