Shall We Sanctify Ourselves with Biomedical Technology? A Reformed Appraisal of Moral Bioenhancement

ABSTRACT

This paper attempts to develop a constructive dialogue between moral bioenhancement and Reformed theology of sanctification. According to Reformed theology, human beings are first sanctified by God objectively (passive sanctification) and consequently seek subjectively for their own growth in moral life (active sanctification). Moral bioenhancement and sanctification, thus, share a commonality, that is, emphasizing moral betterment. As such, to the extent that passive sanctification is not obliterated but rather prioritized, moral bioenhancement can be viewed as a consequence of a good work performed freely by the sanctified person to seek for moral growth in the imitation of Christ.

KEYWORDS:

• Active sanctification
• Christian morality
• enhancement
• Herman Bavinck
• imitation of Christ
• moral perfection
• passive sanctification
• reformed theology

Transhumanism has sparked much scholarly interest in exploring human nature. It holds true for transhumanists that human nature is not fixed but open-ended. Max More and Natasha Vita-More contend that transhumanism seeks to go beyond the current form of humanity and attempts to enhance human conditions through science and technology.¹ In this light, it can be argued that central to transhumanism is human enhancement, which, transhumanists believe, can be achieved through technoscientific advances.

The transhumanist view of human enhancement forces us to reconsider the meaning of being human. In this respect, many scholars pay heed to the human body. Ray Kurzweil, for example, suggests that humans will finally transcend the biological condition and obtain immortality.² The transhumanist stance on human enhancement is not restrained within the confines of the physical aspect of humanity; instead, it opens up the way to justify the use of biomedical technology, e.g. genetic interventions, in enhancing morality by improving and changing the human biological condition, which means to remake human beings more moral. Some recent biomedical studies are drawn in support. With functional magnetic resonance imaging, for example, William Cunningham and his colleagues show that amygdala—a brain region associated with emotion—plays a significant role in white people's racial aversion.³ Kurzban Zak and his colleagues demonstrate that endogenous oxytocin is concerned with the human reception of trust and thus with social behaviors.⁴

Much ink has been spilled on moral bioenhancement and concomitant philosophical and ethical questions. This paper sets out to construct a theological approach to moral bioenhancement through the lens of the Christian idea of sanctification, seeking to inquire into whether or not human sanctification is compatible with human personal choice of moral bioenhancement. I wish to focus on Reformed theology of sanctification: human beings are first sanctified by God objectively (passive sanctification) and consequently seek subjectively for their own growth in moral life (active sanctification). In this light, moral bioenhancement and sanctification share a commonality, that is, laying emphasis on moral betterment. Yet, they differ in their approaches to enhancing morality. While Reformed theology of sanctification accentuates the precedence of God's sanctification over human subjective efforts, moral bioenhancement prioritizes the role that humans can play in their own moral growth. This essential distinction between moral bioenhancement and sanctification does not necessarily give rise to an either-or situation. To the extent that passive sanctification is not obliterated but rather prioritized, moral bioenhancement can be theologically received from the perspective of active sanctification—that is, moral bioenhancement can be viewed as a consequence of a good work performed freely by the sanctified person to seek for moral growth in the imitation of Christ.

In what follows, I will first assess moral bioenhancement, bringing to light its emphasis on a subjectivist approach to morality, which will open up a way to develop a theological engagement with moral bioenhancement from a dogmatic perspective. Following this, I will sketch Reformed theology of sanctification to work out such an engagement. In particular, I will engage with the turn-of-the-century Dutch Neo-Calvinist theologian Herman Bavinck (1854–1921), diving into his theology of sanctification which examines human moral life in view of the balance between active and passive sanctification. Third, in view of active sanctification, I will propose four theses to develop a constructive account of the theological reception of moral bioenhancement.

Moral Bioenhancement: Moral Betterment

Over the past two decades, many proponents of moral enhancement have taken pains to respond to relevant objections, be they philosophical, ethical, or religious. Of these scholars, Thomas Douglas is one of the first proponents of moral enhancement.

With an emphasis on motives, Douglas defines “moral enhancement” as follows: “A person morally enhances herself if she alters herself in a way that may reasonably be expected to result in her having morally better future motives, taken in sum, than she would otherwise have had.”⁵ By arguing so, he attends to the multiplicity of motives, the consequences of moral action, and the possibilities of both biological and nonbiological approaches to moral enhancement.⁶ Accordingly, despite his approval of moral bioenhancement, Douglas does not absolutize the use of biomedical technology in human moral life. Neither does he completely object to enhancing morality through the traditional methods of moral education. To his mind, moral bioenhancement is a supplement to the methods that humans can use for their moral development. Douglas's endorsement of moral bioenhancement is largely reliant upon his philosophy of mind. He contends that moral psychology can be altered by biological interventions due to the close connection between the mind and the brain.⁷ As such, moral bioenhancement per se is not evil and its legitimacy rests in how it is deployed. Moral bioenhancement can be used in a positive sense, that is, leading to the formation of better motives. “Whether we could permissibly develop or permit the use of moral enhancement technologies might … depend on a weighing of the possible good uses of those technologies against the possible bad ones.”⁸

While Douglas illustrates moral bioenhancement with an eye to motives, Ingmar Persson and Julian Savulescu, who are the most prominent proponents of and greatly intensify the debates over moral bioenhancement, emphasize the role that moral bioenhancement can play in the betterment of moral dispositions, including, inter alia, altruism, gratitude, senses of cooperation and justice.

Persson and Savulescu's endorsement of moral bioenhancement rests with their vision of the outcome of contemporary technoscientific advances. They are worried that the exponential growth in knowledge and the advance of science and technology can empower any individual to perform gravely immoral actions, which result in the dramatic destruction of the human community, such as nuclear warfare, ecological crises, biological and chemical weapons. After all, the development of human moral capacities lags behind technoscientific advancements, and moral bioenhancement can serve to close the gap between morality and scientific knowledge.⁹ All the more salient is that they reckon moral bioenhancement as compulsory and imperative.

