Tracy J. TROTHEN, Calvin MERCER, eds. Religion and Human Enhancement: Death Values and Morality. Gewerbestrasse, Switzerland: Springer, 2017. Pp. 377.$159.99.ISBN 978-3-319-62487-7. Reviewed by Nathan R. KOLLAR, St. John Fisher College, Rochester, NY.14618.

Trothen and Mercer have brought together in one volume leading Protestant, Catholic, Buddhist, Mormon and Jewish thinkers to review and respond to Transhumanists’ plans to change humanity. These authors agree with the Transhumanists that something must be done to avoid contemporary apocalyptic biological, environmental, economic, nationalistic, and nuclear threats to our existence. The majority of contemporary humans do not seem to have the will to deal with these threats. Perhaps by changing the human we can enable humanity to survive the coming apocalypses.Transhumanism seeks to do this by quickening the evolution of intelligent life beyond its currently human form and limitations by means of science and technology. Religion, for transhumanism, does not have a role in such quickening. Our authors argue that without religion humans cannot be truly human.
The authors of the book’s nine chapters agree with the necessity to hasten our evolution but disagree with the neglect of religious principles as a basis for guiding such evolution. Their response is formulated around  four  themes: What the transhumanist movement shares with the world religions, the desires and values of transhumanism and religions, the role of moral bio-enhancement in future humanity, and the avoidance of death as a goal of the new humanity.

Transhumanists look forward to the time when a human personality can be uploaded to a machine and/or an amalgam of molecules that would pass the Turing Test but not the photo test for being a human. The Christian authors affirm the materiality of the resurrection – accepting St. Paul’s “soma” vision of the human person. The future human, therefore, in her/his resurrection body may be seen as similar to the transhumanists’ conceptualization of an evolved human’s body as machine and/or network of molecules.
Yet the question must be asked: Will this newly evolved human be happy? Transhumanists seem to see human happiness as contained in the satiation of material desires and the fulfillment of continual progress in human evolution. Buddhists, of course, see the annihilation of desire itself as the goal for perfect humanity.  Our authors see the creation of a superman like human with enhanced qualities of speed, vision, memory, strength, intelligence, and longevity only go so far in making a better human being. Satiation of physical desires is only part of what makes a human, human. Religionists seek deeper spiritual lives of care, harmony, and justice. They remind us that happiness is many times found in the mundane and boring; in deep human relationships; in a well-developed virtuous life. Happiness, from a religious perspective, cannot be created by chemicals and gene change.

Yet human desires, feelings, attitudes, and interaction can be modified by genes and chemicals. Psychopharmacology and neuro-psychopharmacology demonstrate that drugs can change people’s moods, sensations, thinking, and behavior.  Such change is not sufficient for the moral goodness that the Transhumanists promise say authors such as Helmer and Daily. In separate chapters they remind us that the process of becoming morally good for many Christians is ultimately the process of moral sanctification by the Holy Spirit. We are free and human moral agency must take that into account in seeking moral perfection. Self-reflection, inherent in free will, is necessary for human moral perfection
The need for deep change represented by this book’s dialogue of ideas between Transhumanists and representatives of some of the world religions reminds us that such deep change is already being attempted in laboratories across the globe. Science Fiction authors have built worlds based on the fulfilment of such need for change evidenced in newly evolved humans.  Many of these authors have wrestled with how humanity will survive the apocalypses we presently foresee. To not include authors such as Dan Simmons and Iain M. Banks in such a conversation would neglect ideas of those who have re-conceptualized the entire cosmos presupposing the next evolutionary stage of humanity. This is not to criticize this book but to make a necessary suggestion for future discussion about what the next human should be. Future discussion should also include the negative critiques of Transhumanism provided by the authors of this book. They remind us that unforeseen consequences have gotten us to where we are today: climate change; an unequal society where only the upper class can afford such enhancements. We must not forget that  visions of future are dependent upon current convictions of good and evil and that  transcendence both as process and termination can never be known in detail.