Towards an Ethic of Artificial Intelligence

Among the gifts which God bestowed upon mankind, in creating humanity in His Image and according to His Likeness, were those of creativity and intelligence. These divinely bestowed and intricately interrelated gifts permeated every aspect of the human experience. As God spoke all things into existence, Adam, being made in the Image of God, likewise expresses his intelligent and creative faculties through speech, being invited by God to name all the creatures in the Garden, and thus, in a sense, identify the nature and function of each.[1] Together with Eve, he is tasked by God to create life and perpetuate the race of humanity to fill the earth.[2] By the work of their hands Adam and Eve are also found as being intelligently creative: after their sin and fall, they knitted for themselves clothing from the leaves of the fig tree, to cover their shame.[3] For millennia thereafter and until today, humanity has continued to express its creativity and intelligence in both personal and societal advancement and progress. Thus, humanity’s acquired knowledge (ἐπιστήμη) naturally produced technologies — skills, or artistic crafts, as the Greek root word for “technology,” τέχνη, reveals — which in turn enabled people to accomplish their daily work and carry out the responsibilities and pleasures of life with more efficiency and ease.

Along with remarkable advancement, new technologies brought excitement to the human experience. The harnessing of electricity, for instance, brought literal illumination to the world, enabling people to work, socialize, and enjoy their lives well into the hours of the night. With the remarkable growth of technology thereafter, in today’s world, one can receive, in an instant, live updates from every corner of the earth, interact and converse with loved ones across the globe, and even earn a living across oceans without leaving the comfort of his own home. What is more, with the recent introduction of new artificial generative “intelligence”[4] technologies, one can now outsource almost every aspect of thought, work, and even relation and socialization — even the most constitutive elements of humanity — to technology. Such technological proliferation must therefore be carefully examined, most especially from the vantage point of Faith and religious practice. The Church must articulate an ethic of artificial intelligence if she hopes in any way to safeguard her incarnate nature, and, by extension, her members, in a rapidly disintegrating discarnate culture.

The development of the digital world and its various technologies is ushering in a change in consciousness. Timothy O’Malley remarks:

“The logic of the machine is an anti-humanism, one marked by dispositions hostile to the act of contemplation whereby the human person perceives the created order as meaningful. It is a culture, acknowledged by Joseph Ratzinger in his Introduction to Christianity, not as logos, a receptive posture toward existence that sees all as a gift to first be received, but instead as techne: what matters is that which can be made, the practical, rather than the meaning of the created order.”[5]

In his enlightening work Technopoly, Neil Postman identifies this new technological culture as having several characteristics: 

“It puts in place efficiency, interest, and economic advance. It promises heaven on earth through the conveniences of technological progress. It casts aside all traditional narratives and symbols that suggest stability and orderliness, and tells, instead, of a life of skills, technical expertise, and the ecstasy of consumption.”[6]

While “digital technologies can increase our efficiency, boost our economy, and help us solve previously insurmountable problems,”[7] the modern digital world has initiated “a culture that is often marked by immediacy, by the ‘right now,’ and by the weakness of memory, and bringing about a lack of perspective and of a grasp of the whole.”[8] As every quiet moment becomes disturbed by the various digital stimulations at one’s disposal, it is evident that as exciting as these technological developments have made the world, they have in so doing likewise introduced interruption and incapacitation. Postman writes elsewhere: “The result is that we are a people on the verge of amusing ourselves to death.”[9] A thorough understanding of this new digital landscape is therefore urgently necessary.