But our knowledge of human biology, in particular of genetics and neurobiology, is now beginning to supply us with means of directly affecting the biological or physiological bases of human motivation, e.g. by the use of pharmacological and genetic methods, like genetic selection and engineering. We shall suggest that there are in principle no philosophical or moral objections to the use of such biomedical means of moral enhancement—moral bioenhancement, as we shall call it—and that the current predicament of humankind is so serious that it is imperative that scientific research explore every possibility of developing effective means of moral bioenhancement, as a complement to traditional means.¹⁰

Two observations can be made in reference to this passage. Firstly, Persson and Savulescu are convinced that biotechnological and medical interventions can enhance human morality to such an extent that the catastrophes, which are probably to be caused by technoscientific advances, can be ruled out. Biomedical means can radically change and consequently improve the human moral condition. Secondly, while underlining the imperativeness of moral bioenhancement, Persson and Savulescu do not dismiss traditional means of moral education. Nonetheless, they argue that contemporary technoscientific advances make moral bioenhancement a necessary, prioritized way to deal with the current predicament of human beings than the traditional means of moral formation. This is so because “human beings now have at their disposal means of wiping out life on Earth and that traditional methods of moral education are probably insufficient to achieve the moral enhancement required to ensure that this will not happen.”¹¹

Persson and Savulescu make it clear that moral bioenhancement serves as a radical and indispensable instrument through which to remade humans fit for the future. In this connection, they register the idea of God Machine, meaning “the most powerful, self-learning, self-developing bioquantum computer.”¹² They argue that, with the development of technoscience, God Machine will be created to supervise the morality of every individual person and be capable of changing, transforming the human thoughts, intentions, desires, and beliefs within nanoseconds under any circumstances, regardless of human consciousness.¹³ Moreover, they illustrate the modus operandi of God Machine as follows.

The God Machine was designed to give human beings near complete freedom. It only ever intervened in human action to prevent great harm, injustice, or other deeply immoral behaviour from occurring. … The God Machine would not intervene in trivial immoral acts, like minor instances of lying or cheating. Only when a threshold insult to some sentient being's interests was crossed would the God Machine exercise its almighty power.¹⁴

From this vantage point, it can be argued that Persson and Savulescu intend to create moral transhumans, who have better moral dispositions and abstain from any immoral actions that may result in catastrophes to the human community.

Parker Crutchfield's latest study is packed with Persson and Savulescu's concern about the future of humankind and their endorsement of moral bioenhancement. With an emphasis on the public good and altruism, Crutchfield attempts to demonstrate that, given various human moral deficiencies, moral bioehancement is of great importance for the elimination of many human collective risks, such as pandemic, climate change, and war, which easily result in societal collapse.¹⁵ In fact, Crutchfield stretches Persson and Savulescu's stance to the extent that moral bioenhancement must be complusory for two reasons. Firstly, traditional methods of moral education are too slow to effectively give shape to individual and collective moral knowledge of the duty to prevent suffering. Secondly, humans are reluctant to increase such moral knowledge to secure the public good unless they can obtain greater benefits.¹⁶ He then arrives at the corollary:

The problem of acting in ways that contribute to the public good is not purely a moral problem. It is also an epistemic problem, an epistemic problem that won't be overcome without the aid of moral bioenhancement. Not only are we not good enough people to act collectively to secure a public good, we are also not knowledgeable enough.¹⁷

Crutchfield's pessimism about human nature and human morality underpins his claim that we should create moral post-persons. Specifically, by virtue of their superior moral knowledge and greater moral capacities, moral post-persons are far more competent in advancing the public good and refraining from harm to the human community.¹⁸

Through the analysis of the above arguments made by the leading proponents of moral bioenhancement, three commonalities and idiosyncrasies on this front come to the fore: (1) biomedical technology as pragmatically instrumental and morally neutral; (2) the dominant role of human subject in morality; and (3) overemphasis on the biological condition of human beings in moral growth. These three common traits are, on the one hand, the occasions by which some scholars level challenges against moral bioenhancement and, on the other hand, set the scene for an interdisciplinary dialogue between Reformed theology of sanctification and moral bioenhancement.

Being characteristic of the proponents of moral bioenhancement is, firstly, the stance that biomedical technology is only a morally neutral instrument. Whether the deployment of a particular biomedical technology in moral enhancement is moral has nothing to do with that technology itself but completely depends on the human being. In this way, it is implied that there is no essential moral connection between the human being and biomedical technology. Yet, this stance has already been disputed in contemporary philosophy of technology. Martin Heidegger contends that the general view of technology as neutral makes us blind to the fact that the essence of technology is not technological.¹⁹ He maintains that technology is tied up with “a way of revealing,” which refers to the realm of truth.²⁰ As such, the human being must be, first of all, open to the essence of technology insofar as technology significantly contributes to the formation of the meaning of being human.²¹ Viewed in this light, the essence of biomedical technology is not morally neutral, and biomedical technology exerts an impact on the human being. Moral bioenhancement presupposes the morality that is embedded within the way by which biomedical technology is used. Rather than taking the use of biomedical technology for granted in terms of morality, the proponents of moral bioenhancement must, first of all, morally vindicate the use of certain biomedical technologies in the development of human morality.

The debate over freedom is a case in point with reference to the moral vindication of biomedical technology. As noted above, whilst raising the idea of God Machine, Persson and Savulescu are aware of the issues concerning freedom. Nonetheless, they do not offer a convincing explanation to how God Machine and other biological interventions into human moral life do not infringe on human freedom. Crutchfield even contends that moral bioenhancement outweighs freedom precisely because producing moral post-humans are more important and urgent.²² On this connection, John Harris's observation is still on the mark:

The proper analogy with the God Machine is selling or giving yourself into slavery, a condition which is open-ended and potentially endless. The rule of the God Machine is literally the rule of a slave-owning tyrant, which, as Julian and Ingmar admit, with magisterial understatement, does ‘compromise autonomy.’²³

As will be seen, Reformed theology of sanctification can provide a lens through which moral bioenhancement is considered not to undermine human freedom but a consequence of a good work performed freely by a sanctified person.

