RKS7S | Event

7th International seminar RELIGION, KNOWLEDGE, SOCIETY (RKS)

The Doctrine of Imago Dei and the New Challenges of Transhumanism
Explorations in Eastern and Western Traditions

2-5 June, 2022 Vatra-Dornei (Romania)

The movement of Transhumanism constitutes an unparalleled challenge not only to technological experts and policymakers but also to ethicists, social scientists, philosophers, and theologians. The presentations and debates of this academic event will identify and analyze these challenges against the background of the most relevant aspects and articulations of the classical Christian doctrine of imago Dei understood in connection with relational Trinitarianism’s emphasis on the relational aspect of personhood. Transhumanism is depicted as an expression of the innate human desire to excel, to develop one’s faculties and abilities to become better adapted to face adversities of the outside environment. It is also presented as a potentially proud attempt to become more independent, invulnerable, and even immortal. We wish to discuss these issues among scholars/professors, answering to the following questions, as we believe an informed discussion can help people cope with this new challenge:

How should we conceive of the ‘nature’ of the human being and of human personhood in ‘the age of the cyborg’?
Can the traditional/mainstream Christian theological notions of human uniqueness or distinctiveness be maintained in the face of these developments, or should they be abandoned or radically reinterpreted/reformed?
Is there/should there be a Christian theology of transhumanism, or even posthumanist theology?
Do ‘green’ and ‘creaturely’ theologies offer better hermeneutical starting points for interpreting human-machine relationships than the traditional Christian imago Dei anthropologies?
Do scientific theories or environmental philosophies offer more appropriate and theoretically more successful conceptual frameworks or resources to address this challenge?
Or should we rather adopt a secular vision of reality and relegate the human to the Marxist category of homo faber?
How did the 40-year experience of communist totalitarianism influence the perspective of scientists and researchers in Eastern European countries on this research topic?
How should we understand human personhood in the light of these new challenges?
How do we justify / ground human dignity if we adopt a transhumanist vision of the world and human nature (or of being human in the world)?
How does one approach these questions relative to one’s metanarrative framework (i.e. theistic vs. atheistic; immanent vs. transcendent etc.) and concrete historical experience?

The international seminar is part of the project “The Future of Imago Dei Theologies in the Context of the New Challenges of Transhumanism: A Central European Perspective,” supported by Templeton grant: “New horizons for science and religion in Central and Eastern Europe,” John Templeton Foundation.

Scientific committee

Teodosie PETRESCU - “Ovidius” University of Constanta (Romania)

Bogdan MOISE - “Ovidius” University of Constanța (Romania)

Mendo HENRIQUES - Catholic University of Portugal (Portugal)
John FARINA - “George Mason” University (USA)
Michal VALCO - Comenius University of Bratislava (Slovakia)
Cristina GAVRILUTA - “Al. I. Cuza” University of Iasi (Romania)

Abdul RASHID - University of Karachi (Pakistan)

Do Thi Kim HOA - Institute of Philosophy, VASS (Vietnam)

Ioan DURA - "Ovidius" University of Constanta (Romania)

Organizing Institution