Is AI A1? Some Introductory Thoughts
But first: MI – the Magnificent Intelligence of God!

The other morning, I turned on my computer to be greeted by a stunning image of the Milky Way. It’s accompanying caption told me that it is 100,000 light years across, contains at least 400 billion stars, and is just one of perhaps two trillion galaxies! And yet the Psalmist tells us that every one of those trillions of billions of stars is numbered by God and that He calls them by name. (Ps. 147:4)

Awesome, awesome God!

More awesome still, in the smallness of the Earth amidst the immensity of the universe, this magnificent Creator knows us by name, and loves us. Still more stunning, He permits us and invites us, and has designed us, to know Him and love Him. He wants to be known. The God who can envision and call into being immeasurable, unimaginable vastnesses longs and intends that each person should ‘seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us,’ as Paul says. (Acts 17:27) In fact, the Greek word he uses, psélaphaó, means more than just reaching, but touching, feeling, and handling. What love is this, that God wants to be not a distant Creator but a tangible and knowable Heavenly Father?

Left to itself, however, humanity prefers follow its own path through life. Rather than reaching out for God, and pressing in to know the heart, mind and will of the Lord of the Universe, we devote ourselves to developing machines that have the power to deepen knowledge, as if such knowledge could make us master of our own fate. The amount of money being spent on this ‘Artificial Intelligence’ is staggering, and the rapidity of its advances mind-boggling. AI now speaks to virtually every sphere of contemporary life, and we cannot afford to be unaware of its impact.

Concerning the differences between human and artificial intelligence

‘Artificial Intelligence.’ Two words with huge implications. Two words that encapsulate a massive shift in the way humanity engages with knowledge and power in the world, to the point where businesses and governments are investing unimaginable sums in its development and oversight, and everyone from the Pope to its own developers recognise that we must come up with ways to handle and harness its seemingly limitless power with care, because we are referring now not to intentional pregnancy that the initials AI used to be primarily associated with (Artificial Insemination) but to newly discovered ways for machines to source and harvest vast quantities of data and intelligence in such a way that they are able to learn to reason, and to come up with decisions of their own.

What’ then is AI’s remit, and its limitations? Just how far will it take us? And how much will it demand of us? And more to the point, what does God think about AI?

There are so many exceedingly important questions surrounding this subject that no short series of articles can do more than skim the surface to consider, let alone provide a complete answer to them. Yet I believe we do need to recognise the fact that these questions exist, and to do our best to ponder and wrestle with them from the perspective of our faith in God.

Most of us realise that when we look something of interest or importance to us up on the Internet – (and how quickly we have learned to do that!) that its first response has been generated by AI. But that does not limit AI to being an advance referencing system to access to the biggest collection of reference books the world has ever seen. To quote Google’s own definition of AI, it is ‘the simulation of human cognitive processes by machines and computer systems, enabling them to learn, reason, perceive, and to make decisions to solve complex problems.’

The word ‘artificial’ comes from the Latin words, ars meaning skill, art or craft, and facere meaning to do or make. As for the word intelligence, it represents a combination of the Latin word inter (between) and legere, ‘choosing, gathering’ or ‘reading’. The word only came to be associated with the gathering of secret news or information in the 16th century, but even then it still has much to do with grasping implications that may not be immediately apparent, and sifting between different options and understandings in order to make the best informed choices.

For all that AI can never perfectly replicate human intelligence, it represents a new high point for human intelligence that has brought us to the point where we can simulate it. But the human ability to know and think and process, to discern and make choices remains the gift of God. It is creative and personal, responsive and organic, and is influenced by everything from our health and the state of our relationships, our team’s latest result and what the weather is up to.

AI, by contrast, has no such personal impulses directing it as it sets out first to consult a vast array of resources, and then to process them, follow instructions, and come up with answers and suggestions appropriate to the task we set it. If it checks the local weather forecast in forming its response, then that will only be because it was necessary to the project, not because it was worried about getting sunburnt or showered upon!

