> [[itc-qvh-00|← Previous]] | [[quo-vadis-humanitas-toc|TOC]] | [[itc-qvh-02|Next →]] # Introduction 1\. The recent acceleration of technological development and scientific progress has reawakened our wonder at humanity’s great potential and our perception of its greatness. Yet, there is no lessening of dismay at humanity’s fragility, subject as it is to death and disease, as demonstrated by the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as temptation to resignation to the seemingly inevitable evil of wars and conflicts, inequalities and indifference. Thus, the ambivalence of greatness and fragility remains, and this cannot be denied. We must avoid any attempt to oversimplify this ambivalence by choosing one of two sides: we cannot censor natural fragility and limitations, exalting only greatness and strength, perhaps relying blindly on the results of technological research and scientific discoveries; but neither must we resign ourselves to all the limitations and fragilities of life, forgetting the potential inscribed in our intelligent and spiritual nature. The task entrusted to each of us to shape our own identity with responsibility requires us not to oversimplify what it means to be human. 2\. Being a human person, with infinite dignity, is not something we have constructed or acquired, but is the result of a free gift that precedes us.\[1\] And it is not a gift that we simply received in the past, but something that exists for ever as a gift in every circumstance of our existence, becoming a non-transferable task. Appropriating this gift, giving shape to one’s own identity, is the adventure of life, a task to be undertaken freely and within the relationships in which we know ourselves, others and reality, so that we can make our original and unique contribution to human history, corresponding to our vocation. The gift is welcomed within a ‘we’, a community to which each person belongs and in which they grow. 3\. Religious experience, and in particular Christian faith, propose that we live, without oversimplification, this ambivalence between human greatness and limitation, interpreting it in the light of our original and fundamental relationship with God. In Psalm 8:5, addressing God in a heartfelt dialogue, the psalmist asks what human beings are such that he is mindful of them and cares for them. The psalmist responds by noting the greatness God has bestowed upon human beings in his creation: ‘You have made them a little lower than the angels; you have crowned them with glory and honour. You have given them power over the works of your hands; you have put everything under their feet.’ (*Ps* 8:6-7)\[2\] This paradox receives definitive light from the Paschal Mystery of Jesus Christ, where limitation, finitude and transience, but also the disorder introduced by sin, are overcome by the work of grace with the gift of divine sonship, which makes us participants in the life of the Risen One, according to the Father’s plan and thanks to the renewal of all things in the Spirit. 4\. Pope Francis took up the question of Psalm 8, emphasising the response of biblical anthropology, centred on the fundamental elements of a free and responsible relationship with creation, with others and with God. But then he noted how ‘today we realise that the great principles and fundamental concepts of anthropology are often called into question, also on the basis of a greater knowledge of the complexity of the human condition, and they require further in-depth examination.’\[3\] Pope Leo XIV justified his choice of name by recalling that ‘in our own day, the Church offers to everyone the treasury of her social teaching in response to another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of artificial intelligence that pose new challenges for the defence of human dignity, justice and labour.’\[4\] 5\. Reflection on anthropology in the light of revelation is called upon to interpret the complex conditions of a world that is undergoing change so profound that it can be described as ‘epochal’. Since the understanding of the human in the history of thought (particularly in the Western tradition) had achieved well-defined results, it might seem that further reflection should focus on clarifying certain particular aspects of human action. Instead, we find ourselves today once again engaged in exploring the mystery of the human being as such, in his or her identity. Today’s challenges force us to leave behind our acquired certainties and can also arouse fears, which are often not unfounded. Reflection on the human being, in various areas of personal and social life, seems to go beyond the human, questioning the specificity of human nature itself. **1\. The method of the document on the sixtieth anniversary of** ***Gaudium et spes*** 6\. Reason enlightened by faith must establish a critical comparison between new anthropological horizons and the perennial needs of the human condition: ‘Discernment must carefully distinguish between elements compatible with the Gospel and those contrary to it, between positive contributions and ideological aspects, but the more acute understanding of the world that results cannot fail to prompt a more penetrating appreciation of Christ the Lord and of the Gospel, since Christ is the Saviour of the world.’