How Should Christians Think About AI?

Becoming Like Jesus

Let’s talk about AI.

No, I’m not talking about the Old Testament city that Joshua waged war against (although I bet that’s what you thought at first, right?). I’m talking about artificial intelligence.

I want to address the form of AI that you may know best. It’s often called generative AI, and it’s the technology that’s at work when you interact with apps such as ChatGPT, Grok, Claude, Gemini, and others.

No matter what your initial thoughts are about AI, it’s useful to turn to the wisdom of Scripture to help us think more deeply about the topic. Of course, there are no Bible verses about AI. You won’t find any Old Testament laws or New Testament commands about whether it’s permissible to use bots to help you study, edit a funny picture, or cure your boredom. But wisdom helps us become a certain kind of person—a kind of person who thinks, talks, and lives like Jesus.

How do we apply this truth to the topic of AI? First, know that one biblical principle that should guide us is that we are people who are created with the ability to make good things that bless others, just like our heavenly Father.

With Great Power . . .

Part of how technology shapes us is by changing our expectations and desires, as we both learn what it can do and consider what it should do. When I use a generative AI app, I can ask it to do all kinds of things. Generative AI can edit a picture or create an entirely new one based on what I tell it to do. It can give me a list of books to help me learn about a specific topic, or it can write an essay for me.

Using AI programs can certainly give you the feeling of instant creativity. And some of them can do even more than that; they can give you the feeling of instant relationship. An AI chatbot can ask questions and converse with you in a way that makes you feel as if you’re talking to a friend. The power to summon the feeling of relationship is even greater than the power to summon pictures and videos—and it poses even greater risks.

Generative AI’s capability to produce an amazing variety of work and art with very little direct human involvement creates an expectation that using it regularly for these purposes is normal. In other words, the more we use generative AI instead of our own creativity and effort, the more we adopt the attitude that we should do this. But is that right and true?

. . . Comes Great Responsibility

There is something within us as human beings that inspires us to create. We have an itch to take the materials of this world and make something from them. The first chapter of the Bible explains where our innate desire to create comes from. Genesis 1:1 says, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” The very first fact Scripture gives us about God is that he creates. God reveals himself through his word first as Creator.

How does God create? Not with tools but with his words. His words bring things into existence that didn’t exist before. Genesis 1 is like a miniseries about creation, with every episode focusing on something God makes with his word. The repeated phrase “and God said . . .” signals a new aspect of creation being made by God.

As you may know, the last thing God created in Genesis 1 is human beings. He made people. And God made people in his image (Gen. 1:27), something that isn’t true about the rest of the creation—not the sun or moon, the trees or oceans, the fish or animals.

This truth means many things about us as humans—way more than we can cover here. But one part of what it means is that all human beings share some things in common with God. And God lets us in on what one of those things is in Genesis 2:15: “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.”

God gave Adam, the first man, the first job: to protect and cultivate the garden (remember what the sluggard in Proverbs failed to do?). Later on, this job expanded a bit: Adam named the creatures that God made (Gen. 2:19–20). Adam was created in God’s image and given the ability to create.

The desire to create is part of our identity as human beings. The trait of creativity isn’t displayed only by talented writers or artists, people with a certain type of education, or people with enough money to spend. Adam was a creator because he was made in the image of his Creator. God didn’t just encourage him to use his mind and muscle; he commanded him to do it by giving him work that required thought and effort. Adam and Eve could not do what God called him to do without making.¹ The world needs human creativity. God commands it. And his image bearers feel compelled to participate in it.

Making and Waiting in an Impatient World

You might be thinking, “This is all really interesting, but can you just hurry up and tell me whether using generative AI is okay for a Christian?”

Unfortunately, no, I can’t tell you that. That’s just not how these questions work. My own personal view is that there are certain ways to use AI that can be helpful and beneficial. But even those legitimate uses come with risks to our hearts.

Rather than giving you a firm yes or no to the question about whether Christians can use AI, I encourage you to analyze individual situations through the lens of Scripture and to not let AI diminish any impulses to use your creativity to bring honor to the Creator and order and blessing to the world he made.

In that light, let’s look at a few situations together and seek to apply principles of wisdom to them.

AI and School

A particular school or homeschool might have certain policies on AI. They may be as black and white as “Don’t ever use AI,” or they may be more open ended and complex than that.

If we apply biblical principles of creativity and blessing to this issue, though, we will conclude that resisting automatic solutions and instead learning to read, research, analyze, and write well on our own is the better option. Reading well is a skill that helps us unlock the deepest truths of God’s word so that we can push them deep into our hearts. Research trains us in the habits of asking good questions and weighing options patiently as we seek answers. Analysis is required to take every thought captive to obey Christ, which the apostle Paul calls us to do (2 Cor. 10:5). And learning how to write well instead of asking an app to do it for us trains us to communicate more clearly, which will help us give others an answer for the hope that is in us (1 Pet. 3:15).

