How Should Christians Think About AI?

The AI revolution and a call to respond with wisdom and love.

AI developments are accelerating more quickly than we can process. Newer AI models have even been pushing back against their intended programming. A recent headline rings eerily, “Anthropic's new AI model shows ability to deceive and blackmail.”

Christians are divided on the usefulness and danger of AI. Christianity Today recently published an interview with Gloo, a technology company geared toward faith-based organizations. The interviewer had a negative view of AI, while Gloo has a more positive view. In either case, AI is the current cutting edge of technological innovation, and it shows no sign of slowing down.

Personally, I have found ChatGPT more useful than a search engine, and I deploy it relatively often for various tasks. Our kids have used it for school projects and help on homework. From instantly generating insights on a baseball glove for our son, to background research for biblical study, to explaining how to do math problems, I find the current growth of AI technology both thrilling and terrifying. I’ve glimpsed the helpful aspects, but also scared myself with how easily I might outsource my own thinking.

And as a pastor-theologian I have wrestled with how to think about AI theologically and biblically. Here are a few principles I’m working through.

Creator and Creatures

The basic reality of the world is that God is Creator and everything else is a creature. Between the Creator and creatures opens an unbridgeable gap between Eternal Being and everything else. God is God, creation is not-God.

The crowning glory of God’s creative work is humanity, the only creatures stamped with his image. God entrusted humanity with responsibility for the rest of creation. God is the King of all creation, and he entrusts a measure of that kingship to human creatures. God commands people, “Fill and subdue the earth” (Gen. 1:28).

The development of technology generally and of AI technology specifically flows from the dominion of humanity over creation. Here’s a basic explanation of what I mean: People turn sand into microchips. People put microchips into computers. People create software on computers that can consolidate knowledge into various forms in response to a “prompt.” All of this is a part of “filling and subduing” the world.

AI is a creature made by humans. Like all things we make, it can serve us as a tool, or it can be served by us as an idol. This tension is a tale nearly as old as time. For example, Isaiah describes the way humans both use creation for good and turn it into an idol.

The woodworker…cuts down cedars for his use,
or he takes a cypress or an oak…
He takes some of it and warms himself…
He burns half of it in a fire,
and he roasts meat on that half…
He makes a god or his idol with the rest of it.
He bows down to it and worships;
he prays to it, “Save me, for you are my god.”

—Isaiah 44:13–17

Isaiah describes an absurd picture of idolatry—cutting down a tree and using half the wood for fuel and half to build a statue to worship. We constantly are torn between ruling creation as we should, and worshipping creation like we shouldn’t. Creatures don’t work the way they’re supposed to, because sin fragments our hearts and misaligns our purposes.

Sin and Rebellion

God’s creatures rebelled against the Creator. Every thing we have made out of God’s world ever since the Fall has rebelled against us in some way. All of creation still reflects the glory of God, but all of creation also misrepresents God’s purposes like a shattered mirror. The world is beautiful and broken.

We as humans are also beautiful and broken. We are all beautiful humans who bear the image of God. We are also all broken humans who flip our Creator the bird. Everything we make is branded by our own beautiful and broken DNA. Therefore, no technology can ever be “neutral,” because all technology is made and used by humans. It will be both good and bad, created and fallen, “subjected to futility” (Rom. 8:20). Sin infects everything that humans are and everything that we do.

So AI will mirror this pattern. AI is a creature made by fallen creatures, so it will mirror us, both good and bad. We should expect AI technology to mirror our own beautiful patterns: truth, goodness, beauty. And we should expect AI technology to mirror our own sinful patterns: deception, evil, ugliness.

AI will yield “thorns and thistles” (Gen. 3:18), and when it does we must respond appropriately.

But if it produces thorns and thistles, it is worthless and about to be cursed, and at the end will be burned.

—Hebrews 6:8

All sin will be scorched from the earth under the fires of God’s judgment. You can watch a bunch of movies about the possible ways the AI revolution could turn bad.

But the dangers aren’t just about super robots taking over the earth. It’s more subtle. It’s about not thinking for ourselves, not doing the work. Embracing laziness and depending on an artificially intelligent created thing rather than the Creator. It means something to me that the folks I see pushing back against AI the hardest work in college spaces with college students. We might train a generation to outsource their minds, if we’re not careful.

Messing with thorns can draw blood, after all.

That said, we also know that sin and judgment are not the end of the Bible. Genesis 3 doesn’t finish the story. The story of the Bible is also a story of grace and redemption.

Grace and Redemption

God’s redeeming grace focuses on humanity through the cross and resurrection of Jesus. And the cross and resurrection have redemptive impact on all of the creation. God promises spiritual salvation and physical resurrection. He promises a new heavens and a new earth (Rev. 21). God redeems the work that we do, making it beautiful and worth something good. Bob Thune points out that the redeemed creation will be a city, and cities are full of technology.

I believe that God can redeem the things we make, the little creations we mold out of his creation. So I believe that God can redeem AI, as we use it for good. For example, AI can automate and quicken tedious, repetitive tasks. It can help diagnose medical conditions. It can collate vast amounts of knowledge and summarize it more quickly than a single (or group) of humans. Who knows what else.

As I said, I’ve seen a lot of help from various AIs, from creating images, to editing, to summarizing, to research. It can be a helpful tool. But it is not neutral. It is infected with both the beauty and brokenness of its human makers.

So, for now, the question is a question of wisdom, and ultimately of love.

Wisdom and Love

We approach AI like we approach anything in creation, with wisdom in dependence on God’s Spirit. From bees to bytes, the things in the world are either God’s creation (nature) or the stuff we make from God’s creation (like technology). With all the created world around us, we proceed with wisdom. A bee can sting us and provide us honey. So much of the world is this way. It can harm us and help us. Wisdom helps us discern which approach will bring help instead of harm.

Approaching current AI models with wisdom might include:

• Using it for editing more than composition

• Using it for research more than thinking

• Using it as a tool rather than a companion

That last point is a big one. Many people are using AI to find companionship. It makes sense in some ways. An AI will always be a prompt away, never truly contradict you, and always be what you want, when you want. But obviously that’s a shallow way to connect and nothing like a true relationship.

So the wisest among us will prioritize people. Family, friends, neighbors. Flesh and blood and souls, not bytes and bits and prompts.

In other words, the most important way to push back against the evil thorns of AI is pursuing love in true relationship with God and others.

We can fall in love with tools and with idols, but the tools and idols will never love us back.