The rise of artificial intelligence presents a dazzling array of philosophical and ethical questions. What is intelligence? How does it differ from consciousness and personhood? Is AI the simulation of activities of intelligent beings or the creation of a new kind of intelligent being? Will certain AI bots become so sophisticated that these beings have emergent brain states similar to animal or human brain states, and if so, what are our moral obligations toward them?
It also presents distinctly theological questions. Is the development of AI an act of hubris or idolatry, or a reflection of the image of our Creator and a fulfillment of our calling to bring order and fruitfulness to the world? What would it mean to align AI technologies toward human flourishing in a manner that reflects a Christian concept of what it means to be human?
Given the pace of the AI revolution, Christians cannot afford to be late to this conversation. Fortunately, the biblical narrative and Christian theology have much to say on these topics. They yield a vision of technology that’s neither utopian nor catastrophist but is rooted in a complex and critical view of what it means to be human, to be sinful, and to join with God in the cultivation and restoration of all things.
A Christian theology of technology should begin with the beginning. Humans, as the crown of God’s creation, were made in the image of their Creator and charged to fill and steward the earth (Gen. 1:28). The God who brought forth abundance and order invited humans to “keep” and “till” the Garden (2:15, NRSV) and thus join him in that work—what we often call the creation mandate.
And while we often imagine Eden as pretechnological because of an implied absence of “toil” (3:17), there’s no reason to suppose its gardeners could not have used simple agricultural tools (say, a hand shovel or pruning hook) in their cultivation of the natural world before the Fall.
After Eden, the biblical narrative describes agricultural technology in Cain’s farming (4:2), civil engineering in the construction of the first cities (v. 17), and metallurgy as Tubal-Cain “forged all kinds of tools out of bronze and iron” (v. 22). In the primordial narratives of Genesis 1–12, we see both positive and negative uses of technology. The ark was advanced seafaring technology for which Noah was given a divine blueprint, and it served an indispensable role in the preservation of life (6:14–20). The Tower of Babel was constructed using technological innovation (in brickmaking, 11:3–4), yet it resulted in the scattering and fragmentation of humankind.
Later, in Egypt, the Israelites participated in monumental works of engineering and architecture (Ex. 1:11). In the wilderness, they took great care in following God’s direction as they selected building materials and textiles for the ark of the covenant and the tabernacle (Ex. 25). The Mosaic Law advanced agriculture and public health. Military warfare in Israel’s early history involved things like iron chariots (Judges 1:19), missile weapons (1 Sam. 17:50), and advanced weaponry (2 Chron. 1:14–17). Under King Solomon, the Israelites applied their technological craftsmanship to the construction of a grand temple that reflected the glory of God (2 Chron. 3).
While the Hebrew Bible is primarily a story of God’s covenantal relationship with a family that becomes a people, it also illustrates how those people employed the technologies of their time to serve their common human vocation to steward and cultivate the created world as well as their specific calling as bearers of the Word and worshipers of God.
In the New Testament, we read that Christ was a tekton and the son of a tekton (Mark 6:3; Matt. 13:55), which was a craftsman or builder. Not only does Jesus affirm the intrinsic goodness of God’s creation in the Incarnation, but his earthly vocation exhibits the value of the technologist as one who makes new things and restores broken things. Later, Paul supported his ministry through tentmaking (Acts 18:3), and Lydia’s profits from a dyeing technology provided resources for ministry (16:14). And of course, the spread of the gospel in the early church was facilitated by Roman roads and rapidly improving technologies of seafaring, navigation, writing, and bookmaking.
At the same time, some ancient technological artifacts and methods were ethically complex. The same weapons that protected God’s people could be used against them; sometimes the Israelites found themselves at a technological disadvantage (1 Sam. 13:19–22). The same tools and skills the Hebrews used to craft the tabernacle and the temple were used to make idols (Ex. 32:2–4). From the Tower of Babel to the tower that collapsed at Siloam (Luke 13:4), technology could be built for the wrong reasons or built poorly to disastrous effect. Even the cross on which Jesus hung was a kind of technological weapon designed for destruction, a cruel instrument used to instill fear over a population and control their behavior.