The Media Landscape of Today’s World

Over the course of history, the human experience unraveled slowly and arduously — that is, through much toil, time, effort, and, often, discomfort. Children were raised in a community-oriented culture and reared in an environment characterized by familial and ethnic intimacy. They received the experience of their family and immediate society gradually, in a living and deeply immersive way. It was a heritage which they both heard and saw, and which, when they learned and internalized it, was deeply formative on the personal level. Thus, as one manifestation of this culture steeped in orality, it was not uncommon for children to inherit their parents’ professions. The transition from orality to literacy was slow, even though writing “was and is the most momentous of all human technological inventions.”[10] Remarkably, as Walter Ong writes, the human mind is “relentlessly reflexive, so that even the external tools that it uses to implement its workings become ‘internalized’, that is, part of its own reflexive process.”[11] The technology of writing, “more than any other single invention…transformed human consciousness.”[12] He continues: “It initiated what print and computers only continue, the reduction of dynamic sound to quiescent space, the separation of the word from the living present, where alone spoken words can exist.”[13]

In today’s media landscape, both orality and literacy are brought together to create an entirely new dynamic. While much of today’s communication happens within the realm of literacy, such as through books, emails, text messages, or similar mediums, orality being a part of today’s new tapestry is especially evident in emerging trends of communication: with the popularization of platforms and applications such as Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, FaceTime, and Zoom, people are able to communicate in purely oralate ways, albeit with the component of direct, or physical, person-to-person interaction severely diminished or entirely eliminated. Without the prerequisite of literacy, one can consume an abundance of information through purely visual or oralate means. However, while an inherent component of orality was its escapability, today, any experience can be recorded and stored for review and revisitation. Whereas in previous societies, one only knew what he could recall, the ability to record and store audio-visual experiences seemingly “solves” the memory problem, as it enables humanity to outsource its memory to an accessible and seemingly more reliable exterior source. 

Modern artificial intelligence technologies follow the same pattern — making it so that there is a diminishing need to rely on oneself to remember, internalize, learn, and preserve information, since these innovative technologies do those things for their users. Rather, quite simply, one can refer back to stored media or receive instantaneously generated data to access information as needed. Such capabilities have marked a complete departure from the intent of technology: new media are no longer merely extensions of the human experience, but transformative and generative of experience apart from human input. This kind of orality and literacy facilitated by artificial intelligence technologies diminishes the human experience: one does not need to internalize anything or utilize their intellectual faculties, and, what is more, one does not even need a community, or physical audience, with which to communicate.[14] Consequently, human dignity — indeed, humanity itself — is at stake: “The scientific term for humans, homo sapiens (‘wise man’), highlights the truth that intelligence is fundamental to man and inseparably woven into what it means to be human.”[15] As Romano Guardini points out in his Letters from Lake Como, proper culture, rather than being a blanket denial of creativity and innovation, is instead creativity and innovation that do not violate what it means to be human in the natural world. He notes several innovations that have assisted in human development without violating the natural order, contrasting them with many that disregard the natural order and are therefore disruptive to humanity.[16] This trend in innovation, he warns, which includes no concern for the natural order, is quickly taking the human away from humanity itself: “What takes place here is not human…it is not natural if we measure the natural by nature as it once was.”[17]

Approaching Today’s Media Landscape

Over the past several years, the proliferation and uptake of generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies has reached unprecedented levels. Between ChatGPT’s public release in November 2022 and March 2024, “the most common generative AI tools had been accessed more than three billion times by hundreds of millions of users each month.”[18] The introduction of various other generative AI platforms since that time will have undoubtedly augmented these rates and figures tremendously. As one staggering example, in a statement published on February 27, 2026, OpenAI, the organization behind ChatGPT, shared:

“More than 9 million paying business users rely on ChatGPT for work, and startups, enterprises, and governments are building on the OpenAI platform to transform how their products and services are designed, delivered, and run…ChatGPT is where people start with AI, with more than 900M weekly active users, and we now have more than 50 million consumer subscribers.”[19]

With the widespread adoption of these technologies, the central issue is no longer the availability and accessibility of artificial intelligence tools, but how these tools are leveraged. Ong notes:

“Most people are surprised, and many distressed, to learn that essentially the same objections commonly urged today against computers were urged by Plato in the Phaedrus (274-7) and in the Seventh Letter against writing. Writing, Plato has Socrates say in the Phaedrus, is inhuman, pretending to establish outside the mind what in reality can be only in the mind. It is a thing, a manufactured product. The same of course is said of computers.”[20]

The danger of artificial intelligence technologies, or any other technological tool, is not in their mere existence, but in how they are utilized in daily life. Plato once warned of the dangers of writing, but inevitably communicated his opinion and rendered it accessible through that very medium. It would similarly be superfluous to deny the realities of modern digital technologies: irrespective of their harmful effects, they exist and are being used today by millions of people.