\[5\] 7\. This discernment is inspired by the sixtieth anniversary of the Pastoral Constitution *Gaudium et spes* (1965-2025), an anniversary that points the present document towards a new reflection linked to the personal and social anthropology proposed in the Constitution and in the subsequent Magisterium that has received and developed its teaching. The unique nature of *Gaudium et spes* must be emphasised, a conciliar Constitution with specific magisterial value, expressed in its commitment to consider carefully the condition of humanity in today’s world. For the first time in history, a document of this level systematically proposed a vision of the human being illumined by the mystery of Christ. In its wake, therefore, we have the question of re-proposing Christian anthropology today in an open and critical dialogue with the more recent questions coming from human experience and cultures. Precisely in reference to *Gaudium et spes*, the document places at its centre the human being, ‘whole and entire, body and soul, heart and conscience, mind and will’,\[6\] in order to promote that ‘ *integral and solidary humanism* capable of creating a new social, economic and political order, founded on the dignity and freedom of every human person, to be brought about in peace, justice and solidarity.’\[7\] **2\. The structure of the document: key categories** 8\. So as to complete in an adequate way this task of critical discernment in the face of some of the most relevant scenarios for the future of humanity, the document proposes four main categories in each of the chapters of which it is composed. It begins by considering the notion of *development,* which underpins many of the technological and social innovations currently underway. The need to ensure integral human development then leads to a reflection on the category of *vocation* as a key to anthropological understanding, which in turn refers to the question of *human identity*, on both a personal and social level. Finally, it explores the historical and free *dramatic condition* that characterises human identity, understood as vocation, and its dialogue with new techno-scientific challenges. 9\. Reflecting on *development*, we want to take note, on the one hand, of the historical-temporal condition of a humanity that has grown as never before in its history, tripling its population in the space of seventy years. On the other hand, this orientation offers an opportunity for a critical examination of the concrete conditions of life of individuals and peoples in this movement of the twenty-first century, marked as it is by the exponential growth of techno-scientific resources and their impact on the life of humanity. Current development oscillates between striving for a concrete improvement in the living conditions of peoples and dreams even of replacing humanity. 10\. The second category is that of *integral vocation*, taken from *Gaudium et spes*, inasmuch as, starting from an analysis of the concrete conditions of time, space and intersubjectivity that characterise common human experience, Christian anthropology appears to be constitutively relational and responsive, and as such responsible. 11\. The third notion, that of *identity,* has not been explicitly explored in previous documents.\[8\] The question of human identity is indeed a sign of our times, precisely because of the dimensions assumed by technological and scientific progress, which today seems to allow interventions on human nature that were unthinkable until recently, to the point of encouraging the claim of individuals and societies to absolute self-determination.\[9\] 12\. The fourth key word in the document refers to the *dramatic condition* of the process of realising human identity. The path to its discovery, maturation and fulfilment is complex: it passes through concrete historical circumstances, in which each individual person and each people must freely put themselves on the line and expose themselves also to risks, falls and suffering. The human search for identity is not a predefined matter to be applied deductively. The revelation of the Triune God opens up the horizon of an asymmetrical reciprocity in the encounter between divine and human freedom (according to the biblical categories of covenant and spousal relationship).In this reciprocity, God’s freedom and love are ‘absolute’, in that they are original and unconditioned; human freedom, on the other hand, is elicited and responsive, called to decide for the true good, in accordance with God’s will. Each person, in realising the humanity given to them by God, represents something new and irreducible. One’s identity must therefore always be (re)discovered and implemented personally, thanks to dialogue with the living God, in the context of the different circumstances of a situated humanity, where one experiences what Pope Francis has called ‘bipolar tensions’.\[10\] **3\. The** ***focus*** **of the document: an engagement with the challenges of** ***trans*** **\- and** ***post-humanism*** 13\. The dramatic condition of the historical process of humanisation – redeemed and brought to gratuitous fulfilment in Christ – unfolds in the awareness that every human being has of *their own finitude in the inescapable encounter with the infinite*.\[11\] Human beings are the only creatures on earth who know they are finite and so must face the fact of finitude. It is possible to consider several options that thus open up before each human being: one can attempt to absolutize finitude; one can attempt to escape finitude in a fictitious infinity; one can try to come to terms with finitude; one can inhabit the tension between finitude and infinity, in the hope of fulfilment received as a gift. The four possibilities attest, in different ways, that human beings cannot find fulfilment in their finite condition, but are referred to the ‘other of every finitude’, to the ‘unconditioned’. They have at least to conceive of the opposite of the finite, even if they are convinced that nothing is truly infinite, unconditioned, absolute. And precisely because they are aware of their finitude, human beings ardently desire to transcend all that is finite. They may, of course, also despair because of their own insurmountable finitude. However, the various forms of despair reveal themselves, when examined closely, to be human attempts at overcoming the tension between finitude and infinity, either by fleeing finitude or by absolutizing it. This analysis, while making us aware of tensions that belong to the human experience of all times, also invites us to consider what new forms they take in certain currents of thought that are highly influential in contemporary societies, such as *transhumanism and posthumanism*. 