Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Enhancement and Christianity

Last week I gave a talk at Oxford on "Human Enhancement and Christianity: A Case of Friendly Fire?" The talk was co-sponsored by the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, the Future of Humanity Institute, and Sophia Europa Oxford. An audio version is available on the Uehiro Centre site or by going directly to this page.

I just sent a text version of the talk, which should be posted on the Uehiro site in the next day or two.

In the talk, I compare the goals of the secular enhancement project with the vision of traditional Christianity, suggesting point by point that the overlap between the two is not just strong but quite overwhelming. Of course, Christians might say that technological enhancement is an illegitimate means to achieve a worthy goal. But the question I pose at the end is whether theology can look at technology as an alien power, or whether it must say that technology is an emerging tool in the hands of the unfailing Creator.

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