Originally published at crisis magazine
The rise of advanced technologies like AI and Elon Musk’s Neuralink present a provocative challenge to a view of the human person that has been central to Catholic theology since its inception but which was profoundly articulated by St. John Paul II in his Theology of the Body. In this series of talks, the late pope grounded human dignity and identity in the essential unity of body and soul. We are not simply minds that happen to have bodies; we are integrated beings, where the body, with its limitations and potential, participates fully in what it means to be human.
However, technologies like Neuralink, which aim to fuse the human brain with AI, could radically alter this conception of the human person. And in a moment when the distinction between what is technologically possible and what is morally and theologically sound is increasingly blurred, John Paul II’s anthropology provides an indispensable guide for navigating the ethical and spiritual implications of this brave new world.
At the heart of St. John Paul II’s Theology of the Body is a rejection of Cartesian dualism—the idea that the body is merely a vessel for the mind, something to be discarded or transcended. Instead,
