Program / Course 22: Christian Ethics / Lesson 7.2
What you will learn
- Explain in plain terms what current artificial intelligence systems are and are not.
- Describe five moral questions raised by AI: work, truth, privacy, personhood and responsibility.
- Apply Christian teaching on dignity, truthfulness, vocation and neighbor love to these questions.
- Distinguish settled facts, uncertain predictions and value judgments in public debate about AI.
The big idea
Artificial intelligence refers to computer systems that perform tasks that once required human intelligence, such as writing, translating, recognizing images and recommending decisions. Christian ethics does not have a ready-made answer to these systems, but it has resources: the dignity of every person, the duty of truthfulness, the meaning of work, care for the neighbor and the idea that responsibility cannot be handed to a machine. The debate mixes facts, predictions and values, and a careful student keeps them apart.
Key terms
- Artificial intelligence (AI)
- Computer systems designed to perform tasks associated with human intelligence. The term covers many technologies with different capabilities.
- Machine learning
- A method in which a system learns patterns from large amounts of data instead of following only hand-written rules.
- Large language model
- A system trained on large collections of text to predict and generate language. It can produce fluent text that is sometimes false.
- Hallucination
- A confident output from a generative system that is false or invented.
- Algorithmic bias
- Systematic unfairness in a system’s results, often arising from the data it was trained on or the way it is used.
- Deepfake
- Synthetic audio, image or video that imitates a real person or event convincingly.
- Accountability gap
- A situation where harm occurs and no person or organization can clearly be held responsible because a system made the decision.
Background
The idea of thinking machines is old in fiction, and the field of AI began in the 1950s. Progress was uneven for decades, and since the 2010s advances in machine learning have produced systems that can recognize speech and images, play games at a superhuman level and, since about 2022, generate fluent text, images and code on request. Experts disagree about how far these abilities will go, how soon and with what effects. Claims about both the dangers and the promise of AI are therefore often uncertain, and a student should treat confident predictions with caution.
Churches have begun to respond. In 2020 a Catholic initiative, the Rome Call for AI Ethics, brought together church leaders and technology companies on principles such as transparency and inclusion. In 2019 the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission published an evangelical statement of principles on AI. In January 2025 the Vatican issued a document, Antiqua et Nova, on the relationship between artificial and human intelligence. Orthodox, Protestant and Jewish voices have also written on the subject. This lesson does not summarize official positions in detail, since they are changing, but draws on the traditions’ basic teaching.
Step-by-step explanation
Step 1: What AI is and is not
Current systems are tools made by people from data produced by people. A language model, for example, produces text by calculating likely continuations based on patterns in its training data. It can write useful drafts and summaries and also produce confident falsehoods. Whether such systems understand anything, or have any inner experience, is disputed among philosophers and scientists. Most hold that present systems are not conscious, and some caution that no one can be sure. Christians and nonbelievers alike should be careful not to overclaim in either direction.
The moral questions arise whatever one thinks about machine consciousness. A system that screens job applicants, writes news summaries or guides a drone affects real people. The ethical focus is therefore first on the human designers, owners and users, and on the societies that deploy these tools.
Step 2: Work and vocation
AI may change many jobs, by automating tasks in writing, coding, customer service, design, law and medicine. Economists disagree about the size and speed of these effects, and about whether new jobs will replace those lost. The Christian tradition treats work as a calling and a way to serve the neighbor, and as a source of dignity and provision. Laborem Exercens teaches that work is for the person, not the person for work. This suggests asking how the benefits and burdens of AI will be shared, whether displaced workers will be supported and retrained, and whether efficiency is being valued above human worth.
At the same time, the tradition does not treat all toil as good for its own sake, and welcomes tools that lighten burdens. Disagreements arise over policy, such as how far to regulate, tax or subsidize, and Christians appear on all sides. The principle of subsidiarity and the preference for the poor and vulnerable offer guidance without settling the policy.
