Choosing Within Limits

I have been an on and off fan of Star Trek (and its various versions) over the years. As a kid, the alien enemies scared me: Klingons with their cold, hard, and aggressive logic; the emotional paranoia of the Romulans; and the greed and cowardice of the Ferengi. All of them, I learned to laugh at as I grew older. But the one group that still sends a chill through me is the Borg. They are the race of beings that has incorporated technological enhancements with the physical body, turning themselves into a single living machine controlled with a common consciousness in the Queen Borg. They can live forever, and no one can really stop them.

Now we are seeing science fiction and present-day reality beginning to entwine. The 1999 film The Matrix presented what felt like the very unrealistic idea that machines could eventually dominate and enslave humans. Before that was The Terminator, again the machines taking on their own life and will. Beyond thrilling entertainment, such story telling gets us talking about questions I never heard my grandparents’ generation asking. What does it mean to be human? At what point does technology begin to dehumanize us? And even deeper, just because we can, does it mean we should? Where are the boundaries? And, should there be any limits put on human ambition to take control of our own existence?

Right now, ChatGPT (artificial intelligence) and all its technological cousins seem to be enhancing our lives. But the questions persist: where is it all taking us? Is it leading us to a better place? Are limits always bad? And where is God in all our human advancements?

A lot of questions!

Freedom from Physical Limits?

The term transhumanism is coming up a lot more in online discussions and the news. From what I understand, it is a broad topic under which artificial intelligence (AI) would fall. Its supporters, which I will refer to as transhumanists, are interested in using technology to extend human abilities and capacities, to go beyond biological limitations. They can see a future where humans will slow, reverse, or even eliminate the aging process. They imagine taking evolution to a whole new level by someday merging humans with machines, even getting to the place where a human’s consciousness can be uploaded onto a computer. This is the transhumanist’s idea of eternal life.

The desire to live forever and cheat death is not a new thing. Such a longing is found in writings as old as the Gilgamesh Epic, written around 2100BC. But whereas ponderings on eternal life have traditionally been rooted in spiritual pursuits, the transhumanists have brought it into the materialist’s realm – something we can attain through scientific advancements. They believe we humans can make ourselves eternal, all by ourselves, with our own genius and our own unwavering will.

Creating My Own Identity

The question that is being addressed is, what is a human? The answer the transhumanists (and many other groups) are giving is this: anything we want to be. It comes down to a single word: identity. More and more people are believing we each create our own selfhood, and there are no limits on what we can become.

The human will is powerful (just watch a two year old for a while). But does the power of my ability to choose have limitations? I agree that I can decide which direction I go, what I am going to do, and many aspects of what I am going to become. But can I really decide and create my own core identity, so that I become a machine with a human consciousness? A different gender? An animal?

“But I decide who I am,” someone might say. I would respond: “Yes and no.”

Some Things are Already Set

For a follower of Jesus, to be made in God’s image means my purpose and ultimate identity have already been decided. There are choices that have already been made for me by my Maker. I have already been told what is ultimately valuable – God Himself, maker of heaven and earth. I have already been told who I am meant to be – a child of God and Heavenly Father. And there are many other things that are already set. Try as I may, I cannot change the essence of what God meant for me to be. I can choose to reject the framework I have been given and try to make myself into something that was never intended. But in the end, it leads only to confusion and futility.

The atheistic French existentialist, Jean Paul Sartre summed up the will to be whatever a person chooses to be with the  phrase “Existence precedes Essence.” In other words, individuals first simply exist (kind of like a blank slate). They then are free to create their own meaning, their own sense of identity, their own core essence (whatever they want to write on that slate). Then that is who or what they are responsible for living out – nothing more. Sartre encouraged resistance to anything that tries to impose meaning on people from outside themselves (especially religion and God). The fruit of philosophies like this is what we are seeing manifested today. Freedom! No boundaries! I am my own god!

My Desires are Not Meant to be My King

Transhumanism and atheistic existentialism are natural results of making our own desires Lord of all. But this idea that “I should not have to live with restrictions” affects us all, even followers of Jesus. The words “obey” and “submit” convey two of the most unpopular ideas in our culture. And Christ followers are easily sucked into expressions of faith that are mere wallpapering over the belief that I am my own god.

To be human is to be made in the image of God, male and female (Genesis 1:26-27). To be redeemed as humans is to be made sons and daughters of God (John 1:12). The Borg is not our future, though we may try. Human consciousness in a computer is not what is intended for humanity, though that may be the only hope of eternal life for some. Creating my own essence is not how I will experience true freedom (for I have already been given an essence from my Maker). I need boundaries, the ones my Heavenly Father give to shape me into who and what He meant me to be. My choice lies in whether to cooperate with Him or rebel.

And rebellion does not end well.

The most succinct way I have heard it put is this: There is ONE God, and you are not Him.

Rejoice in His limits.

Response:

• Where am I in danger of letting technology take over my humanness?
• What are ways that I resist boundaries that are meant to shape who I am?
• How might God want to use restrictions and limits to show me where my true value lies?
• How am I seeking eternal life for myself?
• Jesus, show me what it means to be the fully human being that you have intended from the beginning.