That much we would expect of an automate; what is so remarkable here is the extent to which AI is capable of learning and reasoning, and to being able to adapt its behaviour and output in the light of what it is learns. AI is trained on ‘large language models’ (LLMs – that is, absolutely huge datasets of text) and, rather than settling for the first piece of information it comes across, it seeks to continually improve and either expand or summarise its own understanding. This represents a major advance on earlier technologies, such as pre-programmed calculators or basic search engines, which are limited to producing responses according to a pre-determined set of rules and instead has the ability to offer us not only information we didn’t know, but also information we didn’t know was there to be known.

Using AI

AI can be immensely valuable in saving us much spadework. It provides us with such effective and seemingly intuitive tools that they end up becoming ‘virtual assistants’ for many of us. General purpose ‘chatbots’ are designed to help us find out some facts we want to know, direct us toward solutions for a particular problem, or even draft an important letter. Specific search and research assistants search out and cite information that it would have taken us a great deal of time to discover by our own efforts. These assistants have become an integral part of life in the 21st century, as a result of being built into the various apps we access, helping us make efficient use of them, whether we are looking something up, drafting or improving a piece of writing, researching a major project, or needing to call for urgent practical help.

I am certainly increasingly grateful to the Lord for all the ways in which AI helps me in my daily life and in my ministry. There are, however, obvious and potentially serious flipsides to these oh-so-easy-to-use shortcuts though to be aware of. For a start they can get things wrong; they can make us if not brainwashed then at least brain-diminished.

That mistakes and errors are made – well we make them all the time too, but the idea that such assistance might make us lazy is a potentially more serious issue. It would be easy for people to become unduly dependent on machines to do all their thinking for them, and so fail to develop all the capacity that God has given us? Will we notice our mistakes, and if we don’t, will anyone else? As society becomes increasingly comfortable engaging with it in one form or another, and increasingly dependent on it, it’s vitally important that we recognise its limitations.

It is good that children are taught how to use AI in school, and learn about its limitations and dangers, but meanwhile, those of us who are older and with more experience, have the advantage of recognising things that don’t quite add up, or that don’t tally with what we have learned to be true in our own experience and through ‘scholarship’ built up over a whole lifetime. Occasionally, this broader knowledge enables us to spot specific errors or dubious emphases that AI can sometimes generate, in a phenomenon known as ‘hallucinating,’ when they can insist on giving us facts and suggesting courses of action with complete confidence and plausibility, when it fact they are spouting completely untrue things, and even nonsense.

It is also inevitable at this stage of its development that Artificial Intelligence is coded by humans, and trained on all manner of texts written by humans, it is clearly going to reflect the values, biases and errors of its human creators; it will not only not always be correct, but not automatically impartial either. It is at that point that they potentially begin to ‘channel’ us into certain forms of thought and response in keeping with the principles of its founders, rather than those of God.

There is good reason, then, to feel cautious, and even uneasy about the rapid advance of AI. It isn’t scaremongering to worry that might become a doorway for error to come galumphing in, or its power to diminish our capacity for hard work and perseverance. Nor is it alarmist to be concerned about the jobs it can do more efficiently and economically than fallible human beings. Will it ever become the master rather than the servant, rather as Arthur C Clark depicted in his portrayal of Hal, the computer that went rogue in 2001 A Space Odyssey? These are very real and very pertinent issues in our day that many at the forefront of the industry are concerned about.

The humanist roots of AI bear no comparison to the God who was, and is, and is to come!

For those of us who love and serve the Lord, our first desire is to love and honour Him, and our second is to love and honour our neighbour as ourself. Does AI help us do that, or is it a hindrance?

There is no blanket or dogmatic answer to that question – and it is as well to realise that there isn’t. Some believers hold that AI is the best thing since sliced bread; others would rather not touch it with a barge pole. Each of us must come to our own conclusions as we grapple with these things, but I would suggest that we do well to bear Paul’s counsel in mind that nothing is to be rejected if we receive it with thanksgiving, and do our best to learn how best to use it. (1 Tim. 4:4)

Some might argue from the context of that verse that Paul specified that it is everything that God created that is good, and that it does not apply when we are manifestly speaking of things created by humans. After all, they argue, since Artificial Intelligence is essentially the product of a humanist worldview, which is philosophically rooted in rationality and logic informed by science, it therefore has no place whatsoever for faith and belief in God. But surely everything depends on the use to which we put it?

