Journal: Eikon
Volume: EIKON 07:2 (Fall 2025)
Article: Do The Claims Of A.I. Replace Orthodox Christianity? The Theological Demands Of Transhumanism
Author: R. Albert Mohler, Jr.

Eikon 7.2 (Fall 2025) p. 112

Do The Claims Of A.I. Replace Orthodox Christianity? The Theological Demands Of Transhumanism

R. Albert Mohler, Jr.

R. Albert Mohler, Jr., is President of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and is a CBMW council member.

Can humans live forever? Can they create a technology to transcend their own mortality? What will Artificial Intelligence become?

Recently Peter Thiel, one of the most prominent technological innovators and tech-founders in Silicon Valley, Joined Ross Douthat of the New York Times to discuss the future of technology. In addition to being a leader in technology, Peter Thiel has also made a name for himself in the realm of ideas, especially in the more conservative wing of Silicon Valley.

At one point in the interview, Douthat asks Thiel about anti-aging research:

“What does it mean to say we need to take more risks in anti-aging research? Does it mean that the F.D.A. has to step back and say: Anyone who has a new treatment for Alzheimer’s can go ahead and sell it on the open market? What does risk in the medical space look like?”

Thiel responds by saying we’re probably not taking enough risks:

“If you have some fatal disease, there are probably a lot more risks you can take. There are a lot more risks the researchers can take. Culturally, what I imagine it looks like is early modernity where people thought we would cure diseases. They thought we would have radical life extension. Immortality was part of the project of early modernity.”

Of which he mentions Francis Bacon and Condorcet. He continues, “maybe

Eikon 7.2 (Fall 2025) p. 113

it was anti-Christian, maybe it was downstream of Christianity. It was competitive.” Then he adds this,

“If Christianity promised you a physical resurrection, science was not going to succeed unless it promised you the exact same thing. I remember 1999 or 2000, when we were running PayPal, one of my co-founders, Luke Nosek — he was into Alcor and cryonics and that people should freeze themselves. And we had one day where we took the whole company to a freezing party. You know a Tupperware party? People sell Tupperware policies. At a freezing party, they sell . . .”

At this point Ross Douthat interjects, “Was it just their heads? What was going to be frozen?”

“You could get a full body or just a head,”

Thiel responds.

And Douthat muses back, “The ‘just the head’ option was cheaper.”.

This is cryonics, freezing — really freezing — freezing the human body or maybe even just the hu...