Human Technological Enhancement and Theological Anthropology

In this book, Victoria Lorrimar explores anthropologies of co-creation as a theological response to the questions posed by technologically enhanced humans, a prospect that is disturbing to some, but compelling for many. The centrality the imagination for moral reasoning, attested in recent scholarship on the imagination, offers a fruitful starting point for a theological engagement with these envisioned technological futures. Lorrimar approaches the topic under the purview of a doctrine of creation that affirms a relationship between human and divine creativity. Traditionally, theological treatments of creativity have been almost exclusively applied to artistic endeavours. Here, Lorrimar breaks new ground by extending such theological accounts to include technology, and uniting them with the strengths of scientific accounts of co-creation. She draws on metaphor studies, cognitive sciences, as well as literary studies, to develop an account of human creativity in relation to divine creativity, which is then applied to various enhancement scenarios.

• Uses transhumanism and science fiction representations of human technological enhancement as a way into theological questions of human creativity
• Gives a side-by-side comparison of Philip Hefner's theology of co-creation with J. R. R. Tolkien's theology of sub-creation
• Develops a proposal of human creativity and applies to a number of human enhancement scenarios