ABSTRACT
The article responds to the Jewish concept of enhancement from a Christian/Catholic perspective. This perspective teaches us to be skeptical of enhancement as unrestrained human improvement, because of human finitude and possible moral failings. The temptation of “playing God” reveals the human hubris of substituting God and denying His existence. According to the Christian view, the legitimacy of any intervention altering the body/mind of a human being is ensured by the therapeutic principle and the principle of proportionality of risks and benefits. In the Christian tradition perfection does not identify with the maximal performance or augmented capacities in the body or mind, but is the imitation of Christ, which includes the acceptance of human suffering and mortality. Transhumanism that seeks a kind of “technological salvation” in the materialistic realization of eternal immortality without God is not acceptable by the Christian perspective, which aims at spiritual “theological salvation,” accepting vulnerability as a human condition. This perspective focuses on achievement (vs. enhancement), as the development and realization of “what we are” through an active effort and personal commitment that enable modification of one’s own natural capacities. In this sense, an action includes a substantial transformation, not in terms of enhancement of specific and isolated functions (as having one extra leg in the Jewish example), but of improvement as growth and attainment of personal and relational identity.