14\. *Transhumanism and posthumanism*, although related and sometimes considered identical (due to their respective definitions still being somewhat fluid), represent different perspectives in understanding human nature and the future of humanity. *Transhumanism* is a philosophical movement that operates on the belief that human beings can and should use the resources of science and technology to overcome the physical and biological limitations of the human condition, in particular ageing and even death, thus shaping their own evolution and maximising their own potential to the point of redesigning human beings to make them fitted to ‘go beyond’. With its programmatic emphasis on increasing individual human capabilities, it develops a distinctly anthropocentric perspective, subscribing to an ideological and naively uncritical view of scientific and technological progress.\[12\] *Transhumanism* imagines a future in which human beings will perfect the current biological form that defines human nature, in order to achieve the goal of individual immortality, supported by technology. In the utopian scope of its quest for immanent immortality, *transhumanism* can be interpreted as the existential expression of a presumption that is both naive and arrogant. 15\. *Posthumanism*, understood in the strict sense, criticises traditional humanism, questioning the specificity of human beings and the existence of a ‘human form’ that, as such, deserves to be preserved because it carries a universally valid meaning. It therefore emphasises the ‘hybrid’ (*cyborg*) to the point of deconstructing the human subject, making the boundary between humans and machines completely fluid,\[13\] and rejecting the anthropocentrism that remains characteristic of *transhumanism*.\[14\] Ultimately, *posthumanism* in the strict sense can be understood as an existential expression of escapism, which starts from a radical devaluation of the human. 16\. Understanding the Christian faith urges us to seek in Christ the Redeemer, who died and rose again, a synthesis of the profound tensions that characterise human beings, and which are presented today in a new and challenging form by *transhumanism* and *posthumanism*, and to do so without creating alternatives or oppositions between them or within them, as often happens in the contradictions that recur in current debates between ‘given identity’ and ‘constructed identity’, between ‘nature’ and ‘culture’, between ‘community/social dimension’ and ‘individual/personal dimension’, between belonging to a ‘concrete historical culture’ and belonging to the ‘universal human’. In a specifically Christian and theological vision, the dramatic condition of the historical process of humanisation, starting from the polarity of the finite and the infinite, is in fact saved and brought to fulfilment in Jesus Christ, and cannot find a solution in any form of substitution or suppression of the human. **4\. Discernment and the kerygmatic dimension of theology: the integral vocation of the human being** 17\. The purpose of this document is not only to offer a discernment capable of weighing the anthropological consequences of techno-scientific discoveries and the corresponding ethical choices of people and societies today. It also draws out a prophetic proposal in the light of the Gospel.\[15\] The theoretical-practical nature of theology encompasses the proclamation of faith (*kerygma*) and education in a vision of humanity, in dialogue with scientific progress, in which everything that is good can be integrated (cf. *1 Thessalonians* 5:21) and what is limiting or penalising with regard to the definitive fulfilment of each person and of humanity as a whole can be overcome. 18\. The document is therefore positively orientated towards a theological and pastoral proposal regarding human life understood as *a vocation*. The deepest level of every personal and social experience is that of being called by another in the perspective of a gift that precedes and makes possible the response, according to a dynamic of co-responsibility towards others and towards God. It is this theoretical-practical understanding of the human that the community of the Church wishes to offer to all. 19\. In summary, what is at stake is the question of human identity, individual and collective, in a developing world, in the light of vocation in Christ, that is to say, the reaffirmation of humanity’s ‘total vocation’.\[16\] This integral vocation is placed in the context of a ‘situated anthropocentrism’,\[17\] that is, a worldview that, on the one hand, upholds the unique and central value of human beings in the midst of the wonderful accord of all beings and, on the other, recognises that human life is incomprehensible and unsustainable without other creatures. Within this world, vocation in Christ is primary, preceding and giving a foundation to the Christian response, so that the illusions or disappointments of the journey do not negate the filial identity to which we are called in Christ through the gift of the Spirit. 20\. Phenomenological analysis and critical evaluation of culture in its various dimensions are illumined by Christian hope, founded on the certainty of faith in the good destiny held out to every person in Jesus Christ in the fullness of risen life. This is the horizon of every transformation that people can desire for themselves and for others in the historical journey of the human family. This positive outlook is supported in particular by the figure of the Virgin Mary, whose response to the divine call reflects all the beauty of life in Christ, not closed in on herself and plans of her own, but open to the faithful will of the Lord of history and of all things. --- ![[maps/bibliography#^biblio-itc-qvh]]