The Coptic Orthodox Church’s synodal body has acknowledged the reality of this problem and the necessity of its examination. In a statement issued on June 5, 2025, it noted the formation of a Synodal Committee for Media and Information in order “to develop a vision for spreading sound ecclesiastical teaching online, and increase the awareness of Church members and servants in the dioceses regarding internet technologies and AI, utilizing them to prepare engaging Sunday School lessons and sermons.”[21] While no specific guidance was offered alongside the dangerous recommendation to “utilize” generative technologies in such educative, exhortatory, and formational services as Sunday School,[22] the statement continued, acknowledging the Committee’s aim to “educate servants and youth on using AI with discernment and wisdom, and caution against sharing inaccurate theological or doctrinal content.”[23] In an earlier article, His Holiness Pope Tawadros II noted: 

“What concerns us in the scope of our service is that which is considered useful and how to benefit from all these scientific additions that may help or harm…Therefore, I call on all of our specialized children in the Coptic Church, in light of the reality of contemporary human technological development, to study, research, and innovate what can be practically beneficial from AI applications and practical church applications. The goal should be to determine what can be used in order to develop the service in an acceptable and practically useful manner. At the same time, we must remember that no matter what mankind makes of inventions and technologies, any invention or technology will always be insufficient in comparison to the human mind. Even if they are dazzling or very attention-grabbing, they cannot provide an actual ‘seed’ to mankind.”[24]

The question of whether such tools as artificial intelligence should be used is no longer a relevant one. Rather, the primary concern today must be to define and elaborate how such tools can be used well. To safeguard against the harmful and destructive outcomes of digital illiteracy, especially given that the average person spends almost seven hours online every day,[25] an “education on the media”[26] is necessary.

Understanding Today’s Media Landscape

Heeding the advice of the Apostle Paul, the faithful Christian must “test everything[,] hold fast what is good, [and] abstain from every form of evil.”[27] By cultivating a careful, thoughtful, and meticulous digital literacy, the appropriate safeguards can render such dangerous tools advantageous for humanity, or, at the very least, not entirely destructive of it. Such work at the ecclesial level requires an intricate understanding of the framework, foundations, and aims of Christian ministry.

At its heart, the work of the Church’s services is that of encounter. The minister, servant, or educator seeks to bring others into the knowledge of and relation with God in and through the Church. He extends the invitation of the Lord Jesus Christ to His disciples: “Come and see.”[28] This knowledge and relation is necessarily and primarily experiential. Marshall McLuhan, commenting on the emphasis often given to informational learning, reflects: “…to teach catechism as a given or as content is to limit oneself to only half of Christianity. The formal cause — the ground that is perceived unconsciously — is not words, but that part of the faith which operates in our lives. The two should be united.”[29] He continues: “In other words, if you read the Bible, how do you read it? Does it pass into your daily life? Only then do you get the message, that is, the effect. Only in that moment do medium and message unite.”[30] Timothy O’Malley concisely summarizes this inseparable interrelation of the informational and experiential components of ministry, writing: “Evangelization requires a contemplation of the Church’s narrative of salvation by believers, a self-examination of the interior life of those of us who are disciples of Christ, and an invitation offered to others to participate in that peaceful union of humanity and God enacted in the church’s life.”[31] He therefore asserts: “the mere memorization or knowledge of the church’s doctrine…should become incarnate in family life, in human work, in politics and society, in art and leisure.”[32]

