Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: This article reads contemporary transhumanism through Martin Luther’s theology of the cross, arguing that Christian discernment must resist both uncritical technological optimism and indiscriminate rejection of tools that genuinely serve the neighbor. It distinguishes three projects often collapsed into one moral category: physical accommodations for disabled persons, pastoral and institutional accommodations related to gender dysphoria, and super-human enhancement aimed at surpassing ordinary creaturely limits. Disability accommodation is presented as cruciform hospitality, a structural form of mercy that removes barriers to ordinary participation. Trans-gender accommodations are treated with pastoral nearness and anthropological caution, attending both to human suffering and to the Christian confession of the body as meaningful gift. Super-human enhancement is then critiqued as a renewed theology of glory, a secular soteriology that promises salvation by optimization, control, and eventual escape from vulnerability. Drawing on Luther, Pauline theology, disability theology, and John M. G. Barclay’s account of gift and fitting response, the article proposes a cruciform framework for evaluating technology by telos, anthropology, solidarity, hidden power, and eschatological promise.
Source: Verba Vitae
Author: David Patterson
Institution: Institute of Lutheran Theology
Language: English
Subfield: Philosophy
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W7225455689