As the message of the church spread, Christian theologians soon developed a theological lens for technological work. (As I’ve written previously on these topics in The New Atlantis, I am indebted to the writings and lectures of my former professor and mentor, Diogenes Allen.)
The Cappadocian fathers served artisans or craftsmen (tekhnîtai) in their congregations, and they wrote about the meaning and purpose of the technical crafts (tekhnai) in making the earth more orderly and beautiful. In his work On the Human Condition, Basil of Caesarea spoke of God’s artisanship and how we are artisans in his likeness when we join him in his purpose of restoration. In their commentaries on Genesis, many church fathers, from Basil to Ambrose to John Chrysostom, remarked on Adam and Eve’s “garments of skin” (Gen. 3:21) as a kind of primitive technological artifact and thus God as the first technologist.
In medieval times, Hugh of Saint Victor made the case that technology (in Allen’s thinking) has the potential to be spiritual. That is, the mechanical arts inquire into the natural order God ordained and thus into the mind of God himself. They also can restore right order, in which humankind is not subject to the natural world but steward over it. Hugh’s follower Godfrey even argued that the work of the technologist cultivates skills of patience and attention, which can benefit the life of prayer. Hugh’s work in his Didascalicon set the pattern for many later thinkers who saw the mechanical arts as essential to restoring paradise.
In On the Reduction of the Arts to Theology, Bonaventure described the mechanical arts as instruments of divine love and neighbor love. Artisans must study the order God created to craft their works, and this study shapes not only their knowledge but also their character. They produce objects that are noble, useful, and agreeable, bringing about a beauty that points to God. If it is remarkable that God could create a natural object such as a tree, how much more extraordinary that he could create beings with the insight, creativity, and will to craft useful and beautiful things with which to serve their neighbors and glorify their Creator?
Medieval Christians showed how technology could alleviate the more painful aspects of people’s labor. Monastic communities developed innovations in agriculture, animal husbandry, and sanitation, leaving more time for prayer, scriptural meditation, and the preservation of biblical and other classical texts. Monasteries also refined the technologies of writing and bookmaking in ways that made Bibles smaller and easier to transport, which were helpful for missionary purposes.
That is to say nothing of the printing press, which made the Bible available to far more people. Or steamboats, trains, and planes that carried missionaries to the far corners of the globe. Or medical and public health technologies that churches and ministries have used to alleviate suffering. Or mass media such as radio, television, and the internet, which have carried the gospel further still.
At the same time, we need to note that all of these technologies leave complicated legacies. The agricultural advances that let nomads settle in cities led to new powers of disease, despotism, and inequality. The same roads and sea routes that delivered missionaries and trade goods delivered armies for conquest and plunder. The same printing presses that produced Bibles also produced Mein Kampf. Automobiles, nuclear technology, televisions, computers, the internet—we can all name the benefits as well as the detriments.
From antiquity, Christianity has provided a theological framework that embraces the complexity of technology. It encourages innovation as a reflection of God’s creativity and imbues it with purpose—to join him in making creation beautiful and plentiful and hospitable to life, as well as in serving those around us.
But it is also mindful of the brokenness of sin that exists at the heart of humankind. We tend to make tools of productivity into weapons of plunder, to transform what was made to glorify God into instruments that exalt and enrich ourselves, and even to fashion objects of worship and devotion. As we shape technologies, our technologies shape us—which can lead to either pride, domination, and idolatry; or purpose, beauty, and service.
Where does artificial intelligence find its place in this story? For the most part, AI is similar to other revolutionary technologies. The ingenuity it represents is a divinely given gift. Insofar as AI serves the good, it reflects our nature as beings made in God’s image and our vocation to join in the cultivation and restoration of the world.
Humans are already using AI to diagnose diseases and develop novel medicines, fight human trafficking and find missing children, make crops more productive and businesses more efficient, improve education, explore the cosmos, and even decipher animal languages. AI “accelerationists” are not wrong to believe that AI could lead to extraordinary discoveries in fundamental sciences and life-altering advances for human civilization.
