AI Part 2: Image, Imitation, or Idolatry

2025 9 21 AI Part 2 Image, Imitation, and Idolatry

The real problem of humanity is the following: We have paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and godlike technology. And it is terrifically dangerous…Until we answer those huge questions of philosophy that the philosophers abandoned a couple of generations ago—Where do we come from? Who are we? Where are we going?—rationally, we’re on very thin ground.” --E.O. Wilson

1. What is the larger conversation and vision for AI?

Humans don’t die...because God decreed it, or because mortality is an essential part of some great cosmic plan. Humans always die due to some technical glitch….Every technical problem has a technical solution. We don’t need to wait for the Second Coming in order to overcome death. --Yuval Noah Harari (Homo Deus) 

The 21st century will be different. The human species, along with the computational technology it created, will be able to solve age-old problems…and will be in a position to change the nature of mortality in a post-biological future. --Ray Kurzweil 

It’s only science fiction, until it arrives—and then it is quite ordinary. --Andy Crouch 

Does God exist? Not yet. --Ray Kurzweil 

Genesis 3:1 Did God actually say, “You shall not eat of any tree in the garden?” 

Genesis 3:4 You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God…

Genesis 11:1-4a  Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. 2 As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there. 3 They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. 4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves…(NIV) 

2. What is a human being and why are we unique? 

Genesis 1:26-28 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

Matthew 10:28 Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

We are told that the source of life is the breath of God, a divine intervention, apparently distinct from material creation. Getting some kind of understanding of the relationship of the conscious mind to the body is acknowledged by all to be “the hard problem,” as philosopher David Chalmers puts it. The Hebrew word nephesh for “breath” used in Genesis is variously translated as “soul,” “person,” or “self” – none of which concepts make sense for a machine…The case for dualism is strengthened when we take on board the biblical teaching that matter is not primary but derivative. It is spirit that is primary. Matter does not generate spirit. It is God, who is spirit, who generates matter. It is clearly one thing to try to build AI systems that seek to mimic aspects of what the human mind can do; it is an entirely different thing even to try to re-create what it feels like to be a human. Consciousness bars the way. No machine can experience qualia. --Dr. John Lennox (2084) 

Genesis 2:9 And out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food… 

These chatbots operate like other large language models—they generate statistically plausible text based on patterns in training data, not divine words from the heavens. When trained on religious texts, they produce responses that sound spiritually informed but can potentially mislead people with erroneous information or reassurance. Unlike human spiritual advisors, chatbots cannot have your best interests in mind because they don't have a mind: Chatbots are neither people nor supernatural beings. --Benj Edwards

3. Who is God and why is He unique? 

Genesis 1:1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

Genesis 1:26 Let us make man in our image…

There is an irony here in that those who are seeking to create a superintelligence do not seem to realize that there is good evidence that a superintelligence, the Superintelligence, already exists: God the Creator and Sustainer of the heavens and the earth. This universe bears the signature of its superintelligent, supernatural, divine origins in its lawlike behavior, in its rational intelligibility, in information-rich macromolecules such as DNA, and in the informational structure of innumerable intricate physiological mechanisms responsible for, for example, the migration of birds and fish, and in our human capacities for thought and language, feelings and relationships. --Dr. John Lennoz (2084) 

Isaiah 40:12-28 Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, or with the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens? Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket, or weighed the mountains on the scales and the hills in a balance? 13 Who can fathom the Spirit of the LORD, or instruct the LORD as his counselor?14 Whom did the LORD consult to enlighten him, and who taught him the right way? Who was it that taught him knowledge, or showed him the path of understanding? 15 Surely the nations are like a drop in a bucket; they are regarded as dust on the scales; he weighs the islands as though they were fine dust. 16 Lebanon is not sufficient for altar fires, nor its animals enough for burnt offerings. 17 Before him all the nations are as nothing; they are regarded by him as worthless and less than nothing. 18 With whom, then, will you compare God? To what image will you liken him? 19 As for an idol, a metalworker casts it, and a goldsmith overlays it with gold and fashions silver chains for it. 20 A person too poor to present such an offering selects wood that will not rot; they look for a skilled worker to set up an idol that will not topple. 21 Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood since the earth was founded? 22 He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in. 23 He brings princes to naught and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing. 24 No sooner are they planted, no sooner are they sown, no sooner do they take root in the ground, than he blows on them and they wither, and a whirlwind sweeps them away like chaff. 25 “To whom will you compare me? Or who is my equal?” says the Holy One. 26 Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one and calls forth each of them by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing. 27 Why do you complain, Jacob? Why do you say, Israel, “My way is hidden from the LORD; my cause is disregarded by my God”? 28 Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. (NIV)