Transhumanism as Grace

Speaker 1

The next speaker will be Chris Bradford. Chris was born in Utah but soon moved to Washington, D. C. and then overseas for his father’s employment. He has lived in Egypt, Germany, Jordan, Pakistan, and Italy. Where he served an LDS mission. A self-taught programmer, he manages social and mobile development at Ancestry. com He has a degree from Brigham Young University in linguistics. Chris and wife Lucy have five sons and three daughters. Chris is passionate about science, technology, religion, philosophy, and the performing arts. Chris is a board member and founder of the Morin Transhumanist Association and now our new President. Thank you.

Chris Bradford

Thanks. Three years ago at our conference, Richard Bushman, prominent Mormon historian and biographer of Joseph Smith, asked us. This question during the QA portion of his keynote address: Where is the room for grace in transhumanism? This paper is intended to be a response to Bushman’s question. I want to present a way of thinking about divine grace that embraces transhumanism. As part of the intent of God in transforming the world and humanity.

Chris Bradford

And as I present, I’d like to focus on two framing questions. The first is: to what end? Christianity insists that the world as it currently stands, as it currently is, stands in need of redemption, transfiguration, and salvation. In addition, human nature is to be transformed fully into the image of God. What is the end or the vision of what God intends for humanity and the world? What do we imagine the ultimate condition of humanity will be in the kingdom of God?

Chris Bradford

The second question is: what next? What does God expect us to do with the gift already given? How do we respond to divine grace? And after that, what next?

Chris Bradford

We may think transhumanism is a new thing, but the ideas of transhumanism are not new. Lincoln has already cited some early Mormon thinkers in a transhumanist vein. What is new is our increasing ability to realize the goals of transhumanism. Let me share some non-Mormon, in this case, transhumanists from over 150 years ago.

Chris Bradford

In pre-communist Russia, an Orthodox Christian scholar named Nikolai Fedorov, born in 1829, promoted a great project, what he called the Common Task. In a nutshell, this common task is common to humanity and God: to unite all creation in kinship, including those who have died through their resurrection.

Chris Bradford

Fedorov was very influential in the Russian intellectual community, having influenced Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Vladimir Vernadsky, one of the founders of geochemistry. Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, who was one of the founding fathers of rocketry and space exploration, and the philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev. These and others are counted among the Russian cosmists. Many of Fedorov’s ideas diffused through this community were suppressed during the communist era and are only recently coming to light.

Chris Bradford

Fedorov’s project, while expressed in speculative, philosophical, and religious terms, was highly technological in nature. He promoted pursuing technological means to resurrect all of humanity. The adaptation of the human body to take energy directly from the sun, and changing its form and capabilities to survive outside this planet. and the harnessing of forces to allow humanity to direct the path of the Earth through space like a spaceship. Spaceship Earth indeed.

Chris Bradford

For Fedorov and those he influenced, God needs humanity to complete the divine work begun in creation.

Chris Bradford

Berjayev said, for creative philosophy, truth is not a passive reflection of something. Truth is rather activity in giving meaning to something. Perhaps this is akin to what Jesus meant by saying, I am the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

Chris Bradford

Now naturally, there were critiques of such an approach then as now. In fact, Berdyaev himself and also Sergei Bulgakov offered religious critiques of Fedorov.

Chris Bradford

Bergyaev says, created beings do not create beings. These are created only by God. And every attempt on the part of created beings to create being leads only to the production of an automat, a dead mechanism. Now this suggests that Berdyaev does not see a world of matter constantly infused with divine grace. Rather, he sees a dead world, only occasionally acted upon by the grace of God, independent of human action.

Chris Bradford

Sergei Bulgakov, the Russian Orthodox Christian philosopher and economist, also influenced by Fedorov, but he criticized Fedorov’s view of technological solutions to the common task because it, quote, overemphasizes the potential of humanity by itself and slights the active presence of God in the world. But this also clearly takes a view of God’s grace as something that is only sometimes active in our efforts, rather than as an always enabling presence in whom we live, move, and have our being.

Chris Bradford

And this brings me to one response to these critiques. And it is grace as givenness. Now, Adam Miller, who has also been a keynote speaker at our conference. A Mormon scholar and professor of philosophy at Collin College, in his book, Badiou, Marion, and Saint Paul, Imminent Grace, interacts with the work of continental philosophers, Alain Badiou and Jean-Luc Marion. To propose that grace is the gift of God, whatever God has given us.

