The Gateway Forum
Next Forum
I (Thou) Robot: God, Morals & Machine Beings
Speaker: Rev Dr Stephen Goundrey-Smith
Date & Venue: TBC
Have you been following the incredibly rapid advances in AI, drone technology, robotics, cyborgs? What does this all mean for humanity? Is there a way to think about this theologically? Come find out!
Our next Gateway Forum speaker, Rev Dr Stephen Goundrey-Smith, is not new to Gateway – but few people know he’s also a hospital pharmacist, a scientific theologian, and has recently written a book on transhumanism and a previous book on biomedical ethics. He’ll be looking at the age-old topic of what it means to be human (in the image of God), by asking similar questions about robots, cyborgs and artificial intelligences. His talk will explore ethical and theological issues that these machine beings present to humanity and the world – by looking both at robots in pop culture and the serious challenges of transhumanism and futuristic technologies.
Not to be missed!
Abstract
This talk will explore the ethical and theological issues that machine beings – robots, cyborgs and artificial intelligences – present humanity and the contemporary world. Looking at some robots in popular culture – for example, the Cylons of Battlestar Galactica – the salient cultural features of machine beings will be discussed. Ethical issues with machine beings will then be analysed using a framework for Christian ethical evaluation of transhumanist and other futuristic technologies,
discussing the issues according to four themes: autonomy, nature, embodiment and the image of God (imago Dei). The session will then draw conclusions about how humans can relate to machine beings, and the goodness (or otherwise) of machine beings’ contributions to the world.
About Stephen Goundrey-Smith
Stephen Goundrey-Smith is a scientific theologian and ethicist, and an ordained Church of England minister. After training as a pharmacist, and working in hospital pharmacy, and in the medical departments of various international pharmaceutical companies, he trained for Church of England ministry at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford.
He was subsequently awarded a PhD in theology from the University of Exeter for his work on an ethical re-evaluation of proposed transhumanist biomedical technologies in the light of the impact of widely adopted advances in pharmaceutical medicine in the twentieth century.
He is the author of Transhumanism, Ethics and the Therapeutic Revolution: Agents of Change (Routledge, 2023) and Christian Ethics and Biomedical Innovation (Bloomsbury, 2025). He is Associate Tutor in Christian Ethics and Doctrine at Cuddesdon
Previous Gateway Forums
Gateway Forum - Nicene Creed
Date & Time: Friday 26th Sept from 7-9pm.
Location: St Andrew’s Church, Churchdown,
The forum will provide an opportunity to come together every 2-3 months for a fascinating talk on a contemporary theological issue delivered by an expert in the field. There will be Q&A time to follow, and all with refreshments and a bit of socialising. What could be better?
The forum is still in the planning stages, but to kick things off, Dr Daniel Button will deliver the first topic on ‘The Nicene Creed at 1700’
First talk by Gateway’s Dr Daniel Button celebrates the 1700th anniversary of the council of Nicea, an event filled with mystery, intrigue, theological brawls, and the beginnings of a Church-State relationship still in place today – for better or for worse. Around the world Christians still repeat the Nicene creed as a benchmark of faith, yet we often know little about how it came to be, or the strange events around its formation. A chance to find out more.
If you missed it, you can view the talk via the YouTube link below: