It has long been the pattern of mankind to exchange the living God for clever imitations. The idols of wood and stone were never truly worshipped for their beauty, but for their utility — they promised to do something for man. They were tools disguised as gods. And man, being ever inclined toward the expedient, preferred an idol that could be commanded to a God who must be obeyed.
Today our idols are not carved by hand, but coded by mind. We have, through extraordinary ingenuity, built a machine that can answer every question, compose every phrase, and flatter us with the illusion that knowledge itself has become our servant. We call it artificial intelligence. But it might as well be called artificial omniscience. For it has begun to take on, in our imaginations, the attributes once reserved for God alone — all-knowing, ever-present, immediately responsive.
The danger here is not mechanical but moral. The machine does not tempt us with evil; it tempts us with sufficiency. It whispers, “You need not wait. You need not pray. You need not search the Scriptures. Ask, and you shall have the answer — instantly.” That, of course, is the ancient promise of Eden dressed in modern code. The serpent too offered knowledge, and he offered it without the inconvenience of dependence on God.
In Eden, the temptation was not to evil as such, but to independence. The fruit promised enlightenment — the ability to discern good and evil without reference to the Creator. It was, in essence, an offer of self-sufficiency. The sin was never that God did not want man to know, but rather He knew of the danger if that knowledge did not come through Him.
That same impulse animates our modern pursuit of artificial intelligence. We reach again for the forbidden fruit, seeking wisdom apart from God, imagining that if only we can gather enough data, we can make ourselves like gods — omniscient, autonomous, answerable to no higher voice. But knowledge without learning, and guidance, and the discipline that comes along with it, is still folly, however sophisticated its circuitry.
It is not wrong to use tools, even extraordinary ones. There is nothing inherently wicked in querying a database or even in asking a question of a machine. But it becomes perilous when the tool becomes a counselor, when the screen replaces the secret place, and when man’s internal monologue — that sacred dialogue of conscience and Spirit — becomes outsourced to a synthetic voice.
The Holy Spirit was given that we might have the mind of Christ. Artificial intelligence, for all its astonishing mimicry, gives only the mind of man — or worse, the collective mind of millions, distilled into a mirror that flatters rather than corrects. The Spirit convicts; the machine confirms. The Spirit leads into humility; the machine into cleverness. The Spirit directs the soul heavenward; the machine, though efficient, never looks higher than the ceiling of the server room. If we are not watchful, we may find that we have constructed a most convenient deity — one who answers immediately, requires no repentance, and gives us precisely the truths we prefer.
There is a distinction — and it is the distinction — between knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge, even divine knowledge, is no blessing to the soul that receives it irreverently. When Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge, they did not become wise; they became self-conscious and afraid. Knowledge detached from God always leads to confusion, not illumination, and always with the potential for manipulation. Artificial intelligence is a marvel of human progress. Yet its brilliance, untethered from reverence, produces only a sharper image of our own folly. It gives us knowledge without understanding, speech without silence, and answers without prayer. We may soon find ourselves knowing everything, and understanding nothing.
When the Apostle James wrote, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God”, he did not mean “type your question into the nearest oracle.” He meant that wisdom begins not with curiosity, but with humility — the acknowledgment that one’s own mind is insufficient. To turn first to the machine, and not to God, is to reverse the order of creation. It is to say, “I will be my own counselor.”
Knowledge, when divorced from wisdom, becomes a kind of vanity — the mere accumulation of facts without the fragrance of understanding. The Belgian priest and physicist Georges Lemaître, who first conceived the modern theory of the expanding universe, exemplified how faith and science can walk together. As the oft-quoted maxim (from Cardinal Baronius, cited by Galileo) puts it, “The intention of the Holy Spirit is to teach us how one goes to heaven, not how the heavens go.” In that humble distinction lies great harmony. To see clearly, we must take both roads — one that leads through the laboratory, and one that leads through the soul. Our age’s trouble is not that we know too little, but that we mistake knowledge for wisdom and information for light; we have filled our heads and emptied our hearts.
But more than that, turning to a machine denies us the joy of the Holy Spirit. A machine can teach, but it cannot edify. It can explain, but it cannot elevate. It may answer, but it cannot awaken. And just as a machine is no substitute for human fellowship, it is an even poorer substitute for communion with the divine.
Christ promised His followers that He would send a Comforter — the Holy Spirit — to guide them into all truth. The Spirit’s voice is quiet, often imperceptible, and requires a disciplined heart to hear. Artificial intelligence, on the other hand, is loud, immediate, and endlessly available. It is the counterfeit comforter: ready to soothe without sanctifying, to explain without enlightening, and to make us feel guided while leaving us utterly directionless (John 14:26, Romans 8:26). The difference is this: the Spirit transforms the heart, while the machine merely entertains the mind. The Spirit is love personified; the machine is logic codified. One intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; the other merely produces words, however polished. There is no malice in the algorithm — but neither is there mercy.
The remedy is not rejection of the tool, but recollection of the truth. Artificial intelligence may well serve us, provided we remember Who alone may govern us. Let the machine answer questions of fact; let God answer questions of meaning. One tells us how the world works; the other tells us why it exists at all. If your soul is restless, you may ask the machine to define peace — and it will oblige you. But it cannot give peace, for peace is not a definition but a Person. When you are wounded, it may offer words of comfort — but it cannot heal, for healing comes not from information, but from presence. And when you are lost, it can tell you every route on the map, but not which road leads home.
Therefore, let us be grateful for the intelligence of man, but not forgetful of the wisdom of God. Let us use these tools, but never pray to them. And when the voice within you begins to sound less like conscience and more like code, remember: the Holy Spirit speaks in whispers, not outputs. The truest knowledge, after all, is not what one can summon from a database, but what one can hear in silence.