Chris Bradford

And I’d like to consider just a few of those gifts that God has given to humanity. In Genesis 1, God creates the world and gives humans dominion. What are God’s expectations of humankind’s dominion? What should that dominion look like? Will our dominion reflect the image of God? We are created in God’s image. Why? One reasonable answer might be in order to act in God’s image. And in these two concepts is centered the Jewish concept of tikkun olam. or repairing or healing the world, the shared responsibility of humanity to heal, repair, and transform the world.

Chris Bradford

More importantly for Christians, God has given us the divine self in Christ. And to what end? In the words of C. S. Lewis, to make us little Christs.

Chris Bradford

But beyond these most significant events of creation and incarnation, God gives us all things. What of the world around us do we see as manifestations of divine grace?

Chris Bradford

Most of you are familiar with the interactions between Mormonism and other Christian denominations, and you’ll know that the question of grace. Has traditionally been a point of contention, with Mormonism being critiqued, often justifiably so, for its lack of emphasis on grace and its emphasis on works. Over the past 25 years or so, Mormon scholars such as Stephen Robinson and Robert Millett have sought to point out both to Mormons and non-Mormons the Mormon doctrines of grace. and to revitalize within Mormon culture the recognition of our dependence on God’s grace.

Chris Bradford

However, the models of grace that these Mormon thinkers have promoted have their shortcomings. In particular, they view grace as occasional, even if frequent, interventions by God. I propose that we should view grace as God’s sustaining of the world.

Chris Bradford

In the words of one of the prophets of the Book of Mormon, God is preserving you from day to day, lending you breath, that you may live and move and do according to your own will, and even supporting you from one moment to another.

Chris Bradford

Acts 17:28 reminds us that we have received and continually received the grace of God in whom we live, move, and have our being. The Doctrine and Covenants describes God as above all things and in all things, and through all things, and round about all things.

Chris Bradford

This view of grace as givenness blurs the distinction between divine and human action. And thus responds to the concerns that human activity can never bring about divine purposes. If we ask to what end God gives divine grace, The answer can only be to bring about the divine purposes.

Chris Bradford

Second Corinthians eight nineteen Speaks of the collection the early saints had taken up for the poor in Jerusalem as grace, demonstrating that a word usually reserved for the acts and gifts of God can be applied to the acts and gifts of human beings.

Chris Bradford

Helaman 12 twenty four. And may God grant that men and women might be brought unto repentance and good works that they might be restored unto grace for grace according to their works.

Chris Bradford

I suggest that this restoration of grace for grace is a distinction that is being called out in Doctrine and Covenants 93. which describes both Christ’s receiving grace for grace and continuing from grace to grace. We are told a few verses later that we can also receive grace for grace until we too receive a fullness of God’s glory.

Chris Bradford

Now, this does not imply that every human action necessarily brings about the will of God, though we may be surprised by what actions can serve God’s purposes. God makes us free.

Chris Bradford

This suggests that seeing grace as givenness is only part of the answer to the questions raised by the great project of the Russian cosmists. We must ask to what end in seeking to understand God’s purposes. And then the additional question, and then what? And after that, then what? And what is the ultimate end of this pursuit? And beyond our duty to the living, what is our duty to the dead?

Chris Bradford

Hebrews 11:40. God having provided some better thing for us, that they, speaking of the Jewish patriarchs, without us should not be made perfect.

Chris Bradford

C. S. Lewis describes what’s next. Christ’s work is to create new humanity, which is not mere improvement, but transformation. Lewis notes that we cannot reliably imagine what this new type of being will truly be like. Singularity?

Chris Bradford

We will be surprised because the means of bringing about the change is an altogether different mechanism than organic evolution. This is still from Lewis. I should expect the next stage in evolution not to be a stage in evolution at all. Should expect that evolution itself as a method of producing change will be superseded. And finally, I should not be surprised if, when the thing happened, very few people noticed that it was happening.

Chris Bradford

Now, I don’t mean to suggest that C. S. Lewis had transhumanism in mind. In fact, there are aspects of transhumanism that he likely would have differed with sharply. However,

Chris Bradford

Four out of five elements of this new creation that he highlights are strangely familiar to transhumanists. It is not carried on by sexual reproduction. It is voluntary, at least in the sense that we may choose to reject it and let the new humanity go on without us. The change happens at an unimaginably quick rate, and the stakes are higher, he says I would venture to say that the survival of humanity may depend upon it.