Working diligently on our schoolwork is hard because it takes time and because we don’t do it perfectly. We fail to study as much as we should. We don’t pay enough attention in class. We don’t know what to write in the essay. Technology often seems like a “Get out of jail free” card, but it’s really not. We lose something more significant than a grade when we lose the ability to persevere in the hard work of learning.

The world needs human creativity. God commands it. And his image bearers feel compelled to participate in it.

AI and Work

Depending on where (and if) you work, you may or may not have received specific instruction regarding AI as it relates to a job setting. But the principles of wisdom apply anywhere.

Start by seeing your work as not just an obligation or a necessary evil to make some money but as an opportunity to cultivate and protect something that God has entrusted to you. View your job as your vineyard; it’s a gift that has been given to you to add to it, build it up, and beautify it.

If you work a physical job, such as one in construction or the service industry, fulfilling the call to make things and bless others probably seems straightforward. But what if you work a job that requires being on a computer most days? In that case, restrict your use of AI to that which extends your labor but doesn’t replace it. If you’re working with data, AI tools could help you organize it or summarize it concisely and accurately. But maybe your employer is expecting not just organized data but analyzed data; they’re wanting it to be reviewed by an actual human who can make useful suggestions from it. That’s where God wants you to come in.

Use your mind to do this work. Don’t fall for the lie that speed is always better. God did not create a robot in Eden; he created a person, one who needed to struggle and rest and take breaks, just like you.

AI and Art

I regret that I never learned how to draw. I don’t mean that I never learned how to draw professionally. I mean that I never learned how to draw anything. To this day, my kids laugh whenever I join them in painting with watercolor or drawing with crayons. My stick figures and bizarrely shaped animals usually get a happy response, though not for the reason any artist hopes!

The great movie director Steven Spielberg has talked about how, as a young boy, he played with small cameras and made home movies starring his toys. These activities not only stoked his personal creativity but also helped him practice the skills he would one day use as a director.² I’ve often wondered, “If the young Spielberg had been able to type ‘big train crash’ into a generative AI app, would the world have ever gotten the Indiana Jones movies or Jaws?”

Technology can make certain behaviors and attitudes feel right and make others feel wrong. This is what we call a “plausibility structure.” AI creates a plausibility structure for us to become consumers instead of makers. I’m reminded of the great maker J. R. R. Tolkien, the author of The Lord of the Rings, who said that the main reason he wrote his books is that he wanted to read them.³ In today’s digital age, people who want to read particular stories or view particular scenes can do the work of creating them, or they can just type a prompt into generative AI. The ease with which generative AI can put whatever we want in front of us could be a powerful enemy of creativity.

There aren’t any hard-and-fast rules for AI and art, but let me challenge you: If you sense a creative desire inside you, don’t automatically reach for your device and ask AI to help you generate a song, poem, picture, or essay. All good and perfect gifts are from God (James 1:17). Follow your creative calling to its source, your infinitely creative Father, and imitate him.

Draw the landscapes you want to see. Write the stories you want to read. As you’re doing so, you won’t just fulfill a desire or entertain others; you’ll discover what C. S. Lewis called “the secret signature of [the] soul.”⁴ God made you, and your creativity expresses more vividly what that really means.

AI and Relationships

Of all AI’s capabilities, probably one of the most appealing things it can do is make us feel as though someone out there gets us. We all want to feel connected. We all want encouragement and support—an understanding ear to hear us. But for many biblical reasons already mentioned in this book, it’s vital that we find this connection with real human beings, not machines.

Wisdom is not ultimately about following black-and-white rules. It’s about becoming like Jesus in how we think and live. Nevertheless, I believe biblical wisdom would have us flee from AI programs that pretend to be a friend or even a romantic partner. There are legitimate ways to use AI, but this is not one of them.

This doesn’t mean that you can’t ever ask an AI program practical questions such as “How can I fix my car?” or “Why does my laptop keep dying?” But it does mean that you should not ask any AI program to give you counsel about which friends to keep, which person to date, or how to get along better with your parents. And you certainly should not send or ask for sexual or romantic messages from an AI chatbot.

Matters like these are close to our hearts, and they require opening up our hearts to someone else. Opening up our hearts to a machine puts us in a position to forget the difference between what’s real and what’s not—and as we know, wisdom requires believing the truth about God’s world and living according to that truth.

God’s will is for you and me to grow to be more like Christ. Engaging in relationships with real people is a very important part of how that happens. If we replace real human relationships with instant AI feedback from chatbots, we miss out on a vital part of God’s design and deny his very definition of what a relationship is.

Conclusion

It’s incredible that, as broken and sinful as we are, God still calls humans to contribute to the beauty he has made. His story makes our stories possible. His song make our songs singable. The whole universe, from milkweed to the Milky Way, reflects the beauty of creation.

That truth is worth holding on to. Living wisely in our digital age isn’t about having a list of AI dos and don’ts. It’s about pursuing what it means to be made in the image of God. And you can do that wherever you are, with whatever you have. You can cultivate the garden God has put you in.

This article is adapted from Scroll Less, Live More: 10 Healthy Tech Habits for Teens by Samuel James.

Related Articles