Re-Enchanting the Human in an Era of Naturalism*

Abstract

Christians today are encountering new technologies such as gene editing via CRISPR-Cas9, designer babies, and anti-aging medical technology. These technical efforts are designed to enhance the physical properties of humans. Should we be vigilant about any aspects of these new technologies? Are we happy with these technologies? No, we are not happy about all of these developments. We need to critically examine some of the philosophical ideas embedded in the development and application of these technologies. This article aims to rebut the mechanical understanding of the human being that is implicitly embedded in the discourse on the technology. The author proposes naturalism as the cause of the emergence of the mechanical understanding of the human being, which has led to the reduction and negation of the nonphysical aspects of human existence. Due to the elimination of the universal and nonphysical reality of the meaning, value, and telos of human existence and the reduction of such realities to physical reality, what is valuable, meaningful, and good has become limited to that which is involved with something physical. In this way, technology has come to be very important, and the act of thinking has been reduced to the act of technical reasoning. Thus, the human being is construed as a purely physical, mathematical, and geometrical being-as a machine. In order to retrieve a holistic understanding of the human, therefore, it is necessary to reject the reduction of the nonphysical to the physical and thereby retrieve the inherent nonphysical aspects of the human being. This effort will help to re-enchant human beings and to provide theological and ethical rationale for preventing imprudent technological development and its application to humans.