Let’s take a quick survey. How would you feel in the following scenarios?
You discover that last Sunday your pastor preached a sermon that was written by ChatGPT.
During the Monday meeting, your boss announces that the company now expects everyone to use generative AI to enhance productivity.
On Tuesday, a woman in your home group who is considering a major life decision tells you she asked for advice from an AI bot.
My guess is that, for the majority of readers, at least one of these things would genuinely upset or disturb you, one would not make too much of a difference to you, and maybe one would fall into a gray area. And for those who were genuinely bothered by one or more of these scenarios, you probably felt troubled before you did any conscious reasoning. In other words, one or more of these scenarios felt wrong before you knew why it was wrong.
For the last couple of years, I have traveled to many places and spoken to thousands of people about the powers and perils of digital technology. By far the most common question is this: “What do you think about AI?”
Artificial intelligence technology has evolved faster than most Christians have been able to think about it. For many of us, by the time we learned that these systems could write a funny short story in a few seconds, the age of generative AI was upon us. When this kind of massive cultural change happens so quickly, most people tend to go along with it automatically. “This is new” becomes synonymous with “This is good.”
Some, however, have pushed back on AI. They warn about what we stand to lose — in our thinking, our creativity, and our humanity — if we let computers run more of our lives. A few have even wondered aloud if demonic forces might have a role in AI, and whether going along with it might open dark doors.
Three Principles for Christians
The New Testament warns against going down the path of too much theological speculation. There’s always a temptation to care more about what we can’t know than what we can. In this brief article, I want to offer a few diagnostic tests for thinking about, relating to, and using AI in a Christian way. My goal is neither to confirm the goodness of artificial intelligence nor to speculate about its worst potential dangers. Instead, my goal is to synthesize what I believe Scripture teaches about human nature and ultimate truth with a “tech-realist” perspective that listens attentively to how tech affects us as embodied people.
Let’s look at three principles, rooted in Scripture, and apply those in turn to the scenarios listed above.
Principle 1: Know the difference between human and nonhuman.
From a biblical perspective, attributing human traits to something that isn’t human is a symptom of idolatry. The psalmist observes,
Their idols are silver and gold,
the work of human hands.
They have mouths, but do not speak;
eyes, but do not see.
They have ears, but do not hear;
noses, but do not smell.
They have hands, but do not feel;
feet, but do not walk;
and they do not make a sound in their throat.
Those who make them become like them;
so do all who trust in them. (Psalm 115:4–8)
Idols are created in the image of living things, but they do not live. Their very appearance is deceptive; they have ears that can’t hear, hands that can’t feel, and mouths that can’t speak. This illusion of sentience is part of the idol’s deception; it is easier to worship, trust, and praise precisely because it looks like a living thing.
Blurring the lines between human and nonhuman is a symptom of a spiritually confused culture. To be absolutely clear: AI programs do not think. Large language models, or LLMs, might appear to engage in rational conversation, but in reality, advanced algorithms and billions of inputs are triggering predictive patterns. This means that LLMs can be useful in certain situations, such as combing through large amounts of data or summarizing research. But an LLM can never “speak” in a human way.
The reason the first scenario listed above strikes many of us as appalling is that we instinctively know that a Spirit-empowered sermon must come from a Spirit-empowered human. Humans wrote the Bible, inspired by our personal God, and humans must proclaim the word in order for people to hear and be saved (Romans 10:14). This doesn’t deny the role that technology (like books, radio, or the Internet) can play in spreading the gospel. What it means is that technology can extend or amplify the human proclamation of the gospel, but it cannot replace it.
Our theology of technology must maintain clear distinctions between human abilities and obligations and nonhuman ones. Attributing higher human abilities to machines — like “thinking” or “friendship” or “counsel” — will invariably lead to sloughing off our human obligations to them. Yes, machines can “process” and “analyze,” but only after human thought has already supplied something to process or analyze. What machines cannot and will never do is create in imitation of our creative God.
Principle 2: Evaluate AI not only by its perceived usefulness but by its shaping effects.