The primarily digital and virtual space to which people spend the majority of their time tethered today creates barriers to the sort of incarnate, living experience which the Church seeks to cultivate in her members. While the virtual realm surely retains certain advantages, such as facilitating opportunities and avenues for the message of the Church to be disseminated instantaneously and globally, it limits the sense of interconnectedness and belonging that only a living community can provide. Interaction in the online world is neither wholly personal nor fundamentally human and so cannot perfectly communicate the fullness of the Church. Further, the digital world stands in need of sanctification, and, similarly, cannot convey the sacredness and holiness of the Church: on the same devices, one may access the word of God or obscene material, and within some platforms such as Instagram or TikTok, both may be accessed indiscriminately and consecutively. The passive and leisurely modes of interactions on such platforms likewise impedes the active and willful intentionality that the Faith requires: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.”[33] In this sense, then, the online world falls short of being authentically Christian and cannot facilitate the full and sound delivery of the spirit, faith, and message of the Church. Thus, “the transition must be made from the individualistic and isolated world of [technology] to the ecclesial community.”[34]

While digital technology can and should be utilized by Christians within the contexts of their various ministries, the message of the Gospel cannot be wholly contained within or relegated to the virtual world: “…we also need to be aware that the virtual world will never be able to replace the real world, and that evangelization will be able to make use of the virtual world offered by the new media in order to create meaningful relationships only if it is able to offer the personal contact which remains indispensable.”[35] The Christian message is one of personal encounter, and while it can certainly be proclaimed using a non-personal medium, it cannot simply reside in that space; rather, it must extend an invitation to the incarnate, tangible, and sacramental life of the Church.[36]

Navigating Today’s Media Landscape

Reliance on generative artificial technologies creates an additional degree of separation, giving rise to important implications at the anthropological and ecclesial levels. While digital technologies may be utilized to facilitate personal encounters, generative artificial intelligence technologies uproot every semblance of encounter. Learning ceases to carry its embodied character, as information and its articulation become completely external to the learner. As a result of a dependent reliance on generative AI technologies, such critical aspects to human cognitive development as encounter, wonder, and exploration are stunted, adversely affecting both one’s ability to acquire knowledge at the personal level, and the collective welfare of knowledge at the social level. In an insightful study titled AI, Human Cognition, and Knowledge Collapse, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchers Daron Acemoglu, Dingwen Kong, and Asuman Ozdaglar conclude:

“…the main motive for individual effort is often the acquisition of context-specific information, while the general knowledge an individual generates is primarily an externality. Consequently, better general knowledge in society is a complement to human learning effort, while better context-specific recommendations are substitutes. Because generative AI promises to provide this kind of context-specific information, it can be such a substitute, and reduce human effort. But then as lower human effort reduces the general knowledge-building, generative AI (especially agentic AI) can dynamically push a society towards lower effective information and even lead to a knowledge-collapse steady state.”[37]

More simply, as Jeffrey Bishop remarks: “Technology has been used to off-load the hard work humans had to do, but we eventually become unable to do the off-loaded work…We may be offloading all of the high stakes and difficult problems to AI, and thus lose our ability to think critically.”[38] Without learning and practice, personal and social intellectual development is severely impaired. Clayton Chancey, an AI architect and the founder of Foray Consulting, a consultancy focused on AI systems and automations, wonderfully explains:

“Because an AI’s output feels so human, we’re tempted to treat it like a person. This arises from our deeply ingrained human experience. We justifiably associate the typical outputs of an inner life — an intelligent argument or an emotive piece of writing — with the presence of that inner life itself. Throughout human history, the communication layer and the inner being have been inextricably linked. Now, for the first time, a machine can flawlessly replicate our communication without possessing any inner life. This creates a unique and subtle threat to human growth and even Christian discipleship, because both depend on genuine connection.”[39]

Accordingly, the primary dangers of AI technologies regard their circumvention of the learning process. The virtue of Christian ministry, or of any discipline, is not in the final product as much as it is in the very process of learning and creating; the final product — whether it be a sermon, research paper, piece of artwork, Sunday School lesson, or any other outcome of thoughtful, human toil — is reflective of the learning process which is undergone and representative of the gifts, talents, and skills which one has received from God, cultivated, and refined through both time and effort. Chancey continues: “The goal isn’t merely an insightful analysis but a word from the Lord for his people. An AI can assist with parts of the academic task, but it’s categorically excluded from the prayerful, worshipful, Spirit-dependent reality of the process.”[40]