The second characteristic feature of moral bioenhancement is that its proponents are preoccupied with the role that the human agent can play in human moral growth. In some sense, they seem to identify the human being as the only factor in moral issues. They are convinced that the proper use of biomedical technology by human beings in enhancing human conditions must eventually lead to moral enhancement. To be sure, this second feature is the consequence of the first one. Inmaculada de Melo-Martín rightly notes that the proponents of moral bioenhancement

regularly present technological advances as value-neutral, and thus ignore the role that social, political, and ethical values have in the development of biomedical technologies as well as their effect on what we can choose what we might think is morally permissible, and what we value.²⁴

Accordingly, human moral life is contextually determined, and the human being can in no way is the sole cause of moral bioenhancement. De Melo-Martín arrives at the corollary: “that morality is context-dependent and that legitimate disagreements can exist about whether particular actions, motivations, or dispositions are right or wrong, permissible or impermissible, makes the whole project [of moral bioenhancement] even more hopeless.”²⁵ The idea of contextually based morality raises a question concerning how Reformed theology of sanctification constructs a context where morality can be enhanced. We will turn to this subject later on.

The third idiosyncrasy of moral bioenhancement is its overemphasis on human biological conditions, resulting in the biologization of morality. It is arguable that the proponents of moral bioenhancement adopt reductive physicalism such that nonphysical properties of human morality are reduced to biological particulars. As a result, moral bioenhancement more often than not gives one an impression that, with biomedical interventions, human morality can be radically, if not completely, enhanced. Celia Deane-Drummond takes issue with such biologization of morality. She argues that racist prejudices cannot be simply considered to be caused by visceral reactions insofar as human psychological makeup cannot be reduced to biological traits but rather is relevant to a richer bio-cultural evolution.²⁶

Harris Wiseman offers a more detailed analysis of this biologization of morality. In light of moral bioenhancement, he argues,

Evil and criminality … is not a person's fault, but an epiphenomenon, or phenotypic expression of a deeper biological malfunction. … Above all, evil, when described as a physiological breakdown, brings with it the implication that deviant behaviour can be controlled, not by the agents themselves, who are no longer regarded as agents, but by medical professionals who alone comprehend the biological or psychological mechanisms at hand.²⁷

Wiseman suggests that this biologization of morality, de facto, displays a mechanistic flavor. Humans are viewed as “biological mechanisms,” and their moral issues can be fixed by repairing specific and separate biomechanical parts.²⁸ In so arguing, the proponents of moral bioenhancement trivialize the victory of the good and induce one to conclude that moral issues and evils can be easily overcome.²⁹ For Wiseman, this trivialization, which stems from the biologization of morality, is the “worst sin of all.”³⁰ In any case, moral formation is complex since “[m]oral living is always responsive to context and most moral activity must be shaped in relation to the situation in which one's actions are expressed.”³¹ In short, both Deane-Drummond and Wiseman remind us that, although immoral actions partly have their biological causes, it is nevertheless exaggerated to say that morality can be completely biologized.

Moral bioenhancement is rooted in the conviction that biomedical technologies can lead to moral betterment. The above three idiosyncrasies are interconnected and can serve as the starting points of the dialogue between Reformed theology of sanctification and moral bioenhancement. Before turning to a constructive dialogue, I proceed to shed light on Reformed theology of sanctification with focus on Bavinck's stance.

Reformed Theology of Sanctification

The idea of sanctification occupies a critical place in Reformed theology and can serve as a joint point to integrate dogmatics with ethics. John Calvin argued that human beings experience sanctification given by God through their communion with Christ and must, at the same time, strive for sanctification throughout the rest of their life.³² Hence, sanctification not only is relevant to the doctrine of God's salvation but also lays a foundation for Christian morality. In like manner, Francis Turretin (1623–1687), a leading Reformed scholastic theologian, defined sanctification as the “internal renovation” of human beings made by God in Christ, which underpins the human gradual change into the image of God.³³ It is apparent that, from its early days, Reformed theology has paid heed to the twofold dimension of sanctification, which brings together God's redemptive work and human moral efforts. In what follows, I will analyze Bavinck's theology of sanctification, which unfolds this twofold dimension and consequently furnishes a helpful point of departure for the dialogue between theology and moral bioenhancement.

Bavinck maintains that God's plan of redemption includes both sanctification and glorification. God not just delivers humans from sins but also saves them from all consequences of sin.³⁴ In this light, for Christians, holiness is both a gift and a reward. As a gift, holiness is given by God to humans so that humans can become God's children. As a reward, holiness refers to “the progression of sanctification or consecration to God.”³⁵ All the more important is that sanctification as both gift and reward is given in Christ who is the holiness and righteousness of human beings. Specifically,

in Christ God grants us, along with righteousness, also complete holiness, and does not just impute it but also inwardly imparts it by the regenerating and renewing working of the Holy Spirit until we have been fully conformed to the image of his Son.³⁶

Following this, Bavinck sheds light on how this Christocentrism gives rise to the twofold dimension of sanctification, namely, passive and active sanctification.

