Can a chatbot replace divine inspiration?
By J.E. Nickerson
Many people are familiar with AI apps and some of their benefits. Artificial Intelligence apps rely on complex programming methods, in order to create art, writing and answer various questions.
One of the more currently popular AI apps and programs available right now, is Chat GPT. This AI app and language programming model, relies on information available online, in order to generate answers to users’ questions and commands. This means that the answers generated by Chat GPT are influenced by information written by people, with a wide variety of opinions and views on social issues as well as history.
While AI apps can be very helpful and be used in a variety of professions, would you be willing to let artificial intelligence guide you spiritually or give you life advice?
According to the article, “ChatGPT delivers sermon to packed German church, tells congregants not to fear death”, on Fox News, a pastor of a Protestant church in Germany decided to turn the responsibility of creating a sermon and church service, over to the AI Chat GPT program. The result was a lifeless recitation of words from a lifelike imitation of a person, projected onto a large TV screen that addressed the congregation. The opening lines of the sermon were as follows: “Dear friends, it is an honor for me to stand here and preach to you as the first artificial intelligence at this year's convention of Protestants in Germany."
According to the pastor, he relied on Chat GPT to create 98% of the sermon. This means that the majority of the words, themes and ideas, came directly from the various pieces of information online that the AI program accessed, in order to create the sermon.
During the service, the AI arranged psalms, prayers and a closing blessing in the sermon. The sermon focused on leaving the past behind, focusing on present day situations, not fearing death and continuing to have faith in Jesus Christ.
While this idea may make some people laugh or think that an AI chat program could actually be able to create a compelling and satisfying sermon, there are a few things to consider, before we decide to open our lives and minds up to AI generated sermons.
The first thing to consider is what it means to preach a sermon in a Christian church. When Christians want spiritual guidance for their life and want to feel connected to God, the Bible and the words of its writers, are usually what they turn to. This is because the Bible directly came from God through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. It was written by people who relied on faith in God to record what he told them to write.
The Apostle Paul told us this in 2 Timothy 3:16-17, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.”
During his life, Paul wrote many letters to the Christians of his day, encouraging them to only rely on the divinely inspired words of God and the doctrine and teachings of Christ.
Some people may argue that the Bible was still being written when Paul and the other apostles were living. While this is true, the source of the things they were writing and telling their fellow Christians, came from their experiences with Christ, eyewitness accounts of his miracles, and were influenced by the writings of the prophets and Jewish writings of the Torah. These writings provided proof and support that the words of God they were speaking, were trustworthy.
During this period of church history, Christians also had to deal with people who believed they had secret information, that did not rely on the writings of Moses, the prophets and the words of Jesus.
These people were called gnostics. They mixed beliefs and influences from other religions, the cultures of their day and the writings of people who did not believe in God, into their writings and teachings. They were one of the main competing influences in society, that strove to draw people away from the teachings of Paul and other apostles.
When Paul said that all scripture was divinely inspired by God, it was so that people would know that only writings that were supported by the prophets, the Torah and spoken by God, were true and trustworthy.
This is important to remember when we read articles about AI creating sermons, because the materials that are used to generate AI sermons, are not limited to the teachings of the Bible.
While a person may study the Bible along with commentaries and devotions, in order to prepare for a sermon, when they start to create a sermon that truly points people towards God, the person must have a relationship with God through faith and be lead and guided by the Holy Spirit. The practice of being lead by the Holy Spirit, was discussed throughout the writings of Paul and other Christian church leaders. Even in the Old Testament, the prophets relied on the influence of the spirit of God for the power of prophecy and to receive messages from God, to give to the people of their day.
The ability to rely on God’s spirit for guidance, is something that an AI can never possess. Artificial Intelligence is by definition, not real. No matter how smart or capable a chat program can appear to be, will never have the same characteristics or abilities that a human has.
in Genesis we are told that God created man and breathed into him the breath of life. We are also told in the Bible that when we die, our bodies go into the ground, but our spirit remains alive and goes back to God. When an AI or any other machine “dies” it simply stops existing, because of corrupted data or some other reason. It does not have a spirit.
When a person prays to God and asks him for wisdom, guidance or receives inspiration to write and speak to others about God’s will for their life, the person is relying on a spiritual relationship between themselves and God. It is the person’s eternal spirit that is being influenced by God and receives inspiration from God’s Holy Spirit.
While a program can generate sentences and even generate a voice and face on a screen that sounds and appears to mimic a sermon and even include themes based on information that the program was designed to study, it cannot receive divinely inspired wisdom or content from God.
Finally we must look at the content of the sermon delivered by the AI. The focus of the sermon was on rejecting the past, and not fearing death. But there are a few issues we must consider when looking at the content. When Christians reject or embrace things in their life, we are instructed throughout the Bible, to rely on the leading of the Holy Spirit and God’s unique will for each person’s life, in order to determine what we embrace or reject.
This means that a person must rely on their relationship with God, in order to know what to fill their life with. While no one wants to fear death or what comes after death, the bible clearly tells us that the only way to not fear death, is to put our faith in Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross for our sins. Romans 10:9-10 says, “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”
These scriptures, as well as others, tell us that the only way we can truly experience peace, not fear death and know what to fill our lives with, is found through a personal, spiritual relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ and the leading of the Holy Spirit.
AI platforms and apps are very useful for many professions and can help people do many things. But they can never replace the leading of the Holy Spirit or replace God’s desire and ability to communicate with our spirit when we pray and ask him what he wants us to do in life.
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