All technology changes us somehow. Inventions such as the stethoscope, light bulb, and personal computer have greatly enhanced our daily lives. And they’ve transformed the way we encounter the world. This doesn’t make them evil, but it does mean they cannot be neutral.
So, how does AI shape us? Let’s unpack the second scenario in our list. A manager at a company might believe that AI programs will inevitably boost productivity by generating answers to questions much faster or by eliminating the time-consuming process of thinking through particular challenges.
Putting aside the question of whether this assumption is actually true for most workplaces, this argument may lead to a lower quality of work in the long run. In his book Slow Productivity, Cal Newport argues that knowledge workers underestimate the effects of stepping away from tasks and thinking through abstract questions, such as “What’s the best thing I could be working on?” or “What would truly be a great idea for our company?” Newport argues that truly valuable human work requires imagination and deep thought.
If Newport is correct, then relying on AI may diminish our ability to think like this. Asking an LLM for inspiration and getting a quick answer could rob the user and the group of the benefits that come from taking the time to carefully work through challenges. Scripture teaches that there is wisdom in patiently understanding something rather than trying to find a quick fix (Proverbs 18:17; 21:5).
This doesn’t rule out all applications of AI technology at work. But we have to evaluate those applications as embodied persons whose minds, created in the image of a rational God, are designed to grow and flourish. Don’t just ask, “How will this save us time?”; also ask, “What kind of people will we be if we rely on this?”
Principle 3: Remember that AI can give us facts but not wisdom or friendship.
Of all the possible uses of AI, the one that most concerns me is also the one growing the fastest. According to some estimates, about 25 percent of Americans have either used an AI bot for therapy or would be open to it. That number will almost certainly climb as Gen Z ages and the perceived advantages of AI counseling (like anonymity and convenience) become more apparent. Even worse are stories of users developing romantic feelings for these bots and, in some cases, completely losing touch with reality.
My sense is that the third scenario listed above will become common in the years ahead. Pastors, parents, and lay Christians will need to be able to answer the “Why can’t I?” questions of AI. “Why can’t I ask AI whether or not to leave my spouse?” “Why can’t I call an AI bot my girlfriend?”
We urgently need a theology of wisdom. Wisdom is not simply true sentences; wisdom is the development of our character toward Christ. It is thinking, feeling, and choosing rightly in situations too varied for the Bible to address specifically.
Wise people live in accordance with how God created us. And how did God create us? We are not just minds with language; we also have bodies. He created us to need other people. He created us to live as persons who can go out into his real physical world, fill it with image-bearers, and cultivate it to his glory (Genesis 1:28). Robots cannot do this.
In the case of counseling or therapy, AI’s inhuman nature renders it unfit to serve our needs. Imagine there is an aspiring counselor in your church who really wants to talk to people about their problems. Then imagine that this aspiring counselor openly says he has no love for anyone other than himself, no desire to hear about and pray for someone’s sin, and no patience for people who struggle. Anyone with a brain would tell this man he is unfit for the task. Inhuman qualities are disqualifying in a human counselor.
But an AI bot has only inhuman qualities. The bot cannot love you. The bot cannot pray for you. The bot cannot show you patience or tenderness. Nor can you love or pray for or confess to the bot. What’s happening in AI counseling is not spiritual growth; it’s humans using digital tools to burrow deeper into themselves.
Read Your Technology Well
Sometimes people will respond to arguments like these by appealing to history’s various debates over technology. They will point out that some were opposed to the technologies we enjoy today. This is true. And surely there are some arguments against digital technology that repeat the same logical fallacies and empty nostalgia of centuries past.
This is why what matters is not our preferences but the wisdom we are called to in Scripture. When it comes to AI, not every question is clear, but there are real challenges being posed to Scripture’s fundamental assumptions about human personhood. Our task as believers is not to answer for every Luddite in history but to read the Scriptures well, read our technology well, and live in the way that leads to truly Christian flourishing.
These three principles can help us get there. So, no matter which scenario is closest to you, take heart that the Author of Scripture is not surprised by any technology, and that his word and his Spirit are more than ready to help us live well in a rapidly changing world.
Desiring God