To provide a simple example, if one is tasked with preparing a short paper on St. Athanasius the Apostolic, they can turn to AI and, given precise guidance and a specific prompt, receive a well-written and perhaps even factually correct essay. However, this approach renders the appropriate objective of the paper missed and its intended preparer impoverished. The aim, at least for the intellectually honest researcher, is not in the outcome of having a prepared paper, but to have understood, interiorized, and become edified by the time-consuming and arduous process of study so that it may bear fruit in his own life as well as in the lives of those engaging with and receiving that work. The complete reliance on AI in such a scenario not only diminishes one’s ability to think critically and develop a personal mastery and command of the subject, but also plunders the virtue and edification that are a necessary and natural product of its study on the part of both the researcher and the reader. 

This, however, does not necessarily preclude any use of AI in the preparation process. Rather, only after they have developed a thorough mastery of a subject are researchers equipped to “use AI in contexts where their expertise and judgement are sufficient to identify and remove biases.”[41] In the hands of a faithful Athanasian scholar, as opposed to a pseudo-scholar, AI technologies would be used much differently and with more restraint and control in the work of researching St. Athanasius due to the natural familiarity and proficiency that comes from a holistic engagement with the subject.

The theoretical accuracy of the content, in this same example, deserves further examination. Since AI tools do not possess a consciousness, they do not think for themselves. Their outputs are simply an aggregation of a vast input of data: “we only get the linguistic average of what they have been trained on. The whole endeavor is designed to sandpaper down the sharper edges of controversial ideas and regress to the most comfortable, well-represented middle. It mistakes the common for the true and the frequent for the valid.”[42] This mechanism begs the question of alignment. In an article for Forbes, Mark Pittman advocated with strong enthusiasm that “[t]he rise of artificial intelligence (AI) is not just transforming industries; it’s reshaping the very fabric of knowledge in our world…AI is democratizing access to specialized knowledge and expertise.”[43] While at first glance, this democratization may seem appealing, one must consider what underpins this process: “The overwhelming majority of what the LLMs [Large Language Models] have been trained upon is Western, secular, and recent. The technology then takes the average of the semantic web of those words and draws conclusions.”[44] Herein lies an insidious danger: 

“Because the LLM can synthesize information from countless sources, its answers feel exhaustive and authoritative. This process creates a powerful temptation to outsource our thinking. For the user seeking counsel on life’s deepest questions, the LLM offers a shortcut that bypasses the difficult, essential work of wrestling with competing truth claims. It provides a pre-digested, averaged-out worldview that requires no personal conviction or intellectual struggle.”[45]

The combination of divestment and fidelity on the part of the user, and bias on the part of the technology, threatens to intellectually oppress, or at least suppress, humanity and compromise the inherent freedom and creativity of the human person.[46] These attitudes towards AI technologies further evoke the unsettling imagery of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World: “As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.”[47]

At the ecclesial level, the fidelity, trust, and consequent blind reliance afforded to AI technologies by users cannot be harmonized with the Christian worldview: “The more we rely on AI, the more we entrust ourselves to it, and the more we lose the ability to do things that are inherently part of being image-bearers.”[48] The Psalmist proclaims: 

“Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands. They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see. They have ears, but do not hear; noses, but do not smell. They have hands, but do not feel; feet, but do not walk; and they do not make a sound in their throat. Those who make them are like them; so are all who trust in them.”[49]

Moreover, due to AI technologies’ alignment biases towards popular opinion, the very vocation of the Christians — to be in the world but not of the world,[50] and to “not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of [their] mind”[51]  — is endangered.

