Brain Implants, Yes or No?

In early 2023, the FDA approved Neuralink’s first brain-computer interface for human use, subsequently allowing a paralyzed patient, Noland Arbaugh, to control a computer cursor with his thoughts alone. This technology represents a genuine medical breakthrough for spinal-cord injuries.

Elon Musk, owner of Neuralink, recently predicted that a million people will have these Neuralink brain implants by 2030, primarily to help paralyzed patients control devices with their thoughts. The company’s first human trials, including Arbaugh, have shown remarkable success: Patients can now play chess, browse the internet, and control computers using only their minds. Neuralink is now testing whether patients can also control robotic arms.

These technologies represent incredible leaps forward in the ability to heal the body, but they also open the door to new questions about the proper limits of human enhancement. Once technology exists to restore lost function, what prevents us from using it to enhance normal function or to attempt to transcend human limitations altogether?

Three Principles

As medical technology advances, Christians need a biblical framework for assessing it. What might such a framework look like? Here are three principles.

1. Christians can accept medical technology as a good gift from God.

Genesis 1:28 teaches us that humans were made to work and subdue the world. God gives us the good gift of tools, or technology, to aid us in fulfilling the cultural mandate. After the fall, God graciously allowed humanity to keep these gifts, even though the way we develop and apply technology is often corrupted by sin (see Gen. 11).

2. Christians should distinguish between restoration and enhancement.

There’s a significant difference between using technology to restore normal human function and using it to transcend normal human limitations.

Glasses restore normal vision. Insulin restores normal blood sugar regulation. A pacemaker restores a normal heart rhythm. Cochlear implants restore the ability to hear. All these technologies return individuals with disabilities or failing human function to a baseline of normalcy.

There’s a significant difference between using technology to restore normal human function and using it to transcend normal human limitations.

Enhancement technologies, by contrast, seek to make us more than human. They’re attempts to become “like God” (3:5). They include tech you might find in science fiction stories: enhanced organs, implants, or drugs designed to give typical people superhuman abilities or to sustain life forever.

Whereas restorative technologies help to move individuals to normal human function, enhancement technologies promise to help humanity evolve into new kinds of beings.

3. Christians should be clear that tech doesn’t save.

Technology is a good gift, but it cannot save us. Fallen humanity has always worshiped created things instead of the Creator. (Rom. 1:25) When we look to technology to make us gods, we’re making idols, placing our hope in a false gospel. Idols will always fail us.

No matter how powerful restorative medical technology is, no matter how well it alleviates and restores our bodily problems, God’s Word makes clear that death is still appointed for every man (Heb. 9:27). Only Christ has conquered sin and death, and Christ alone is our solution to the problem of death.

Do Brain Implants Cross the Line?

Today, brain-computer interfaces that help patients regain lost abilities are clearly restorative in nature. Patients have lost function through injury or disease, and the tech helps to restore what was taken from them.

But here’s where Christians need to think carefully. What happens next? Once this technology exists, the temptation will be to expand its use. Medical tech companies are already exploring whether brain implants could enhance memory, increase focus, boost intelligence, or grant abilities humans have never possessed. The same technology that restores function to the paralyzed can be used for transhumanist enhancement.

Christians who work in the medical tech industry (and those considering implants) need to ask searching questions both about their motivation and the precedent the new technology sets: Why are we pursuing this technology—to alleviate genuine suffering and restore lost abilities, or to gain a competitive advantage, eliminate normal human limitations, and “upgrade” ourselves beyond God’s created design?

Moreover, how does this technology compare to medical interventions already widely accepted? Is the design and use of this brain implant more like a cochlear implant (clearly restorative), or more like a technology that promises superhuman abilities (clearly enhancement)?

Seek Wisdom Before You Adopt

As new technologies develop, we need wisdom to evaluate them. Motivations matter. But even the best intentions don’t automatically justify the means. Before we adopt genuinely restorative applications of new technologies, we must carefully evaluate the risks and long-term effects. We should also ask whether less invasive alternatives exist. Just because something could help doesn’t mean it should be our first choice.

These aren’t decisions to make alone. Seek wisdom and counsel from your Christian community—your pastor, church elders, and other mature believers. Evaluating emerging technologies is a process that should draw on the church’s collective wisdom, not just your individual choice.

Evaluating emerging technologies is a process that should draw on the church’s collective wisdom, not just your individual choice.

We should resist the temptation to put our ultimate hope in tech. The Christian response to human limitations and suffering isn’t to transcend our humanity but to trust the One who became human to redeem it. We can gratefully use technology to alleviate suffering while remembering that only Christ offers full and final healing.

As these technologies become more sophisticated and accessible, the line between restoration and enhancement will be harder to discern. This is why we need a clear biblical framework now, before we’re faced with these decisions personally. We must be clear on the difference between fighting the fall’s effects and attempting to become “like God.”

To this end, let’s evaluate new technologies with wisdom rather than adopting either reflexive rejection or uncritical acceptance.