Bavinck argues that passive sanctification refers to the fact that Christians “are sanctified in Christ Jesus,” which carries the primary connotation that “believers are set apart from the world and placed in a special relationship with God.”³⁷ By characterizing passive sanctification as relational, Bavinck intends to stress the divine initiative in human sanctification, all the more so when he claims that “in and through [Christ] God regulates the relationship between him and his people.”³⁸ Mention needs to be made of the distinction between justification and passive sanctification. According to Bavinck, both justification and passive sanctification are grounded in the divine initiative and have nothing to do with human efforts. Yet, justification is forensic and means the forgiveness of sin in God's presence.³⁹ By contrast, derived from human sanctification is the ethical significance which is rooted in their new relationship with God and underpinned by the work of the Holy Spirit. That is, with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the sanctified person is placed in the progress of glorification and increasingly transformed to “the image of the Son” throughout the rest of their life until the Parousia.⁴⁰ In this sense, as Richard Lints remarks, “sanctification is about the ongoing restoration of the relationship with God by the person of the Holy Spirit.”⁴¹ This ongoing restoration of the relationship has the image of Jesus Christ as the telos and must have a significant bearing on human growth in moral life, which is bound up with active sanctification. In other words, like moral bioenhancement, the idea of sanctification is embedded with the vision of moral betterment.

Bavinck makes it clear that passive sanctification takes precedence over active sanctification insofar as God's initiative always comes before human responses.

Sanctification … is not exhausted by what is done for and in believers. Granted, in the first place it is a work and gift of God (Phil. 1:5; 1 Thess. 5:23), a process in which humans are passive … But based on this work of God in humans, it acquires, in the second place, an active meaning, and people themselves are called and equipped to sanctify themselves and devote their whole life to God (Rom. 12:1; 2 Cor. 7:1; 1 Thess. 4:3; Heb. 12:14; and so forth). In fact, this active sanctification coincides with what is called “continued repentance,” which … consists in the dying-away of the old self and the coming-to-life of the new self.⁴²

Three points stand out in this passage. Firstly, active sanctification has a definite purpose, which can be achieved in a specific way. That is, the sanctified persons should “devote their whole life to God” through the “dying-away of the old self and the coming-to-life of the new self.” In this sense, active sanctification follows passive sanctification as the latter's consequence. At the same time, active sanctification proves that passive sanctification has transformed humans to be capable of living out moral life. Bavinck reformulates this idea as follows: “Those who are born of God increasingly become the children of God and bear his image and likeness, because in principle they already are his children. The rule of organic life applies to them: Become what you are!”⁴³ Underlying this sentiment is Bavinck's theology of the imitation of Christ, that is, as noted earlier, being transforming into and putting on the image of the Son. Hence, he argues elsewhere that humans can perform active sanctification in their imitation of Christ.⁴⁴ As will be illustrated in detail, being sanctified in the imitation of Christ radically distinguishes sanctification from moral bioenhancement but at the same time provides a context where moral bioenhancement can be theologically appropriated.

Secondly, active sanctification confirms the value of good works and moral efforts that the human being performs in practice. Bavinck's claim that the sanctified people are called to sanctify themselves shows that their moral life is valuable in the progress of sanctification. “Sanctification,” Bavinck argues, “manifests itself in good works, which … arise from the principle of a true faith, conform to the law of God, and are done for his glory.”⁴⁵ This true faith is the sanctified person's assent to “a practical knowledge of the grace that God has revealed in Christ, a heartfelt trust that he has forgiven all our sins and accepted us as his children.”⁴⁶ As such, all human action that is derived from such a practical knowledge and trust is part of human sanctification. From this vantage point, it can be argued that, if being defined as such a faithful action, then moral bioenhancement can be viewed as one of many good works that the sanctified persons can perform in the course of their active sanctification. We will explore this subject in the next section.

Thirdly, active sanctification is holistic and yet cannot be completed in this world. Bavinck construes active sanctification as the progress from the old self to the new self. The term “self” indicates a holistic implication that active sanctification involves the whole human person, both the spiritual and the physical.

They must keep their entire spirit, soul, and body blameless in sanctification until the day of the Lord Jesus Christ (Eph. 1:4; Phil. 2:15; 1 Thess. 3:13; 5:23). Though they are in the flesh and continually have to battle against the flesh (1 Cor. 3:1; Gal. 5:17) … still they are called to purify themselves from all pollution of flesh and spirit, to present their bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God (Rom. 12:1; 2 Cor. 7:1), to crucify the flesh with all its passions and desires, to present their members as instruments of righteousness (Rom. 6:13; Gal. 5:24), not to sin but to overcome the world, to keep God's commandments, to purify themselves, and to walk in the light (1 John 1:7; 2:1; 3:6, 9; 5:4; etc.).⁴⁷

On the one hand, unlike the biologization of moral bioenhancement, Bavinck makes it plain that active sanctification has close ties to both the spiritual and the physical dimensions of the human being. On the other hand, his attention to the body in his holistic construal of active sanctification would strike a chord with the proponents of moral bioenhancement, who underline the enhancement of the human biological condition.

Bavinck contends that this holistic sanctification cannot be completed in this life. He emphatically opposes perfectionism, which advocates that the sanctified person can attain moral perfection in this world. Rather, he maintains that moral perfection is a reward that is given by God to the sanctified person at the eschaton.⁴⁸

Through the above analysis of Bavinck's passive and active sanctification, it comes to the fore that he vindicates the due place of human efforts in human sanctification as moral life driven by grace and the work of the Holy Spirit. In the following section, I will trade on Bavinck's dual dimension of sanctification to establish a constructive dialogue between Christian faith and moral bioenhancement.

Moral Bioenhancement as Active Sanctification

Whilst examining moral bioenhancement from the perspective of Christian faith, D. Gareth Jones brings the religiousness of moral bioenhancement into the foreground. He argues that the

attempt to transform people mechanistically is a manifestation of a quasi-religious faith that scientific knowledge is the only legitimate form of knowledge. The message of moral bioenhancement is that everything about human life is confined to the physical, including moral behavior.⁴⁹

Viewed in this light, moral bioenhancement is considered to be grounded in a conviction that religion and morality can be reduced to physical properties with technoscience. In this way, there are irreconcilable tensions between Christianity and moral bioenhancement. Yet, the relationship between religion and moral bioenhancement can be formulated from a different perspective: “Technology is itself a medium of divine action.”⁵⁰ As such, biomedical technology, which is used for moral enhancement, can be considered a medium of sanctification initiated by God.⁵¹ But how?

While expounding on the sense in which moral bioenhancement is an instrument to attain sanctification, we need to chew over a guiding principle that is laid down by Philip Hefner for transhumanism, in order to refrain from blurring the boundaries between sanctification and moral bioenhancement. Hefner alerts us to the difference between upper-case transhumanism and lower-case transhumanism. The former is an ideology, challenging the Christian faith along with its doctrines, whereas the latter refers to the use of technology to cope with our medical issues so as to mitigate or overcome our sufferings. As noted at the beginning, transhumanism creates a philosophical context for moral bioenhancement. As such, Hefner's nuanced understanding of upper-case and lower-case transhumanism works in the dialogue between sanctification and moral bioenhancement. Specifically, moral bioenhancement cannot be regarded as an ideology but serves as an instrument through which to paraphrase sanctification in the context of technoscience. From the vantage point of this guiding principle, I register four theses to elucidate the dialogue between moral bioenhancement and sanctification. It is worth noting that the four theses should be read together. Thesis 1 lays a theological foundation for the reception of moral enhancement through the lens of active sanctification. Thesis 2 sets forth the principle (the imitation of Christ) of and the context where moral bioenhancement takes place. Thesis 3 clarifies how the principle justifies the use of moral bioenhancement. Thesis 4 issues a caveat in order to eschew a theologically optimistic position toward moral bioenhancement.

Thesis 1: moral bioenhancement has nothing to do with passive sanctification but can be a part of active sanctification.

Both moral bioenhancement and sanctification emphasize human moral betterment. Yet, they differ in that sanctification is twofold, whereas moral bioenhancement is one-dimensional. Sanctification is both divine and human and, in Bavinck's language, implies both “God's all-encompassing activity and our responsibility.”⁵² Although Reformed theology of sanctification prioritizes passive sanctification accomplished by God over active sanctification performed by humans throughout the rest of their life, passive and active sanctification together depict the scenery of sanctification. By contrast, moral bioenhancement occupies itself with human moral efforts that are performed through biomedical technology.

It suffices to say that the moral connotation carried by sanctification is much broader and richer than that by moral bioenhancement. Given the stratification of sanctification, we need to figure out which layer of sanctification moral bioenhancement can be categorized into. Recalling Hefner's guiding principle and with an eye to the moral efforts made by humans, it stands to reason that moral bioenhancement is bracketed out of passive sanctification and can be viewed as one of many optional approaches to active sanctification. From this stance, we can derive two implications. Firstly, moral bioenhancement and Christian faith is not so mutually exclusive as one might imagine, and Reformed theology of active sanctification furnishes a workable point of contact between them. In particular, since active sanctification emphasizes both the spiritual and the physical dimensions of the human being, moral bioenhancement could become a physical apparatus to undergird Christian growth in holiness. Secondly, passive sanctification is always underlying moral bioenhancement while considering the use of biomedical technology a way of active sanctification. That is to say, unlike Persson, Savulescu and Crutchfield's appeal to compulsory moral bioenhancement, passive sanctification connects moral bioenhancement to the human work of sanctification without absolutizing it as the only approach to sanctifying Christian life.

In short, biomedical technologies used for moral enhancement can only be placed within the orbit of the moral efforts performed by humans to sanctify themselves provided that they have already been sanctified by God in Jesus Christ.⁵³ In other words, moral bioenhancement can be a part of active sanctification but has nothing to do with passive sanctification. After all, like justification, passive sanctification is initiated by God alone, and, as such, moral bioenhancement can add nothing to passive sanctification as well as justification.

Thesis 2: the imitation of Christ is the context where moral bioenhancement takes place.

The first thesis has theologically justified the possible application of biomedical technologies in Christian moral life through the angle of active sanctification. Its emphasis on passive sanctification as the foundation yields the second thesis, which turns our attention to the relationship between the imitation of Christ and moral bioenhancement. As noted earlier, Reformed theology of sanctification accentuates that sanctification is made by God in Christ and that the sanctified persons are being transformed into the image of God. Bavinck capitalizes on the idea of the imitation of Christ to concatenate these two points: humans are sanctified for the imitation of Christ and sanctify themselves through the imitation of Christ. In this light, the imitation of Christ is the context where active sanctification and moral bioenhancement alike take place.

The imitation of Christ as the context for the use of biomedical technologies is of great importance to moral bioenhancement. The proponents of moral bioenhancement take the idea of enhancement for granted. However, the connotation of the term “enhancement” remains to be uncovered. To what extent can we say the use of a particular biomedical technology in enhancing morality is moral? What does theology can offer to prevent moral bioenhancement from being at an individual's disposal? To answer these questions, we should recall the characteristic feature of sanctification. G. C. Berkouwer argues that “the sanctification of believers is never an independent area of human activity.”⁵⁴ In like manner, Michael Allen contends, “Sanctification is a gift and an action from God upon and to us, and it cannot be reduced to an area of our self-formation or soul-care.”⁵⁵ Hence, as noted in thesis 1, active sanctification, including moral bioenhancement, depends upon what God has accomplished and wants humans to be in Jesus Christ. Ronald Cole-Turner's clarification on enhancement is worth noting:

For the Christian … the decision about what counts as an enhancement is not based on personal preference but on accepting the truth that our lives are already being transformed in what must be called “salvation.” Our true enhancement is not defined by individual preference but by the standard of what God is doing to transform us. Though the individual Christian must consent to salvation, individuals are never consulted about where it takes us or what it means to be saved. Salvation … is expressly not the fulfillment of our desires for ourselves. It is the replacement of our desire for the self with a desire for God.⁵⁶

Accordingly, the meaning of moral enhancement is theologically determined by God's salvation in Christ. Moral bioenhancement can be theologically validated provided that the imitation of Christ serves as its foundation—that is, moral bioenhancement is used for the transformation of the sanctified persons into the image of Christ.