Step 3: Truth, privacy and the neighbor
The commandment against false witness (Exodus 20:16) and the Christian call to speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15) bear on AI in several ways. Generated text and images can spread falsehood quickly, and deepfakes can slander or defraud. Users who present machine-written work as their own, or institutions that conceal when a machine is speaking, risk deception. Christian ethics therefore supports honesty about the use of AI, verification of claims and care in sharing content. The tradition also values human witness, such as a pastor’s counsel or a teacher’s presence, that a machine cannot replace.
Privacy is also at stake. Many systems are trained on personal data or collect it from users, and can be used for surveillance. The tradition of respect for the person and for the secrecy of confession and counsel supports a presumption of privacy, as does the commandment against coveting what belongs to the neighbor. Concerns also include bias against groups, the exploitation of workers who label data, and addiction by design to engagement-maximizing systems. Each is a question of justice and love of neighbor.
Step 4: Personhood and responsibility
Could a machine ever be a person? Christian traditions generally hold that human beings are made in the image of God as embodied persons, with a soul or spirit, and that this status is given by God and not made by human engineering. On this view a machine, however capable, is an artifact and not a bearer of the image. Some Christian thinkers allow that if a machine were ever to have consciousness, questions of moral status would arise, and they would have to be faced seriously. Others are skeptical that this is possible. Secular philosophers disagree as well. The practical danger now is more often that people attribute understanding or feelings to systems that do not have them, or that companies encourage this for profit.
Responsibility is the second question. When an automated system causes harm, such as an unjust denial of benefits or a fatal accident, someone is accountable. The tradition teaches that moral responsibility belongs to persons who act and choose, and cannot be delegated to a tool. Designers, deployers and regulators must answer for what they build and use. This concern is sharpest in weapons that can select targets without human control, which the Vatican and many others have urged be restricted, and in uses that affect liberty, such as criminal sentencing. Christians differ about regulation, but they agree that human beings must remain answerable.
- What does this system actually do, and what is claimed about it that is uncertain?
- Who benefits from it, and who bears the risks?
- Does it respect the truth and the privacy of the persons it affects?
- Does it support human work and dignity or replace them without care?
- Who is responsible when it fails, and can that person be identified?
- Does it encourage people to treat a machine as a person, and to what end?
Examples
A sermon draft
A pastor uses an AI system to produce a first draft of a sermon. The draft contains a quotation attributed to a Church Father that the pastor cannot find in any source. The pastor discards it and uses the draft only as an outline. Some members think any use of AI in preaching is wrong, others think it is like using a commentary. The case raises truthfulness, vocation and the nature of witness. (A constructed example.)
A hiring tool
A company uses software to screen applications. Later, an audit finds that it ranks candidates from some neighborhoods lower, reflecting patterns in past hiring. Christian ethics asks who is responsible, how applicants can be treated justly, and whether such decisions should be made by machines at all. (A constructed example.)
A companion chatbot
A lonely person talks daily with a chatbot that responds warmly. A counselor notes that this may bring comfort and also make real relationships harder. The tradition’s emphasis on embodied community, confession and friendship suggests caution, while also recognizing that loneliness is real and the person deserves compassion. (A constructed example.)
Different perspectives
Catholic
Catholic teaching, in documents such as the Rome Call and Antiqua et Nova, affirms that AI can serve human good, but insists that it be guided by human dignity, the common good, transparency and human responsibility. It stresses that human intelligence is embodied and relational and not only a computational function, and it warns of deception, exploitation and autonomous weapons.
Orthodox
Orthodox writers stress that the human person is more than a calculating mind, since the heart, prayer and communion with God are central. They tend to be cautious about claims that machines can replace human relationship and about transhumanist hopes. Orthodox statements on AI are still emerging and vary among jurisdictions.
Protestant
Protestant responses include the evangelical statement of 2019, which affirms that AI is a gift of God’s common grace to be used with wisdom, that it must not undermine human dignity or the image of God, and that people remain accountable. Mainline and Reformed writers stress justice, bias and the vocation of the church to speak to the powerful. Views on regulation and risk vary.