Chris Bradford

One possible perspective on how this transformation is to come about is that it is purely spiritual in nature. Matter and technology play no role. In fact, this was an alternative approach that was taken by some of these Russian Orthodox successors of Fedorov. We may see divine grace as working in humanity, but would this work utilize coarse matter and technology?

Chris Bradford

David Paulson, Emeritus Professor and Chair of Religious Understanding from Brigham Young University, has done excellent work on the history of Christian teachings regarding divine embodiment. and has influenced Catholic theologian and late professor of religion and philosophy Stephen Webb, who has interacted with Mormon teachings about divine embodiment and the divine potential of matter, of all matter. In a number of books, including Jesus Christ, Eternal God, Heavenly Flesh, and the Metaphysics of Matter.

Chris Bradford

And one of Webb’s insights centers on the Eucharist, on the sacrament. In Catholicism, Webb’s faith tradition, the emblems of the Eucharist become divine, the divine body and blood of Christ. and he contrasts the fairly elaborate ritual of Catholicism with the mundane observance of the sacrament in Mormonism, in which twelve year old boys distribute broken store-bought bread and tap water in plastic trays and cups.

Chris Bradford

However, Webb notes that the simplicity of the Mormon ritual is less a sign that Mormons see matter as merely symbolic, though we do see it as symbolic. Than as a sign that for Mormons all matter is infused with divinity and thereby available for religious purposes.

Chris Bradford

Whether the sacrament of the Eucharist is a significant portion of our worship or not, Christ is the bread of life. And only those who take Christ into their own bodies and therefore transform their lives into the Christ life have eternal life. This act of transforming the mundane world into the divine world depends upon our actions, our partaking.

Chris Bradford

Berdjayev again says, Human creativity is not a claim or a right on the part of man, but God’s claim on and call to man. God awaits man’s creative act. Which is the response to the creative act of God.

Chris Bradford

As new creatures in Christ, we are called to cooperate in the new creation of the world. God needs us to complete the divine work begun in creation, but not because we’re speaking of a withdrawn deistic God. Rather, the purposes of God in the creation include the participation of Christ-infused humanity. To cooperate in the accomplishment of the divine work. And the grace of God is the enabling power we receive to be co-participants.

Chris Bradford

Matthew, and as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven has come. Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead. These miracles to be performed by the disciples of Christ are signs that the kingdom has come.

Chris Bradford

If the kingdom of God has arrived, we have a duty as citizens of the kingdom of God to lift those around us. If it has yet to arrive, we have a duty to work under the guidance of God to bring it about.

Chris Bradford

There’s a difference between the world as it is and the world as it ought to be. God calls us to see the world as it is and to participate in its transformation into the world it ought to be. And it is this very participation enabled by the grace of God that transforms humanity into the image of God.

Chris Bradford

Is it not God’s will that we have churches to worship in? Yet God leaves to us the building of them. Is it not God’s intent that humanity be resurrected and perfected? What of that does God leave to us to do through divine grace?

Chris Bradford

The same bricks used to build the Tower of Babel can be used to build the Temple of God. It is not the art of building nor the materials that makes one profane and the other divine. It is the congruence or incongruence with God’s plan. The Jewish Virtual Library suggests on the Tower of Babel, the sin of these people was not presumption or a desire to reach heaven, but rather an attempt to change the divinely ordained plan for mankind.

Chris Bradford

The great Cosmist Transhumanist Project is coming, whether the Christian Church embraces it or not. Infused with the spirit of Christ, it can build a temple and a kingdom. Without it, it may build only Babel. We need religious transhumanism to build the new Jerusalem rather than Babel.

Chris Bradford

The expansiveness and inclusivity of the religious transhumanist view that adopts the mind of Christ. that allows and looks for the hand and guidance of God among the least of these, my brethren and sisters.

Chris Bradford

The cosmist vision, as articulated by Fedorov, is not individualistic progressivism. On the contrary, his model of the ideal society was the Divine Trinity. We are, and should be, the body of Christ, whose task is the redemption, resurrection, and glorification of the world. If we resist that task or do not participate, can we truly call ourselves members of Christ’s body?

Chris Bradford

The grace of God is the motive force animating us toward the mind and body of Christ. If we are not moved to action to realize this vision, are we truly moved? And if we do not make use of everything given us by God’s grace, what kind of response are we giving God?

Chris Bradford

As the Book of Mormon puts it in a slightly different context, do ye suppose that the Lord will still deliver us while we sit? And do not make use of the means which the Lord has provided for us? Thank you.