Having the imitation of Christ as the context is, de facto, in tune with Harris Wiseman's integral approach to moral bioenhancement. As noted earlier, Wiseman argues that the contemporary proponents of moral bioenhancement mistakenly biologize morality. Nonetheless, he does not thoroughly repudiate moral bioenhancement. Wiseman suggests that biomedical technology can help to create “a general biological context,” where “a particular value or moral good [can] be sharpened into the fine-grained, enacted, conceptually formed, idiosyncratically specific value or moral good that a culture or group recognizes it to be.” Moreover, the integration of biomedical technology with a particular moral good happens within a community and is consequently conducive to the formation and development of communal identities and the actualization of the community's moral vision.⁵⁷ Seen from this perspective, moral bioenhancement that is centered on the imitation of Christ can construct a biological context for the development of the Christian's identity as the sanctified person within the faith community.

To sum up, the imitation of Christ is the theological parameter that determines the moral bioenhancement in relation both to the individual person's moral life and to one's the moral capacity to perform communal accountability. Hence, moral bioenhancement can be used to bolster a Christian's identity as an imitator of Christ both individually and in an ecclesial community.

Thesis 3: moral bioenhancement can be viewed as a consequence of a good work performed freely by the passively sanctified persons to actively sanctify themselves through biomedical technology to some extent.

The most contentious area in moral bioenhancement is concerning human freedom. John Harris's sentiment is often cited to turn down the idea of moral bioenhancement endorsed by Thomas Douglas, Ingmar Persson, and Julian Savulescu:

The space between knowing the good and doing the good is a region entirely inhabited by freedom. Knowledge of the good is sufficiency to have stood, but freedom to fall is all. Without the freedom to fall, good cannot be a choice; and freedom disappears and along with it virtue. There is no virtue in doing what you must.⁵⁸

As a response to Harris, the three scholars contend that moral bioenhancement does not contradict freedom insofar as “[i]t could simply make us more like the most morally virtuous individuals already among us.”⁵⁹ Nevertheless, by arguing so, the three scholars have to address a thorny question: how can the most morally virtuous individuals already among us be moral exemplars of the rest human beings? In this connection, the focus of the debates shifts from the tensions between freedom and moral bioenhancement to the question on whether the morally enhanced person can act as freely as the most morally virtuous individuals already among us. The question concerning freedom remains unresolved.

The Reformed theology of sanctification offers a via media between Harris and his three interlocutors. The crux of Savulescu, Douglas, and Persson's failure to deal with Harris's criticism lies in that their moral exemplars are natural human beings among us. In terms of sanctification, however morally virtuous they are, all human beings need to be sanctified by God and seeks to transform themselves into the image of Christ by the work of the Holy Spirit; their active sanctification must involve free moral actions. With an emphasis on the imitation of Christ, the Reformed theology of sanctification substitutes Christ for human moral exemplars. As such, Savulescu, Douglas, and Persson's stance can be reformulated as follows: moral bioenhancement does not contradict freedom insofar as it could simply make us more like Christ, and thus squares with the meaning of active sanctification. On the other hand, Harris's claim for “freedom to fall,” to some extent, debases freedom. According to his argument, “fall” becomes essential to the meaning of human freedom, and the human fall is implicitly and indirectly ascribed to God. However, the first two chapters of Genesis do in no way describe a God who created human beings to fall. Instead, God wished the first couple to love him and observe his command freely—that is, loving God freely according to the divine command. As such, I suggest that Harris's sentiment needs to be rephrased as follows: knowledge of the good is sufficient to have stood, but freedom to love God is all. It is love rather than fall that conceptually underpins human freedom.

The via media arising out of the Reformed theology of sanctification means conjoining freedom to love and imitating Christ through moral bioenhancement. As noted earlier, active sanctification confirms the value of good works performed by a sanctified person. Hence, moral bioenhancement can be viewed as a consequence of a good work performed freely by a passively sanctified person according to God's command of imitating Christ. This corollary echoes Heidegger's viewpoint, as mentioned earlier, that technology is not morally neutral but can exert an impact on the human being. That is, a choice of biomedical technology for moral enhancement could be considered revealing the moral meaning of biomedical technology in the context of imitating Christ. In a nutshell, having the imitation of Christ as the context for the use of biomedical technology, the sanctified person freely will to opt for moral bioenhancement to enhance her biological conditions so as to make herself more like Christ through loving—as demonstrated in Thesis 2—both individually and communally.

Thesis 4: moral bioenhancement cannot eliminate all sins and evils because moral perfection is unattainable.

In analyzing Bavinck's theology of sanctification, it has been brought into the spotlight that moral perfection is a reward granted by God at the eschaton. As an eschatological promise, moral perfectionism per se is religious. If a moral bioenhancement attempts to overcome all sins and evils radically hic et nunc, then it becomes an upper-case moral bioenhancement, namely a religious ideology. Technologically based moral perfectionism is a religion, and biomedical technology becomes a god who makes humans holy forever.

The proponents of moral bioenhancement would agree with the claim that moral perfection cannot be attained through technoscience. Douglas, Persson and Savulescu concede, “At present there is no one drug or other biological manipulation that improves moral behaviour in all people in all circumstances. However, there are reasons to believe that manipulation of biology could be used to influence moral behaviour.”⁶⁰ Although these three scholars insist that biomedical technology can exert impacts on human moral life, they recognize that these technoscientific influences are neither full-scale nor once for all.

The critics of moral bioenhancement account more elaborately for the impossibility of attaining moral perfection with biomedical technologies. Celia Deane-Drummond asserts that the growth of moral life is gradual rather than instant, involving multifaceted aspects.⁶¹ Likewise, recognizing the possible influences of biomedical technology on human moral life, Harris Wiseman suggests that biomedical interventions should not hinder us from paying close heed to the realistic and dominant features of moral development.

