Abstract
In presenting Roman Catholicism’s theology of the body as a context for reflecting on our engagement of the broad spectrum of transhumanism, I want to argue first that medicine itself—not Christianity in general, nor Roman Catholicism specifically—has a predilection for dualism. Christianity’s doctrinal interests in embodiment and relationality1 led to its resistance to dualism. In the second part, I present Catholic theological stances toward enhancement that are more favorable than others might suspect. Through embodiment, I raise Catholic relationality concerns that offer enhancement guidance rather than opposition.
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Notes
Gary Ferngren and Darrel Amundsen, “Virtue and Health/Medicine in Pre-Christian Antiquity”, ed. E. Shelp, Virtue and Medicine (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1988), 3–22.
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Richard Zaner, The Context of Self: A Phenomenological Inquiry Using Medicine as a Clue, (Athens, OH: Ohio UP, 1981).
Lori Andrews, “My Body, My Property,” Hastings Center Report 16.5 (1986): 28–38.
See also Courtney Campbell, “Body, Self, and the Property Paradigm,” The Hastings Center Report 22 (1992): 34–43.
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James F. Keenan, “Dualism in Medicine, Christian Theology, and the Aging,” Journal of Religion and Health 35 (1996): 33–45.
See Antoine Vergote, “The Body as Understood in Contemporary Thought and Biblical Categories,” Philosophy Today (1991): 93–105; Gerd Haeffner, The Human Situation: A Philosophical Anthropology (Notre Dame: Notre Dame UP, 1989), 97–116.
Rudolf Bultmann, “Soma,” Theology of the New Testament vol. 1, (London: SCM Press, 1952), 192–203.
Robert Jewett, Paul’s Anthropological Terms (Leiden: Brill, 1971) 1.
E. Earle Ellis, “Soma in First Corinthians,” Interpretation 44 (1990): 132–144;
Normand Bonneau, “The Logic of Paul’s Argument on the Resurrection of the Body in 1 Cor 15: 35–44a,” Science et Esprit 45 (1993): 79–92.
Brian Daley, “The Ripening of Salvation: Hope for Resurrection in the Early Church,” Communio 17 (1990): 32; see also his The Hope of the Early Church (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991).
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Peter Brown, The Body and Society (New York: Columbia, 1988); “Late Antiquity,” ed. P. Veyne, A History of Private Life (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1987), 235–311.
Caroline Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987); Fragmentation and Redemption (New York: Zone Books, 1991).
Michael Barnes, “The Body in the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola,” Religion 19 (1989): 263–273, at 263.
James Nelson, Body Theology (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1992), 9.
See the polemic in Uta Ranke-Heinemann, Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven: Women, Sexuality, and the Catholic Church (New York: Doubleday, 1990).
James Brundage, Law, Sex and Christian Society in Medieval Europe (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 9.
For a history of these “teachings,” see James F. Keenan, “Catholicism, history,” Alan Soble, ed., Sex from Plato to Paglia: A Philosophical Encyclopedia (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2006), 143–153.
Pierre Payer, The Bridling of Desire: Views of Sex in the Later Middle Ages (Toronto: Toronto University, 1993) 14; see also his Sex and the Penitentials: The Development of a Sexual Code, 550–1150 (Toronto: Toronto University, 1984).
James F. Keenan, “Christian Perspectives on the Human Body,” Theological Studies 55 (1994): 330–346.
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Howard Eilberg-Schwartz, “The Problem of the Body for the People of the Book,” People of the Body: Jews and Judaism from an Embodied Perspective (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992), 17–46.
In an analogous way two important religious ethicists address the religious respect due to dead human bodies: see, William F. May, “Attitudes Toward the Newly Dead,” The Hastings Center Studies 1 (1973): 3–13; “Religious Justifications for Donating Body Parts,” The Hastings Center Studies 15 (1985): 38–42;
Leon Kass, “Thinking About the Body,” The Hastings Center Studies, 15 (1985): 20–30.
For a contemporary secularist view of the human body, see Joel Feinberg, “The Mistreatment of Dead Bodies,” The Hastings Center Studies, 15 (1985): 31–37.
Walter Kasper, Jesus the Christ (New York: Paulist Press, 1976), 150.
Karl Rahner, “The Festival of the Future of the World,” Theological Investigations 7 (New York: Herder and Herder, 1971), 183.
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Robinette, Grammars of Resurrection: A Christian Theology of Presence and Absence (New York: Herder and Herder, 2009), 149.
See Ronald Cole-Turner, ed., Transhumanism and Transcendence: Christian Hope in an Age of Technological Enhancement, (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Pres, 2011). See especially the critiques by J. Jeanine Thweatt-Bates (“Artificial Wombs and Cyborg Births: Postgenderism and Theology,” 101–114), Celia Deane-Drummond, “Taking Leave of the Animal? The Theological and Ethical Implications of Transhuman Projects,” 115–130), and Brent Waters (“Whose Salvation? Which Eschatology? Transhumanism and Christianity as Contending Salvific Religions,” 163–176).
James F. Keenan, “What is Morally New in Genetic Engineering?, Human Gene Therapy 1, (1990): 289–298.
