Ex Anthropos: Implications of the Creation of the ‘Posthuman’ for the (Created) ‘Human’
Issue: Vol 26 No. 3 (2013) Rethinking Religion and the Non/Human
Journal: Journal for the Academic Study of Religion
Subject Areas: Religious Studies Buddhist Studies Islamic Studies Biblical Studies
Abstract:
The creation of the ‘posthuman’ impels us to (re)discover what is essentially human; thus our very species, or at least the narratives that comprise it, is at stake. Here, I will develop a theological response to the challenge of the posthuman, ultimately contending that the scientists designing the posthuman overstep creaturely boundaries. This uncouples the link between humanness and creatureliness, and although some try to absorb such statements into the nature of humanness, positing that to be human is to progress and enhance, I shall demonstrate that where the posthuman is concerned, unlike with transhumanism, these tenets are self-defeating. The posthuman surpasses us, yet simultaneously it is projected out of our humanocentric world, ex anthropos. It is deployed as the ‘other’ that allows us to reafrm our creatureliness, which the posthuman, as not created ex nihilo, does not share in.
Author: Scott Midson
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