The narrative begins in a time when augmentation of the body has become standard fare, if not commonplace, but society hasn’t yet acclimated to the change yet, either. Deus Ex: Human Revolution is transfixed on the transhuman shift that begins even now, and examines many of the boons and pitfalls that command over the flesh might entail. Of course, just because we can doesn’t mean that we should. Now we can mold ourselves and mold others, and the promise of further influence over the body gleams on the horizon.
This image becomes less and less applicable as we consistently gain greater ability to become our own craftsmen. But this image still had weight, since we were subjects in the continual re-creation of the human race, not agents. Of course, since Darwin, we have known that evolution is a conservative, random process that operates (if it can be said to operate) toward the goal of replication, and is certainly not the purposeful artist that the author of Isaiah imagined. But it also clearly relegates the human body to a subject role the clay has no power to influence its own creation. It must have been, and still is, an intimate image for Abraham’s descendants – that a divinity might tug upon our very selves, shaping us into beautiful, lasting forms is flattering, and it inspires feelings of safety and hope that hearken back to the story of creation, when Adam was fashioned from the earth. One of the most evocative analogies for human change in the Hebrew scriptures is found in Isaiah, the oft-sung passage portraying the deity as craftsman and His people as clay.