The Mechanization of the Human Being versus the Humanization of the Machine: Anthropological Dilemmas Raised by Transhumanist Ideology

This study examines the anthropological dilemmas provoked by transhumanist ideology, contrasting two opposing trajectories: the mechanization of the human being and the aspiration to humanize the machine. Situated at the intersection of theology, philosophy, and the sciences, the inquiry interrogates how transhumanism’s promises of enhancement, substrate independence, and technological inevitability reconfigure core concepts—human dignity, personhood, consciousness, and freedom—and what that reconfiguration means for Western anthropology grounded in the imago Dei. Combining theological reflection and critical engagement with contemporary thinkers (Bostrom, Kurzweil, Habermas, Heidegger, and others), the paper argues that transhumanism enacts an ontological and axiological shift: it instrumentalizes the person, absolutizes technology, and expels the soul from the account of human identity. After outlining the historical and philosophical roots of the mechanization–humanization dialectic, the work develops four central theses and closes by considering the ethical, social, and theological stakes of preserving a vision of the human that resists reduction to mere information or functional capacity.