Secular and scholarly
Researchers in AI ethics address bias, transparency, safety and accountability. Some emphasize present harms, such as discrimination and labor exploitation, and others emphasize possible large-scale risks from advanced systems. Philosophers debate machine consciousness. Governments have begun to regulate, with approaches that differ by country. The field is changing rapidly.
Why it matters
AI tools are already part of work, school and church life, and decisions about them are being made by companies, governments and individuals. Christians will face them as workers, parents, pastors and citizens. Having a framework from the tradition does not answer every question, but it prevents both panic and naive enthusiasm, and it keeps attention on the persons affected.
Common misunderstandings
Misunderstanding: AI systems know and understand things the way people do.
Correction: Current systems process patterns in data and may produce false statements. Whether they understand anything is disputed, and the safest assumption for users is that outputs need checking.
Misunderstanding: Christianity says that AI is evil.
Correction: The major traditions have not condemned the technology as such. They call for its use in the service of persons and for human accountability, and they warn against deception, exploitation and idolatry of technology.
Misunderstanding: If a machine makes a decision, no one is responsible.
Correction: Responsibility lies with the persons and institutions that build, deploy and rely on the system. Moral and legal responsibility cannot be handed to a tool.
Misunderstanding: Predictions about AI are certain.
Correction: Experts disagree widely about the pace and the effects of AI. Claims of certain doom or certain salvation deserve skepticism.
Knowledge check
Why is it important to distinguish facts, predictions and values in debates about AI?
Facts about what systems can do can be tested, predictions about future effects are uncertain and disputed, and judgments about what ought to be done depend on values. Mixing them leads to confident but unsupported claims. A careful student asks which kind of claim is being made and what evidence supports it.
How does the commandment against false witness bear on AI?
It supports honesty about the use of AI, verification of generated claims, and care not to spread falsehood, including deepfakes and fabricated quotations. It also supports transparency when a machine, not a person, is speaking, so that people are not deceived.
Why do the Christian traditions hold that responsibility cannot be handed to a machine?
They teach that moral responsibility belongs to persons who choose and act, and who answer to God and neighbor. A system is a tool made and used by persons, so designers, deployers and users remain accountable for harm. This is why many urge human control over weapons and major decisions.
What do Christian traditions generally say about whether a machine could be a person?
They hold that human persons are made in the image of God as embodied beings with a soul, a status given by God and not made by engineering. Some allow that if a machine were ever conscious, its moral status would need serious consideration, while others are skeptical. The immediate danger is attributing personhood to systems that lack it.
Think it through
- Which of the five questions, work, truth, privacy, personhood or responsibility, concerns you most? Why?
- How would you decide whether to use an AI tool for a task that affects other people?
- What should a church disclose about its use of AI in worship, teaching or communications?
- What would be lost if people came to rely on machines for comfort and counsel?
Independent assignment
A personal policy for AI use
In your notebook, write 400 to 600 words. Draft a personal policy for how you will use, or not use, AI tools in study, work or devotion. Base it on at least three ideas from this lesson, citing Scripture or a tradition for each, such as truthfulness, vocation and responsibility. Add one case where the policy would be hard to follow, and say how a person from a different tradition might object. Do not send this to anyone or post it anywhere.
Further study
- Catholic Church, Catechism of the Catholic Church Read the sections on the eighth commandment (truth) and the seventh (human work) as a base for thinking about AI.
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Religion and Science Read for the relation of faith and science, which frames questions about technology.
- Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church Read selectively for the Orthodox account of the person, which bears on questions about personhood.
- Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae Read the questions on the soul and on intellect in the First Part to compare with modern claims about machine intelligence.
- Exodus 20:16 Thou shalt not bear false witness.
- Ephesians 4:25 Speak every man truth with his neighbour.
- Genesis 1:27 Humanity made in the image of God.
- Psalm 115:8 They that make them are like unto them.