JESUS EMPEROR OF “DUNE®”: CHRISTIANITY AND HUMAN TRANSCENDENCE

The Third Gospel of SF is the belief that Humanity will someday become MORE than Human – we will transcend or “go beyond” Human. Numerous writers have shared this belief with readers:

In Isaac Asimov’s short story "The Last Question", Humanity merges its collective consciousness with its own creation: an all-powerful cosmic computer. In CHILDHOOD’S END, by Arthur C. Clarke, the destiny of humanity merges with some cosmic intelligence. In Poul Anderson's HARVEST OF STARS, an oppresive government justifies itself by its commitment to take humanity to the Omega Point. George Zebrowski wrote three novellas called THE OMEGA POINT TRILOGY. In HYPERION CANTOS, Dan Simmons used the Omega Point extensively. More recently, in DARWINIA, a novel by Robert Charles Wilson, the story is actually part of a virtual war inside an Omega Point computer. In TOMORROW AND TOMORROW, Charles Sheffield's main character finds that the only hope of saving his wife is for him to wait for the Omega Point.

Frank Herbert’s novel GOD EMPEROR OF DUNE, creates Paul Muad’Dib, once the human son of Duke Leto Atreides, who has become a god: “You must remember that I have at my internal demand every expertise known to our history. This is the fund of energy I draw upon when I address the mentality of war. To those who dare ask why I behave as I do, I say: With my memories, I can do nothing else. I am not a coward and once I was human. -The Stolen Journals” (http://www.nightsolo.net/dune/god.html).

My contention here is that we don’t need science to become “transhuman”. We don’t need to “transcend” Humanity through an Omega Point or anything else. The entire Third Gospel of SF is an attempt to “do it ourselves” because…well, because we’re a “do it ourselves” kind of people. It’s as if we’re trying to justify being stuck at a two-year-old stage of development and refuse to admit it. We refuse to believe that God already made us to be beyond Human. (Psalm 8:5 “For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.” (KJV)) It was through Adam’s representative choice (there’s that “original sin” thing again! (I know that people don’t like the idea of original sin and I’ve looked at the arguments, but nothing I’ve seen or heard yet has persuaded me to drop the notion. Why is original sin such a hard concept to accept by people who live in a republic and regularly elect others to do things in their name – that they don’t agree with?)) Two-year-olds often stomp their feet and cry out, “Me do it!”

The newest entry into our search for transcendence comes in the form of the Kurzweil Singularity: "The Singularity is an era in which our intelligence will become increasingly nonbiological and trillions of times more powerful than it is today—the dawning of a new civilization that will enable us to transcend our biological limitations and amplify our creativity." (http://singularity.com/)

God provided a means for us to transcend our fallen state – through the person of Jesus Christ. Through Him, we can leave the imporfect behind and return to perfection. By accepting His offer of representation before the Father, our relationship with God can be restored to what it was at Creation.

No Omega Point is needed: “a term used by Tulane University professor of mathematics and physics Frank J. Tipler…his Omega Point Theory, as the universe comes to an end at a singularity in a particular form of the Big Crunch, the computational capacity of the universe is capable of increasing at a sufficient rate that this computation rate is accelerating exponentially faster than the time running out…this theory requires that the current known laws of physics are true descriptions of reality, and it requires there be intelligent civilizations in existence at the appropriate time to exploit the computational capacity of such an environment. Tipler identifies this final singularity and its state of infinite information capacity with God.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega_point_(Tipler))

No Kurzweil Singularity. No technology to “enable everyone to enjoy better minds, better bodies and better lives. In other words, we want people to be better than well.” (http://www.transhumanism.org/index.php/WTA/index/) Living for 3500 years and experiencing war for that long. Transhumanism is not what Humanity needs to move to the next level. But we continue to seek in ANY other way: “People of faith are increasingly entering into dialogue with human enhancement advocates about the theological significance of the transhumanist project. So the IEET will be launching the Cyborg Buddha Project to combine our efforts and promote discussion of the impact that neuroscience and emerging neurotechnologies will have on happiness, spirituality, cognitive liberty, moral behavior and the exploration of meditational and ecstatic states of mind.” (http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/michael/blog/?m=200703)

What we need is what God provided 2000 years ago – a Savior, who IS Christ the Lord.