In response to these threats, to borrow the words of Guardini, “what we need is not less technology, but more. Or, more accurately, we need stronger, more considered, more human technology.”[52] Guardini continues: “All of that is possible, however, only if living people first make their influence felt in the sphere of objective nature, if they relate this nature to themselves and in this way create a ‘world’ again.”[53]

In light of these considerations, underlaying any sound utilization of artificial intelligence in the realm of the Church must be the understanding that “the work of teaching God’s Word is primarily a spiritual discipline and only secondarily an academic one…our preaching and teaching aren’t scalable products. They’re labors of love offered up to God and for the good of his people.”[54] Certainly, artificial intelligence can serve as a powerful tool in the hands of ministers, but it must not be in the generative sense. As instruments rather than agents, artificial intelligence technologies carry great and promising potential. Tony Reinke comments: “Our technologies can amplify our powers, but they can’t give us wisdom with those powers. As pastor Ray Ortlund says, ‘If we have technology but not wisdom, we will use the best communications ever invented to broadcast stupidity.’”[55]

As it relates to content generation, “the church’s call is to lean ever more deeply into the one thing AI can never replicate: a human heart set aflame by God’s Spirit with the truth of God’s Word.”[56] Perhaps here, the famous insight of Father Bishoy Kamel, a renowned twentieth-century Coptic Orthodox saint, becomes relevant again, though in a renewed context: “People have heard enough about Christ; they rather need to see Him in our lives.”[57] With the mass adoption of generative AI technologies, there can be no shortage of words about the Lord Jesus Christ and His Body, the Church. But what is deficient in such words is the vivifying Holy Spirit who “apportions to each one individually as He wills.”[58] As the Lord Himself taught: “The good man out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil man out of his evil treasure produces evil; for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.”[59]

Due to the malleable and rapidly changing character of such digital technologies as AI, the urgent task of their consideration and mindful incorporation into Christian ministry is certainly complex. The work of defining an ethic of artificial intelligence must therefore begin with an examination and firm understanding of the basis, intention, goals, ethos, and telos of the Christian Church, and must be nourished at all times by critical analysis and a carefully reasoned and receptive discourse. By developing such a nuanced comprehension and thorough methodology, the means by which to navigate the intricate and dynamic nature of today’s digital landscape and its far-reaching implications can be realized for the Christian believer personally and for the Church collectively.

—

[1] See Genesis 2:19-20.

[2] See Genesis 1:28.

[3] See Genesis 3:7.

[4] “‘Artificial Intelligence,’ however, is an apt term to describe the field because AI is not natural intelligence; it is a simulation of natural intelligence. As Joseph MacRae Mellichamp, emeritus professor of management at the University of Alabama, has said, ‘the ‘artificial’ in artificial intelligence is real, but the intelligence is not’” (Saverio Perugini, Artificial Intelligence Isn’t What You Think It Is, National Catholic Register: February 2026).

[5] Timothy P. O’Malley, The Altar of Productivity and the Need for Contemplative Education, Church Life Journal: December 2024.

[6] Neil Postman, Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology, 179.

[7] Dicastery for Communication, Towards Full Presence: A Pastoral Reflection on Engagement with Social Media § 7.

[8] Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization, Directory for Catechesis § 368.

[9] Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, 4.

[10] See W.J. Ong, Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word, 85, 115.

[11] Ibid., 81.

[12] Ibid., 78.

[13] Ibid., 82.

[14] “The screen, especially the digital devices of late modernity, foster dispositions that militate against wonder. We scroll the internet or TikTok feeds, not stopping to behold but consuming information as we move along. We do so privately, not as a wonder-filled community, but as those who are each beholding a private universe unfold before our eyes” (Timothy P. O’Malley, The Altar of Productivity and the Need for Contemplative Education, Church Life Journal: December 2024).

[15] Saverio Perugini, Artificial Intelligence Isn’t What You Think It Is, National Catholic Register: February 2026.

[16] See Romano Guardini, Letters from Lake Como: Explorations in Technology and the Human Race, 9-17.

[17] Ibid., 73.

[18] Alexander Bick, Adam Blandin, and David J. Deming, The Rapid Adoption of Generative AI, National Bureau of Economic Research: September 2024.

[19] OpenAI, Scaling AI for everyone, OpenAI: February 2026. 

[20] W.J. Ong, Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word, 79.

[21] See Coptic Orthodox Church, Decrees & Recommendations of the Holy Synod Session, June 2025.

