What does it mean to be human? In traditional thought there has always been a clear distinction between “natural” beings, derived from the natural order, and those that were “artifacts,” a product of human ingenuity and craft. For many centuries our embodied human nature was the last frontier of the natural order. Although human beings could modify and instrumentalise every other aspect of their environment, they could not escape the “given-ness” of their own humanity.
But the rapid development of emerging technologies is about to create a new and profoundly troubling assault on human identity in the 21st century. This new assault cuts to the quick of our anthropology: it focuses on the fundamental relationship between our artifacts and our own nature, between our manipulative capabilities and our own selves. It was this recognition that drove C.S. Lewis, back in the dark days of 1943, to write his prophetic essay on “The Abolition of Man,” perhaps the most penetrating statement yet made of the greatest question that will confront the 21st century. The pivotal significance of the Christian belief that we are made in the image of God is about to be tested as never before.
Lewis argued that while technology appeared to extend the human race’s ability to control and subdue nature, “what we call Man’s power over Nature turns out to be a power exercised by some men over other men with Nature as its instrument.” There can be no “increase in power on Man’s side. Each new power won by Man is a power over Man as well. Each advance leaves him weaker as well as stronger. In every victory, besides the general who triumphs, he is a prisoner who follows the triumphal car. . . . Human nature will be the last part of Nature to surrender to Man. We shall ”¦ be henceforth free to make our species whatever we wish it to be. The battle will indeed be won. But who, precisely, will have won it? . . . . Man’s final conquest has proved to be the abolition of Man.”