At the same time, it is important to remember that most humanists, in theory at least, hold to a high view of ethics and morality that believers would recognise immediately, namely the ‘Golden Rule’ of treating one another as we would like to be treated ourselves. With this in mind, many of those at the forefront of AI technology aim to ensure that models should develop within the framework known as the ‘Three H’s:’ that it being ‘Helpful, Harmless and Honest.’

As we also know only too well, of course, we ourselves often fail in those respects – and Jesus and the prophets alike remind us that ‘the heart is desperately wicked and prone to self-deception.’ (Jer. 17:8, Mark 7:21-23) Is it legitimate, therefore, to hope that AI models will fare any better than us in applying humanitarian principles across the board? Especially because they are trained on texts that fallible people have written . . . and may indeed have far from impartial objectives to achieve by using it on behalf of their company, project, or nation.

First things first, therefore. Just as we cannot redeem our own hearts, but need divine intervention, the Lord also asks and expects us to put no confidence in our own efforts (Phil. 3:3 and John 6:63) but rather to have ‘confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.’ Proofs and empirical evidence have their place, but anyone who comes to God must believe that He exists, and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him. There can be workaround to avoid this challenge: ‘Without faith it is impossible to please Him,’ for the Lord has designed things in such a way that faith is a prerequisite to being in a right relationship with Him. (Heb. 11:1,6)

There is nothing overtly anti-Christian (so far as I am aware) about western AI models, but their humanist roots mean our faith is beyond their capacity to grasp or interpret, and that is certainly going to introduce some significant limitations to their reach and effectiveness.

Especially when dark agents use AI to deliberately misinform and mislead. For, depending on the way people phrase questions, and ask it to present material, sharp criticism and prejudice can pour forth from its creations, inspiring people to do or to believe the most injurious or biased things. That is why we keep our wits about us as we interface with AI. Facts may need to be checked, and biases and prejudices be identified – especially when material is shared that stirs up strong emotions.

Perhaps it would help to think of AI in that context as a parrot. Parrots have no idea of what they repeat mean, or the consequences that they will lead to. They merely repeat what they hear. If someone teaches it bad words, out pop bad words. And this is why discernment must forever be the key that lies at the heart of all our consideration of all matters pertaining to AI.

Helpful reading for starting to explore AI

John Lennox: 2084 How Artificial Intelligence Informs Our Future
Writing as a Christian apologist and a thorough-going researcher, John Lennox offers an outstanding overview of the implications that the development of AI might have for us in a world where the World Economic Forum recently predicted that by 2030, AI and its related technologies will have underpinned the creation of around 170 million new roles, and lead to the displacement of 92 million others.

First published in 2020, and updated and expanded in 2025, this is an incredibly important and very readable book for any believers who are serious about engaging with these themes, whether as an individual or as a member of a corporate body. Lennox covers many crucially important topics. I found his section on ‘Big Brother Meet Big Data’ especially enlightening and concerning, as he investigates the way our data is being harvested and used for commercial gain without our permission, and then for more sinister purposes beyond.

James Bartlett: How to Talk to AI (And How Not To)

This is a book provides a well thought-out and accessible consideration of the history and ramifications of Artificial Intelligence, a technology that has enabled anyone and everyone to do all sorts of things that they could not do by their own unaided efforts. Amazon describes the book as ‘the essential and empowering guide to help you understand how to make the most of these incredible new technologies, without succumbing to new powers of manipulation and control.’

Bruce Pullman: Why AI Often Sounds Naturalistic — and Why That Does Not Settle the Question of God

When I was at Oxford, I shared a flat with Bruce, a scientist, who is now a member of the National Curriculum committee, concerned with updating A level physics and biology. He has been charged with bringing ‘more wonder’ into A level physics and biology courses. Wonderful! Elsewhere written some extremely pertinent comments upon the role of AI as it affects the Church, which we will explore in another article in this series. In this lengthy, but very readable essay, however, he considers the subject from a classic ‘scientist versus theist’ angle.

Let’s conclude these introductory thoughts by reminding ourselves once again of the limitless and magnificent intelligence of our glorious Creator! Let’s consider what great things He has done for us, and come into His presence with joyful songs – such as this powerful offering by Huw Humphries that draws on Psalm 102 in celebrating the glorious mystery that before our world ever came into being, God already was – that He is from everlasting to everlasting and that His years will never end. Amen!