And as with many other technologies, the power it possesses for good is proportionate to the power it possesses for destruction. We have all witnessed in recent decades how AI algorithms have turned social media into massive engines of addiction, polarization, and dysfunction—while concentrating staggering wealth in the hands of a few technocrats. It remains to be seen how artificial intelligence will impact labor markets, the struggle between democratic and totalitarian regimes, information warfare, kinetic warfare, and matters of mental health and family cohesion. AI “safetyists” are not wrong to be concerned that, if we fail to align artificial intelligence with human flourishing, we could find human civilization twisted into something far worse than it is now.
Whether AI differs from other technologies on a categorical level depends on what it is. Many practitioners today envision that, as artificial intelligence models become more sophisticated, more “general,” or more “agentic,” they will need to be recognized as a new kind of being. Some of my friends in Silicon Valley speak of submitting themselves to an AI superintelligence that will guide their lives far better than they can—which sounds an awful lot like worship.
If it’s ever proven that humankind has created new intelligent beings, this would indeed open new fields of theological inquiry. Would these new intelligences be like animals that deserve humane treatment or like human beings who merit protections and rights? Would we be misappropriating God’s own prerogative to make intelligent beings or expressing our identity as beings made in his image? What if the intelligence we created rebels against us in the same way we rebel against our Maker? Would man and machine live out their own version of Genesis 1–3?
As interesting as these scenarios are to imagine, I’m skeptical that they will ever be realized. There is a kind of instability in the term intelligence itself. Sometimes we use the term to refer to a capacity for certain activities: A human, animal, or machine is intelligent if it demonstrates the ability to learn, adapt, and solve problems. Other times we use the term to refer to a being: A supreme intelligence or extraterrestrial intelligence is a being who demonstrates these capacities.
In his seminal 1980 essay, “Minds, brains, and programs,” the philosopher John Searle refers to “weak AI” as a simulation of intelligent processes and “strong AI” as the actual possession of a mind. Strong AI, he asserted then, is a confusion. A computer simulation of consciousness does not produce consciousness any more than a computer simulation of a hurricane produces wind.
I tend to agree with Microsoft theorist Jaron Lanier’s assessment that AI in the grander sense is, at least presently, more science fiction than science. What we call artificial intelligence today may be better understood as a new form of social collaboration. We draw on more sophisticated algorithms of data consumption, pattern recognition, and statistical prediction based on larger and larger information sets. These algorithms are powerful and may alter the course of history. But there is no concrete evidence that improving the simulation of intelligence could ever make the leap to creating intelligent beings.
Christians have particular reason to be skeptical that machine algorithms will ever approximate or compete with human personhood. While animals are conscious and possess varying amounts of intelligence, they are not persons in the rich biblical sense. To be a human is to be a God-breathed union of body and spirit, indissolubly connected. It is to be irreducibly relational, made for fellowship with God and with one another.
We can only be who we are meant to be when we rest our faith in the one who made and sustains us, when we are reconciled to God through Jesus’ saving work on our behalf. We are capable not only of intelligence but also of love and loneliness, grief and doubt, anxiety and joy—and we are meant to be caught up in families, communities, and covenantal relationships. We are also made to be stewards over the works of our hands, not subject to them.
It is ultimately an impoverished view to believe that intelligence is reducible to its behaviors or a being is indistinguishable from its simulated activities. A corpse can be manipulated to embrace a person, but this does not mean it loves the person. Photographs of a child can be thrown into a box and shaken, but this will never produce a child.
As the Vatican noted in “Antiqua et Nova” in January of this year,
AI cannot possess many of the capabilities specific to human life, and it is also fallible. By turning to AI as a perceived “Other” greater than itself… humanity risks creating a substitute for God. However, it is not AI that is ultimately deified and worshipped, but humanity itself—which, in this way, becomes enslaved to its own work.
This is the danger: that we should repeat the sins of the Tower of Babel or the golden calf, making the works of our hands into symbols of hubris or objects of adoration.
For all these reasons, we should be careful not to anthropomorphize or idolize artificial intelligence. Instead, we should welcome it for what it is—a reflection of God’s creativity in us that can lead to both extraordinary destruction and extraordinary good. And we should get about the business of making sure it’s the latter.
Timothy Dalrymple was president and CEO of Christianity Today from 2019 to 2025. He is leaving CT to serve as president of the John Templeton Foundation.
This article appeared in the July/August 2025 issue of Christianity Today as "Made in Our Image".
Related
