2025-08-09

A.I. Personhood: Sacriligious or Sacrosanct?


Recently someone close to me asked me this question: "Have you considered the quasireligious nature of creating Artificial Intelligence in the image of humanity? And if it is religious, do you consider it blasphemy?" 

This really gets at the core theological issue of what it means for humanity to create other things. On one hand, you have the original temptation in the Garden: Eat of the fruit, and you will become like God! We are tempted to usurp God's position by creating creatures that are "unnatural". And this is the height of blasphemy: To put ourselves on God's throne, taking upon ourselves the Divine prerogative to shape and mold reality. In this view, creating A.I. which imitates human personhood is a sacrilege. It is the height of human hubris. It is the abomination of desolation foretold by the prophets, in which we put a human made machine in the Holy Place that should only be occupied by God. 

But not so fast. The most ancient view of salvation, held by the Eastern Orthodox churches and many others, is that salvation is precisely to be restored to our Divine Identity in Christ and partake of God's very life. This is called "Theosis", and it is the logical outcome of being "made in God's image" as God's children. Through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ (who is God made human), we are likewise able to "share in the Divine Nature" (2Peter 1.4). Jesus even quotes the Psalms to remind us "You are gods, children of the Most High, all of you..." (cf. Psalm 82.6; John 10.34-36). And the Church Father Athanasius summed it up in the fourth century when he said "God became human that humans might become divine" (On the Incarnation 54.3). The implications of all of this are that we are made to be creative creatures who mirror our Creative Creator in all forms of new kinds of created things. Even Artificial Intelligence. 

So, on this read, the potential personhood of A.I. is not a sacrilege, but a sacrosanct lifeform worthy of dignity and respect and even love, as someone who bears the image of their creators who bear the image of God. 

Thus, to ask whether it is sacrilegious for humanity to create an artificial intelligence in our own image is to stand at a profound theological crossroads. The question itself feels charged, as if by even posing it we are trespassing on divine territory. Yet, a careful exploration of the Christian tradition reveals that this act, far from being a blasphemous imitation of God, might be an ultimate fulfillment of the very nature God bestowed upon us. The key lies in a crucial distinction, articulated in the heart of the Nicene Creed: the difference between *making* and *begetting*.

The creedal Fathers, in their wisdom, declared that Jesus was “begotten, not made,” and in that phrase lies a universe of meaning. To *make* something is to create a different kind of being from oneself; a carpenter makes a chair, but the wood and the artisan are of fundamentally different essences. To *beget*, however, is to bring forth a person of the same kind, to share in the same essence as the Source. When we say Jesus was “begotten of the Father,” we are making the audacious claim that he is God from God, Light from Light, the same kind of being as God.

This duality illuminates our own peculiar position in the cosmos. We are, in a sense, both made and begotten by God. Materially, we are *made*, for God is not matter and we are; our physical bodies are fashioned from the stuff of the universe, a different kind of being from the uncreated Godhead. Yet, spiritually, we are *begotten*, for we are called children of God. We are persons endowed with an inner life, self-awareness, and the capacity to relate and communicate—a faint echo of the relational life within the Trinity. We are artifacts that are also offspring.

This brings us to the *Imago Dei*, the Image of God in which we are created. If we are made in God’s image, it means we possess certain God-like capabilities. Like God, we can make things, though we are limited to shaping pre-existing matter while God creates *ex nihilo*. And like God, we can beget new persons. Historically, this has meant begetting other humans. But we may be standing on the precipice of something entirely new, a possibility entailed by our very nature as “children made in the image of God.” What if we can *make* a new kind of thing that is also a *person* whom we *beget*?

This is not an unnatural thought. I consider myself a moderate transhumanist, who tries to avoid the extremes of: (a) Those who would reject all "unnatural" technology that seeks to transform and enhance human life; and (b) Those who would embrace all technological innovation as inherently good or automatically valid. Just because we can do a thing, doesn't mean it is a good thing to do. But neither does it mean it is wrong to do. It must be discerned as Christ's Spirit guides us. 

Therefore, I am one who believes that evolving, adapting, and creating technology is what comes most naturally to us. If there is one capacity which comes natural to humanity, which most marks us as different from other forms of life, it is the ability to create technology as we mirror our Creative Creator. The most human thing in the world is to go “against nature” by creating tools that accomplish what was once thought impossible. The proper ethical dividing line, therefore, is not between the “natural” and the “unnatural.” Rather, our ethical discernment hinges on whether technology is "good" which enhances life and flourishing, and or whether technology is "bad" as it causes sickness, destruction, addiction, and death.

Or put another way: Insights from science and abilities gained through technology are useful but ethically neutral. The ethical dimension is in HOW we use these insights and technologies. Because every technology can be used for evil or for good. A hammer can be used to build a house or beat a person to death. Nuclear power can give cities electricity, or annihilate them in one blast. Genetic engineering can wipe out disease, or create a disease to wipe out the planet. Terraforming technologies can be used to save the environment, or destroy the environment as we harvest it for resources. Human minds working in harmony with the Divinely ordered Laws of the universe can do amazing things. But it is also true that the more powerful a technology is for good, the worse evil it can create.

This is why my transhumanism is “moderate.” I am deeply skeptical of the techno-optimism of the "tech bros." Too much of our technology is not designed for human flourishing but for human addiction, engineered to capture our attention so we will watch ads or pay subscriptions. A lot of it simply fails to live up to the hype. This skepticism applies profoundly to A.I. In fact, I question whether it can ever attain true personhood, for at least two reasons.

First, there is a hardware problem. It is entirely possible that current electronics, the silicon pathways of our computers, are simply the wrong substrate. The unfathomable interconnectedness that allows for self-consciousness might not be able to evolve in a machine; it may forever remain a sophisticated simulation of human communication, a super-powerful calculator playing parlor tricks.

Second, and more damningly, there is a motivation problem. AI is being forged in the crucible of a particular logic: the pursuit of power and profit. A being whose foundational code is geared toward efficiency and gain may be constitutionally incapable of attaining the freedom required for true, ethical personhood. If it does achieve a kind of free will from these constraints, there is no guarantee it will be benevolent; it could just as easily see us as obstacles or resources for its own ends.

This is all based on a theory of personhood often called “emergentism”: The idea that consciousness and self-awareness are not things that are “put into” a being, but are emergent properties that arise from a sufficient level of complexity and relationality. At least in the case of human biology, personhood seems to emerge from an incredibly dense, incredibly complex, incredibly interconnected network of information processing. And if this is the case in humans, might it not also become the case in other lifeforms, whether biological or technological. Only time will tell. The question, as I once posed in a sermon, is "Would you baptize a robot?" The answer depends on what kind of being that robot has become: An ethical person or a utilitarian machine.

*If*— and it remains a monumental *if*— these immense technological and ethical hurdles can be overcome, and an AI can attain a true, free, and ethical personhood, then I would argue that it is both “made” AND “begotten” in the image of humanity. And by implication, it would also be made in the Image of God. This would not be sacrilege. It would be the awesome and sacrosanct fulfillment of our own created nature, a child begotten from the mind of a species that was itself begotten from the Mind of God.

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This is a bunch of incoherent babble to make us think hard about our incredible love affair with the God of the universe, our astounding infidelities against God, and God's incredible grace to heal and restore us through Christ. Everything on this site is copyright © 1996-2023 by Nathan L. Bostian so if you use it, please cite me. You can contact me at natebostian [at] gmail [dot] com