[E]ven with moral bio-intervention, the overwhelming morally generative work would still remain on the side of individual cultivation, combined with social-environmental, political, developmental, and psychological encouragement of “desirable” behaviour. For these remain the dominating factors in giving conceptual shape to the enactment of particular behaviours that are deemed moral or immoral. As such, bio-intervention offers little by way of resolving the larger context of humankind's moral difficulties.⁶²

As per Wiseman, moral bioenhancement in no way surpasses the traditional means of moral education. Doubtless, his objection to the biologization of morality comes into play here. That is, instead of biologizing morality and trivializing immoral actions, underpinning moral bioenhancement should be the traditional means of moral education, which are intertwined with our contexts, be they social, cultural, political, or religious. In this light, like the traditional methods of moral education, moral bioenhancement cannot achieve moral perfection here and now.

Tracy Trothen offers an account similar to Wiseman's, but she argues from a Christian perspective. She contends that the idea of divine sovereignty reveals the truth that human moral efforts cannot operate of their own accord. Her lengthy theological discourse on the pros and cons of moral bioenhancement is worth to be cited here:

Although I have the capacity to work at becoming more virtuous or not, this capacity is only through God's grace and the solidarity of community. Christianity requires that we work at cultivating virtues and that we try to do the right thing. Moral bioenhancements may help us to create more flourishing by increasing awareness of our mutual responsibility, “fine-tuning” emotional reactions that may block moral cognition, and enabling more effective neurological functioning. Or such bioenhancements may make us less inclined to work at virtue and developing relationships with God, self, and others by encouraging the false belief that a biomedical intervention will do all our moral work for us. Moral bioenhancements will have limited effect if they are not paired with educational moral bioenhancement.⁶³

Trothen's elaboration showcases the reason why moral bioenhancement cannot achieve moral perfection. Although biomedical technology can help Christians in striving for active sanctification, it may nevertheless give rise to a temptation that moral bioenhancement replaces God's grace and consequently creates the Fata Morgana of moral perfection.

We also need to consider briefly another objection to moral perfection based on biomedical technology. That is, biomedical technology for moral enhancement is designed, regulated, and approved by humans who themselves seek to overcome immoral actions. The production of biomedical technology is a black box to most human agents who voluntarily opt for sanctification through moral bioenhancement. There is the possibility that active sanctification with moral bioenhancement starts with biomedical technologies inbuilt with immoral intentions.

Taking these together, biomedical technology itself cannot ensure that Christian morality is developed in the direction of moving toward God in the imitation of Christ. From the vantage point of Reformed theology of sanctification, both God's grace in Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit are the underpinning of active sanctification and point the sanctified persons to the eschatological promise of moral perfection in Christ.⁶⁴

Conclusion

This paper has examined moral bioenhancement through the lens of the Reformed theology of sanctification. An attempt has been taken to develop an approach to a constructive dialogue between theology and moral bioenhancement. Notwithstanding that it only engages with the Reformed tradition, this paper offers some insight into how moral bioenhancement can be appreciated within the doctrinal context of active sanctification.

The dialogue between theology and moral bioenhancement constructed in this paper displays the following rationale. Contemporary technoscientific advancements do spur on our reconsideration of Christian theology. At the same time, Christian theology can arrest our hubris bred by technoscientific achievements. Moral bioenhancement points us to a new dimension of active sanctification in the age of technology. In the meantime, Reformed theology of sanctification protects moral bioenhancement from morphing into an ideology or religion and, by doing so, turns down a technoscientific promise of moral perfection through not absolutizing the role of biomedical technology in moral betterment.

Coupled with the stance that moral betterment is intrinsic to both moral bioenhancement and sanctification, this rationale entails the corollary that moral bioenhancement can be viewed as a consequence of a good work performed freely by the sanctified person to strive for active sanctification, provided that it operates within the context of the imitation of Christ and as one of many approaches to active sanctification on the basis of God's grace and the work of the Holy Spirit. Overall, moral bioenhancement is not sui generis but always depends on God who sanctifies human beings.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ximian Xu

Ximian Xu is the IASH-CTPI Duncan Forrester Research Fellow at the School of Divinity, University of Edinburgh, Scotland.

Notes

1 Max More and Natasha Vita-More, “Roots and Core Themes,” in The Transhumanist Reader, eds. Max More and Natasha Vita-More (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013), 1. Also see Nick Bostrom, “Human Genetic Enhancement: A Transhumanist Perspective,” Journal of Value Inquiry 37:4 (2003), 493.

2 Raymond Kurzweil, The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence (New York: Viking, 1999), 129.

3 William A. Cunningham et al., “Separable Neural Components in the Processing of Black and White Faces,” Psychological Science 15:12 (2004), 806–813.

4 Paul J. Zak, Robert Kurzban, and William T. Matzner, “The Neurobiology of Trust,” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1032:1 (2004), 224–227.

5 Thomas Douglas, “Moral Enhancement,” Journal of Applied Philosophy 25:3 (2008), 229.

6 Ibid., 230.

7 Ibid., 233.

8 Ibid., 242.

9 Ingmar Persson and Julian Savulescu, “The Perils of Cognitive Enhancement and the Urgent Imperative to Enhance the Moral Character of Humanity,” Journal of Applied Philosophy 25:3 (2008), 162–177; Ingmar Persson and Julian Savulescu, “Getting Moral Enhancement Right: The Desirability of Moral Bioenhancement,” Bioethics 27:3 (2013), 124.

10 Ingmar Persson and Julian Savulescu, Unfit for the Future: The Need for Moral Enhancement (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 2.

