10 · Technology, AI & the Human Person
"Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves." — Genesis 11:4
This is the newest issue in the book, and in some ways the oldest. New, because artificial intelligence, social media, surveillance, and biotechnology are reshaping daily life faster than any generation has had to absorb. Old, because the deepest question they raise was asked on the plain of Shinar long ago: will we use our God-given creativity to serve God and neighbor, or to "make a name for ourselves" and become as gods?
The Church should be neither breathless nor fearful. Technology is part of the human calling to cultivate the world; tools can heal, connect, and create. But every powerful tool also forms the people who use it — shaping our attention, our desires, and our sense of who we are. Faithfulness here means using these tools as image-bearers, and refusing to let them remake us in their image.
Declare
Where we are
Artificial intelligence can now write, diagnose, design, persuade, and imitate human voices and faces. Used well, it may relieve drudgery, extend care to the underserved, and amplify human creativity. Used badly, it can flood the world with convincing falsehood, concentrate power and surveillance, displace workers without regard for their dignity, and tempt us to outsource thinking, relationship, and even prayer to a machine.
Social media has rewired attention and community, often in ways that inflame outrage, feed comparison and loneliness, and harm the young in particular (a direct concern of Chapter 4). Biotechnology raises questions our ancestors never faced about the beginning, editing, and end of human life — and a "transhumanist" hope of transcending our creaturely limits through technology.
Underneath it all runs a single temptation: to treat the human person as raw material to be optimized, and technology as the savior that will perfect us. Scripture calls that idolatry, and it has a long memory of where it leads.
What Scripture says
The drive to "make a name for ourselves" through our works is the old story of Babel — human ingenuity turned to pride and self-exaltation.
Genesis 11:1-9NIVWe become like what we worship: idols made by human hands cannot see, hear, or save — and neither can those who trust them.
Psalm 115:4-8NIVYet creativity itself is a gift; God fills artisans with skill, and the human calling includes cultivating the world (see Creation Care).
Exodus 35:30-35NIVWhat endures is not technique but love; knowledge puffs up, but love builds up — and we are responsible for how our works affect the weak.
1 Corinthians 8:1-3NIV 1 Corinthians 13:1-2NIVFinally, our hope is not a self-engineered immortality but the resurrection of the body — God's gift, not our achievement.
1 Corinthians 15:42-44NIVDiscern
How should Christians engage a fast-changing technological world? Wisdom, not slogans, is required — and faithful believers weigh the trade-offs differently.
Thoughtful adoption
Embrace useful tools as part of the creation mandate, deploying them to serve neighbors, heal, and create — while watching for harms. Strength: gratitude and mission. Caution: don't mistake every "advance" for a good.
Critical discernment
Ask of each technology: What is it doing to us, and to the vulnerable? Set limits, build habits and "rules of life," and refuse uses that deceive or dehumanize. Strength: takes formation seriously. Caution: discernment, not mere anxiety.
Prophetic resistance
On some fronts (manipulative design, surveillance, deepfakes, the erosion of truth and attention), the faithful response is to resist — personally and publicly. Strength: names real evils. Caution: resistance should be wise and targeted, not a blanket retreat from God's world.
A question for every tool
Before adopting a technology, ask the image-of-God question: Does this help me love God and my neighbor — and protect the weak — or does it quietly train me to use people and worship the work of my own hands?
Reflect
Name one technology you use daily. Honestly: is it forming you to love God and people more, or less? What is one boundary or habit that would put it back in its place as a tool?
Who could be harmed or helped by the technologies you build, buy, or promote — workers, children, the deceived, the surveilled? What responsibility comes with that?
Self-check
What does the story of Babel have to do with modern technology?
How does the doctrine of the image of God guide our use of AI and biotech?
Go deeper
- Read next: The Neighbor: Race, Migration & Reconciliation.
- Connect: This chapter draws on Made in the Image of God, the protection of children, and creation stewardship.
- Scripture for a week: Genesis 11; 1 Corinthians 13.
- See the Glossary for transhumanism, idolatry, and cultural mandate.
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