Leroy Augenstein, Come, Let Us Play God (New York, Harper and Rowe, 1969);
Ronald Cole-Turner, “Is Genetic Engineering Co-Creation?,” Theology Today 44 (1987): 338–349;
David DeMarco, “Genetic Engineering and the Future of Man,” Homiletic and Pastoral Review 84 (1989): 53–60;
Ted Howard and Jeremy Rifkin, Who Should Play God? (New York, Dell Publishing Co, 1977);
and P. Johnson, “Playing God: Inquiry Into a Slogan,” Linacre Quarterly 50 (1983): 145–152.
Edouard Boné, “Genetic Engineering: How Far May We Go?,” The Month 19 (1986): 288–295;
C. Keith Boone, “Bad Axioms in Genetic Engineering,” Hastings Center Report, 18 (1988): 9–13;
and Richard McCormick, “Genetic Technology and Our Common Future,” America 152 (1985) 337–342.
Josef Fuchs, Christian Morality: The Word Becomes Flesh (Washington, D.C.:Georgetown University Press, 1987).
George Khushf, “Thinking Theologically about Reproductive and Genetic Enhancements: The Challenge,” Christian Bioethics 5/2 (1999):154–182; Paulina Taboada, “Human Genetic Enhancements: Is it really a Matter of Perfection? A Dialog with Hanson, Keenan, and Shuman,” Ibid., 183–196.
Eric Juengst, “Germ-line Gene Therapy: Back to Basics,” The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 16 (1991): 587–592;
Eric Juengst, “Can Enhancement be Distinguished from Prevention in Genetic Medicine?” The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 22 (1999): 127–142;
James F. Keenan, “Genetic Research and the Elusive Body,” Margaret Farley and Lisa Sowle Cahill, eds., Embodiment, Medicine and Morality, (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academics, 1995), 59–73.
Ted Peters, Estuardo Aquilar-Cordova, Cromwell Crawford, Karen Lebacqz, “Religious Traditions and Genetic Enhancement,” B. Andrew Lustig, Baruch Brody, and Gerald McKinney, eds., Altering Nature, Volume Two: Religion, Biotechnology, and Public Policy (New York: Springer, 2008), 109–160.
Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981).
Karl Rahner, “Reflections on the Problem of the Gradual Ascent to Christian Perfection,” Karl Rahner, ed., Theological Investigations, III (Baltimore, Helicon Press, 1967), 3–23;
James F. Keenan, “Whose Perfection Is It Anyway?: A Virtuous Consideration of Enhancement,” Christian Bioethics 5/2 (1997): 104–120.
“Perfection” examples include: Alphonsus Liquori, The Great Means of Salvation and Perfection (St. Louis: Redemptorists Press, 1927);
Alphonsus Rodriguez, The Practice of Perfection and Christian Virtues (Chicago, Loyola University Press, 1929).
Allen Buchanan, Better than Human: The Promise and Perils of Enhancing Ourselves (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012).
Anita Silvers, “A Fatal Attraction to Normalizing: Treating Disabilities as Deviations from Species-typical Functioning,” Erik Parens, ed., Enhancing Human Traits: Conceptual Complexities and Ethical Implications (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown UP, 1999), 95–123.
Mary Jo Iozzio, “Ethical Implications of War-Borne Disabling Casualties,” The Journal of Religion, Disability and Health 12/3 (2008): 287–302.
Ruth Chadwick, “What Counts as Success in Genetic Counseling?,” Journal of Medical Ethics, 19 (1993): 43–46.
Hille Haker, “Ethical Reflections on Genetic Counseling in Prenatal Diagnosis,” Biomedical Ethics, 2 (1997): 78–85.
James F. Keenan, “New Foundations for a Theological Anthropology, 1980–2000,” A History of Catholic Moral Theology in the Twentieth Century: From Confessing Sins to Liberating Consciences (New York: Continuum, 2010), 173–196.
James F. Keenan, “Vatican II and Theological Ethics,” Theological Studies 74/1 (2013): 3–31.
Enrico Chiavacci, “Für eine Neuinterpretation des Naturbegriffs,” Dietmar Mieth, ed., Moraltheolgie im Abseits? Antwort auf die Enzyklika “Veritatis Splendor” (Freiburg: Herder, 1994), 110–128;
Phillip Schmitz, “Natur im öko systematischen Denken,” Bernhard Fraling, ed., Natur im ethischen Argument (Freiburg, Herder, 1990), 110–112.
Klaus Demmer, “Vernunftbegründung und biblische Begründung in der Ethik,” Zeitschrift für Evangelische Ethik 37 (1993): 10–21.
Gerard McKenny, To Relieve the Human Condition (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997).
Gerard McKenny, “Enhancements and the Ethical Significance of Vulnerability,” In Erik Parens, ed., Enhancing Human Traits: Conceptual Complexities and Ethical Implications (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown UP, 1999).
Terence L. Nichols, “Radical Life Extension: Implications for Roman Catholicism,” Derek F. Maher and Calvin Mercer, eds., Religion and the Implications of Radical Life Extension (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 133–144.
John Moreno, Mind Wars: Brain Science and the Military in the Twenty-First Century. (New York: Bellevue Literary Press, 2012), 53–54.
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© 2014 Calvin Mercer and Derek F. Maher
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Keenan, J.F. (2014). Roman Catholic Christianity—Embodiment and Relationality: Roman Catholic Concerns about Transhumanist Proposals. In: Mercer, C., Maher, D.F. (eds) Transhumanism and the Body. Palgrave Studies in the Future of Humanity and Its Successors. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137342768_10
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