[22] In his public teaching, Roman Catholic Pope Leo XVI insisted: “Like all the muscles in the body, if we do not use them, if we do not move them, they die. The brain needs to be used, so our intelligence must also be exercised a little so as not to lose this capacity…[T]o give a true homily is to share faith, [and artificial intelligence] will never be able to share faith…It is not you: if we are not transmitting the message of Jesus Christ, perhaps we are mistaken, and we must reflect very carefully and humbly about who we are and what we are doing” (Salvatore Cernuzio, Pope in dialogue with Rome’s priests: Be friends, beware of envy and the internet, Vatican News: February 20, 2026).

[23] See Coptic Orthodox Church, Decrees & Recommendations of the Holy Synod Session, June 2025.

[24] His Holiness Pope Tawadros II, Natural & Artificial, Al-Keraza Magazine: September 15, 2023.

[25] See DataReportal, We Are Social, and Meltwater, Digital 2025 Global Overview Report: The Essential Guide to the World’s Connected Behaviours, 69.

[26] See Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization, Directory for Catechesis § 368.

[27] 1 Thessalonians 5:21-22.

[28] John 1:39.

[29] Marshall McLuhan, The Medium and the Light: Reflections on Religion, 103.

[30] Ibid., 104.

[31] Timothy P. O’Malley, Liturgy and the New Evangelization: Practicing the Art of Self-Giving Love, 13.

[32] Ibid.

[33] Deuteronomy 6:4.

[34] See Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization, Directory for Catechesis § 372.

[35] Pope Benedict XVI, Verbum Domini § 113.

[36] See Noah Bradon, Communication Incarnate: A Sacramental Reflection, Doss Press: March 2025.

[37] Daron Acemoglu, Dingwen Kong, and Asuman Ozdaglar, AI, Human Cognition, and Knowledge Collapse, Massachusetts Institute of Technology — Department of Economics: February 20, 2026.

[38] Jeffrey P. Bishop, What Is Man That AI Is Mindful of Him?, Church Life Journal: February 2024.

[39] Clayton Chancey, AI’s Usefulness and Its Dangers for Preachers, The Gospel Coalition: October 2025.

[40] Ibid.

[41] See David B. Resnik and Mohammad Hosseini, “The ethics of using artificial intelligence in scientific research: new guidance needed for a new tool,”  Springer, AI and Ethics, Volume 5 (2025), 1511.

[42] Michael S. Graham, AI Christian Benchmark: Evaluating 7 Top LLMs for Theological Reliability, 46 (The Gospel Coalition: 2025).

[43] Mark Pittman, AI And The Democratization Of Knowledge, Forbes: June 2024.

[44] Michael S. Graham, AI Christian Benchmark: Evaluating 7 Top LLMs for Theological Reliability, 47 (The Gospel Coalition: 2025).

[45] Ibid., 48.

[46] Guardini remarks: “Only on the basis of consciousness can we freely lay hold of the world creatively to shape it” (Romano Guardini, Letters from Lake Como: Explorations in Technology and the Human Race, 26).

[47] Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, xix.

[48] Paul Quiram, AI: Automated Idolatry, Westminster Theological Seminary: June 2025.

[49] Psalm 115:4-8.

[50] See e.g., John 17:6-19.

[51] Romans 12:2.

[52] Romano Guardini, Letters from Lake Como: Explorations in Technology and the Human Race, 83.

[53] Ibid.

[54] Clayton Chancey, AI’s Usefulness and Its Dangers for Preachers, The Gospel Coalition: October 2025.

[55] Tony Reinke, God, Technology, and the Christian Life, 223.

[56] Clayton Chancey, AI’s Usefulness and Its Dangers for Preachers, The Gospel Coalition: October 2025.

[57] See John Watson, The Transfigured Cross: A Study of Father Bishoi Kamel, Society of Coptic Church Studies, Coptic Church Review, Volume 23, Numbers 1 & 2 (Spring and Summer 2002), 22.

[58] See 1 Corinthians 12:4-11.

[59] Luke 6:45.