Artificial Intelligence and the Gospel
Artificial Intelligence and the Gospel
What should we think of Artificial Intelligence (or AI as it is commonly known) as Christians in a postmodern world?
This is a question that has come to my mind often, and not just because it is something new on the technological horizon. I work in real estate marketing and sales, and it is not often a day goes by that I do not receive an email promising me better returns for my marketing dollars if I subscribe to their AI analysis or sign up for AI to write my ad copy.
I will readily confess that my usual reaction is one of scorn. “The day I need AI to do my writing for me will be the day they can shovel me under,” I think to myself defiantly as I throw another oak log into the wood stove in my basement. I look with fondness on the vintage Remington typewriter on my desk, and go back to reading my hardbound collection of C. S. Lewis’ essays.
But is this really a faithful Christian response? It’s satisfying and it’s nostalgic, and it makes me feel like the movie character Paul Bunyan in Tall Tale, where he chuffs the foam off his drink and states his intention to retreat back into his woodland paradise and let the world go to the blazes with all of its technological wonders. The Bible has something different to say, however:
“Say not, “Why were the former days better than these?” For it is not from wisdom that you ask this. - Ecclesiastes 7:10, ESV
And I soberly remember that Scripture stands above me, not the other way around. The Word of God will still be here when I have indeed been shoveled under and the world has indeed gone to the blazes, or however you interpret 2 Peter 3.
I look around, and I consider that the old typewriter was once new technology, and so was the book I have in my hand. Even fire had its Promethean moment in history. People rankled at each one of these developments, I am sure, insisting that there was nothing wrong with the goose quill or the vellum parchment. “This flame is too dangerous!” someone probably grumbled to Tubal-Cain (Genesis 4:22), and quietly ignoring them he went right on forging instruments of bronze and iron, for the continuing benefit of mankind.
The former days were not better than these; the Preacher of Ecclesiastes is right, and I am wrong.
Although Tubal-Cain’s detractors were not entirely wrong. Fire is indeed dangerous, even in our day of technological advancement when many dozens tragically perished in the Maui wildfires. It is listed along with Sheol, the barren womb, and the land never satisfied with water in the four things that never say “Enough” of Proverbs 30. But this world God created has danger inherent to it, and we would do well not to forget that as we push the envelopes of our achievement.
And people do forget that. We put too much faith in technology. I innocently type my credit card number onto a website to buy the newest book put out by Carl Trueman (a favorite author of mine), and while I am eagerly looking forward to immersing myself in his thought on creeds and confession, I am blindsided by the clever hacker who has figured out how to compromise my account and charge as many purchases to it as they can before MasterCard shuts them down. Was it my fault for trusting the site? No, not strictly; but I cannot complain too much. The convenience I am offered comes at a cost, which I knew perfectly well before I put all my weight on the splintered reed that technology always is.
All technology, not just AI. Even typewriters and books and fire come at a cost. This cost is how we must evaluate AI, then, if we are to tell the truth about it as Christians.
Is there an opportunity to use AI to spread the Gospel in faithful ways so that more people hear about salvation in Christ? Probably so; far be it from me to detract from it.
Is there an opportunity to use AI to help believers to regularly pray for others? Yes there is, which I happen to know firsthand; far be it from me to detract from it.
Is there an opportunity to use AI to help a church-planting team think through how to strategize starting up a network of faithful communities of faith in a metro area? Probably so; far be it from me to detract from it.
My old-school proclivities were new-school once, and in the shortsighted Battle of the Ancients and the Moderns that we often make these conversations to be, I would do well to remember it.
The first sentence in this article stated that I live in a postmodern world. I do, and the pervasive insistence on doing away with metanarratives and on everyone having their own contextually contingent personal truth systems irritates me profoundly.
People can seemingly just ignore truth and reason and suppose that it will go away, and as Christians we know there will be a heavy price to pay for this foolishness. But in a larger sense, I live in a world of human beings, a world in which every single one of us are continually and will eventually fall into one of C. S. Lewis’ two ultimate categories: (1) Those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” or (2) Those to whom God says in the end, “All right, have it your way.” A world that is at its heart the same as it always has been.
Technology does not change this dichotomy. You can argue that it can allow us to make our choices more quickly or with less consideration, and you’d be right. But this issue of AI falls into a similar category, I believe, as eating food sacrificed to idols. It is not intrinsically right or wrong in and of itself.
St. Paul puts careful guardrails around eating food sacrificed to idols in 1 Corinthians 8, and we can observe how cautious he is not to make a moral statement about the act. It can be used for good in the kingdom, or it can be used for evil, and he takes pains not to bind the consciences of his readers.
Christ on the other hand in Revelation 2 makes no bones about His instructions to the churches in Pergamum and Thyatira that they have no business whatsoever eating food sacrificed to idols.
Why does Jesus make a clear moral judgment about this issue where St. Paul does not? Because Jesus knows our hearts, and He is qualified to make it. Human beings are not qualified to judge when it comes to morally ambiguous issues. Not even apostles! The humility of St. Paul in his instruction to the church should be an example for us.
I do have a caution to share when it comes to AI. It seems to me that there is a particular quality about it that lends itself to deception. I recently heard an attorney from Philadelphia speak before a Senate panel and give testimony regarding how he (a more sophisticated and discerning consumer than most) was almost duped by an AI scam purporting to be his son and mimicking, incredibly believably, his son’s voice on the phone. It was chilling and was a reminder that we ought always to remember that what we hear (and in many cases even what we see) may appear to be truthful and may be quite compelling, and may still not be the truth.
Here again Scripture comes to our aid. What is our source of ultimate, completely reliable truth? It will always be the Word of God, as we read it in the Book of Isaiah:
A voice says, “Cry!” And I said, “What shall I cry?” All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field.
The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the Lord blows on it; surely the people are grass.
The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.
- Isaiah 40:6-8, ESV
Our salvation is not to be found in nostalgia, nor is it to be found in any wisdom or achievements of man, be they new or old. It will only ever be found in the finished work of Jesus Christ on the Cross for us, the very Logos of God. He is the Ancient of Days, and there is a Day coming when He will make all things new (Revelation 21:1-5). This is our great and only hope.
About the Author: Jeremy Vogan lives in Staunton, Virginia, with his wife and children. He loves reading, writing, good Gospel sermons, sunsets, visiting the beach, distance running, and the Shenandoah Valley.
To read more from Jeremy, you can subscribe to his blog, God, Life, and Beauty.
Jeremy has also published a work titled The Most Holy Place: Daily Devotions in the Book of Hebrews, currently available for purchase on Amazon.
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