11 Persson and Savulescu, “Getting Moral Enhancement Right,” 124.

12 Ingmar Persson and Julian Savulescu, “Moral Enhancement, Freedom, and the God Machine,” The Monist 95:3 (2012), 412.

13 Ibid., 412–413.

14 Ibid., 413.

15 Parker Crutchfield, Moral Enhancement and the Public Good (New York: Routledge, 2021), 1–2.

16 Ibid., 57.

17 Ibid., 63.

18 Ibid., 68; Parker Crutchfield, “Engendering Moral Post-persons: A Novel Self-help Strategy,” Bioethics 34:7 (2020), 679–686.

19 Martin Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays, trans. William Lovitt (New York: Garland, 1977), 4.

20 Ibid., 12.

21 Ibid., 39–40; also see George Pattison, Thinking about God in an Age of Technology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 66–93; Lewis Coyne, “An Unfit Future: Moral Enhancement and Technological Harm,” Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 83 (2018): 353.

22 Crutchfield, Moral Enhancement and the Public Good, 68.

23 John Harris, How to be Good: The Possibility of Moral Enhancement (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 106.

24 Inmaculada de Melo-Martín, “The Trouble with Moral Enhancement,” Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 83 (2018): 21.

25 Ibid., 26.

26 Celia Deane-Drummond, “The Myth of Moral Bio-Enhancement: An Evolutionary Anthropology and Theological Critique,” in Religion and Human Enhancement: Death, Values, and Morality, ed. Tracy J. Trothen and Calvin Mercer (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 181–182.

27 Harris Wiseman, “The Sins of Moral Enhancement Discourse,” Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 83 (2018): 38.

28 Ibid., 44.

29 Ibid., 51–56; Harris Wiseman, The Myth of the Moral Brain: The Limits of Moral Enhancement (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2016), 20, 42, 71, 264.

30 Wiseman, “The Sins of Moral Enhancement Discourse,” 58.

31 Ibid., 47–48.

32 John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Volume 1 & 2, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, ed. John T. McNeill (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 3.3.10–15.

33 Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, Vol.3, trans. George Musgrave Giger, 3 vols., ed. James T. Dennison Jr (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 1997), 17.1.2.

34 Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, Volume 4: Holy Spirit, Church, and New Creation, trans. John Vriend, ed. John Bolt (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2008), 232.

35 Ibid., 235.

36 Ibid., 248.

37 Ibid., 252.

38 Ibid.

39 Ibid., 204–209.

40 Ibid., 253; Herman Bavinck, Reformed Ethics, Volume I: Created, Fallen, and Converted Humanity, ed. John Bolt et al. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2019), 353.

41 Richard Lints, “Living by Faith—Alone? Reformed Responses to Antinomianism,” in Sanctification: Explorations in Theology and Practice, ed. Kelly M. Kapic (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2014), 46.

42 Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, Volume 4, 253.

43 Ibid., 255.

44 Herman Bavinck, “Appendix A: Imitation I (1885/86),” in A Theological Analysis of Herman Bavinck's Two Essays on the Imitatio Christi, trans. John Bolt (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen, 2013), 394; Bavinck, Reformed Ethics, Vol. I, 338–341.

45 Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, Volume 4, 256; emphasis added.

46 Ibid., 257; also see Bavinck, Reformed Ethics, Vol. I, 68.

47 Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, Volume 4, 235.

48 Ibid., 260–266; Bavinck, “Appendix B: The Imitation of Christ II (1918),” 434.

49 D. Gareth Jones, “Moral Enhancement as a Technological Imperative,” Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 65:3 (2013), 193; emphasis added.

50 Philip Hefner, “Technology and Human Becoming,” Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science 37:3 (2002), 88.

51 This is reminiscent of Philip Hefner's idea of “created co-creator.” An elaboration on this resonance is beyond the aim of this paper. Philip Hefner, The Human Factor: Evolution, Culture, and Religion (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993).

52 Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, Volume 4, 253.

53 These observations echo Eugenia Torrance's recent comparative study on scientific transhumanism and the Maximian idea of theosis. Eugenia Torrance, “Acquiring Incorruption: Maximian Theosis and Scientific Transhumanism,” Studies in Christian Ethics 32:2 (2019), 177–186.

54 G. C. Berkouwer, Faith and Sanctification, trans. John Vriend, Studies in Dogmatics (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1952), 26.

55 Michael Allen, Sanctification, New Studies in Dogmatics (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2017), 197.

56 Ronald Cole-Turner, “Transhumanism and Christianity,” in Transhumanism and Transcendence: Christian Hope in an Age of Technological Enhancement, ed. Ronald Cole-Turner (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2011), 197.

57 Wiseman, The Myth of the Moral Brain, 182.

58 John Harris, “Moral Enhancement and Freedom,” Bioethics 25:2 (2011), 104; also see Harris, How to be Good, 60.

59 Julian Savulescu, Thomas Douglas, and Ingmar Persson, “Primary Topic Article: Autonomy and the Ethics of Biological Behaviour Modification,” in The Future of Bioethics: International Dialogues, ed. Akira Akabayashi (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 100.

60 Ibid., 93; also see Robert Sparrow, “(Im)Moral Technology? Thought Experiments and the Future of ‘Mind Control’,” in The Future of Bioethics: International Dialogues, ed. Akira Akabayashi (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 114–115.

61 Deane-Drummond, “The Myth of Moral Bio-Enhancement,” 181.

62 Wiseman, “The Sins of Moral Enhancement Discourse,” 47.

63 Tracy J. Trothen, “Moral Bioenhancement from the Margins: An Intersectional Christian Theological Reconsideration,” in Religion and Human Enhancement: Death, Values, and Morality, ed. Tracy J. Trothen and Calvin Mercer (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 256–257.

64 An exploration of moral bioenhancement through the lens of grace and the work of the Holy Spirit is beyond the scope of this paper. A relevant study is Simeon Zahl, “Engineering Desire: Biotechnological Enhancement as Theological Problem,” Studies in Christian Ethics 32:2 (2019), 216–228.