What is the future of artificial intelligence, and how should Christians interact with it? Listen in to hear Andy Crouch, author and partner for theology and culture at Praxis, discuss AI’s potential to be a profound and fruitful extension of human image-bearing, as well as its potential to be destructive to human flourishing.
In Today’s Conversation podcast, host NAE President Walter Kim and Andy discuss:
Different theories predicting how AI — including AGI and ASI — will develop in society;
Why we need a better theological framework — particularly around demonology — for the future of AI;
How AI could be redemptive for our physical health, relationships and more; and
Why the practice of Sabbath will mark people who flourish in this technological shift.
Read a Portion of the Transcript
Walter: There are certain things that, as Christians, we hold on to that help us at least ask better questions of what is unfolding around us. You raise up the image of God as one of them. And so what does the image of God have to say of these possibilities — internet, electricity and agriculture? What is it that we should be asking of ourselves, even if we don’t know what the answer is?
Andy: … For ourselves, I think, let’s remember that though the ancient world did not have technological devices, it had lots of idols and it had lots of things that purported to be able to do magic basically and to give you access to a secret power if you had kind of incantation and the right observance and the right sacrifices. And the biblical idea of the image of God comes into a world that’s already full of false gods that purport to tell us how to get what we want, and says, “No, you are made above all for a relationship. The great commandment is to love.”
So I think one thing we’ve got to, in a way, is decide, do we really believe love is the realist thing, the most important thing, that learning to love, that being formed in love, is the supreme assignment for human beings? Not power, not mastery of the world, or let alone others, but love of God and of others. And in a way, loving stewardship of everything else, as if it were the gift of a person rather than just material for us to transform.
I think that’s the heart of the image, but then the other thing is that the image is embedded in vulnerable dependent creatures. Yes, also rational creatures, as Aristotle said, but dependent rational creatures, interdependent on one another embodied in frail bodies and not the kinds of silicon and metal things we might imagine that we could make robots out of that might last for 500 years. But these bodies that have, as best as we understand today, a kind of finite life that are mortal. And of course, our mortality is the deepest part of our dependence.
And crucially, for Christians, we have got to remember when God revealed himself, it was by taking on this extremely limited frail, embedded, embodied subject to all the the finitude of being human. And yet it was possible to be fully God in this human existence.
If we get AGI, let alone ASI, we’re going to be very tempted to say, “Now that’s real power, that’s real intelligence,” right? And maybe it will be a kind of intelligence we’ve never seen before or been able to conjure up before. It will not be real image bearing. Real image bearing is embedded in embodied interdependent creatures who are being schooled in the way of love.
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Andy Crouch is partner for theology and culture at Praxis, a venture-building ecosystem advancing redemptive entrepreneurship. His writing explores faith, culture and the image of God in the domains of technology, power, leadership and the arts. Previously, he served as a producer and editor at Christianity Today for 10 years before joining the John Templeton Foundation as a senior strategist in communications. He has authored several books including “The Tech-Wise Family,” “Strong and Weak,” “Playing God” and “Culture Making,” and his writings have been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and TIME, among many other publications. Crouch is on the governing boards of Fuller Theological Seminary and the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities. He studied classics at Cornell University and received an M.Div. from Boston University School of Theology.
Walter Kim became the president of the National Association of Evangelicals in January 2020. He previously served as a pastor at Boston’s historic Park Street Church and at churches in Vancouver, Canada and Charlottesville, Virginia, as well as a campus chaplain at Yale University. He preaches, writes and engages in collaborative leadership to connect the Bible to the intellectual and cultural issues of the day. He regularly teaches in conferences and classrooms; addresses faith concerns with elected officials and public institutions; and provides theological and cultural commentary to leading news outlets. He serves on the boards of Christianity Today and World Relief and consults with a wide range of organizations. Kim received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, his M.Div. from Regent College in Vancouver, and his B.A. from Northwestern University.
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