Beware of False Teachers...

According to my Liturgy of the Hours, today was the memorial for St. Pope John I. He was the Bishop of Rome in 523 and was sent to Emperor Justin in Constantinople as an ambassador of King Theodoric. Apparently, King Theodoric was not happy with Pope John’s meeting with Emperor Justin because the king captured Pope John I on his way back from the meeting.

Pope John I was cast into prison at Ravenna. He died there in 526.

This meant that today’s readings came from the section in the Liturgy of the Hours dedicated to martyrs. The reading stuck out to me as the Church and various other Christian communities are being faced with major ethical dilemmas surrounding rapidly improving AI and robotic technologies.

Remember your leaders who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. ⁸ Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. ⁹ Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teaching. It is good to have our hearts strengthened by grace and not by foods, which do not benefit those who live by them.

Heb. 13:7-9

Two Stories

On my news feed this morning, I saw two stories. One was from Elon Musk advocating for the development of technology that would allow human brains to interface with applications and Artificial Intelligence directly. The next story that appeared in my timeline was that Pope Leo XIV had signed his first encyclical, MAGNIFICA HUMANITAS (MH), on the anniversary of Pope Leo XII’s encyclical RERUM NOVARUM (RN). Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical is dedicated to the dignity of humanity in an era of AI.

Today, Christians of all kinds are faced with major ethical challenges:

• Abortion

• Contraception

• Surrogacy

• IVF

• Transhumanism

• Human Augmentation

• Robotic Warfighters

• Massive Layoffs due to AI

This list reveals that we are facing major ethical challenges that no other body of Christians has universally or institutionally spoken on or against — unless you count those institutions that have already institutionally affirmed many of these practices.

Now you might look at this list and say, “Well, I mean, this is wrong. Not sure about that one. I think this one is really bad.”

But in terms of the teachings of Christianity, there is a sense in which what you think or I think doesn’t really matter. That is, our opinions may be true, but just because we’re right doesn’t mean that people have to listen to us. It’s only when an institution, whether academic, political, or religious, affirms our position that something now has authority behind it. That’s why our opinions matter, because institutions can take them up and put their authority behind the opinion and make it authoritative.

The Brilliant Philosopher Problem

Take someone like William L. Craig. He’s a brilliant philosopher and theologian, but he’s also a bit heretical. Many Christians, including Catholics, love his work on the existence of God, but when Craig gets into his pet theories around the theology of the Incarnation, Trinity, or Christian practices like baptism and the eucharist, everyone gets a little nervous.

In seminary, friends and I would often watch Craig’s debates with atheists, and love to see him prove the theistic position so clearly. But then we would read some of his takes on theology, and we would write papers and engage with his ideas and errors, but none of our papers ever amounted to an authoritative declaration or standard that Craig was in the wrong.

Most Christian apologists and philosophers know that Craig could demolish us in a debate on a topic where he holds the affirmative position and we hold the negative one. But at the same time, despite his ability to obliterate us in a debate, we refuse to bend our position to his. We might modify our arguments a bit based on his attacks, but very few people, regardless of the debate topic, will change their minds on the issue, even if they lose.

Instead, they go into it the way that most people go to a football game: they want to see if their team wins. But the fact that their team was defeated does not lead them to don the jersey of their opposing team at the next championship.

So how do we deal with the ethical and theological dilemmas of our day? How do we live out Hebrews 13:9, when most of the ethical dilemmas we are facing are not mentioned explicitly in the bible?

What are our options?

We have a few options here.

We could base the truth entirely on pragmatism. Maybe Elon is right, and we should plug ourselves into the Matrix and get super-brained augmented by AI. If it leads to a better outcome, then it’s what God wants us to do.

But this approach completely undermines the whole point of revealed truth. The reason we have revealed dogmas and doctrines is precisely to protect us from the consequences of a decision that is obscured from our finite human understanding. We can’t have a theology where we say “Test the spirits…oops, we killed society…guess that wasn’t what God wanted.”

Second, we could turn to force. Suppose that we adopt a docile posture to whoever has the most power, and we just choose to submit to their “sword.” Similar to what happened with the way Romans 13 was wielded against Christians during COVID. Maybe that would work?

Except that this undermines the idea of martyrdom for the faith. If Christians were merely going to say, “Well, might makes right, and Paul said to submit to the sword, so…” then we would implicitly insult the sacrifices of those who have gone before us who refused to comply with the immoral political and ethical ideologies of their day. We would never have the honor of being persecuted for our faith because our faith would give us a conforming posture, rather than a courageous one.

The only option, if we are to actually be able to know the truth, is that God has revealed himself through his Church, and that these dogmas and morals will be proven to be true by the protection they provide individuals and societies against moral atrocities.

In order for William L. Craig, Elon Musk, or you and me to be considered “off the reservation,” there actually has to be a reservation. St. Paul says that the pillar and foundation of the truth is the Church, and scripture is fitting to equip us for every good work. We can’t have one without the other; we need both.

The fact that, except for the Catholic Church, all other denominations have caved institutionally to the transhumanist agenda in some shape or form to abortion, contraception, IVF, surrogacy, etc demonstrate that these denominations should be viewed with suspicion. These are moral failures that are on the same level as Communism and Nazism, yet we believe that these same institutions that affirmed these moral evils are the same ones that are right on baptism, the Eucharist, Mary, and the Church?

Many Christians see these things and say, “Maybe the Catholic Church is the safest place for a Christian to discern how they ought to live.” But for others, they reject all institutional authority, begin spouting novelities that are based entirely on their own private interpretations of scripture, and if you don’t agree with them, then you don’t really want to follow Jesus.

There were major ethical challenges for the early Church, and there are major ethical challenges for us in the Church today. But if the road to eternal life is truly narrow and there are few that find it, then wouldn’t it make sense for God to give us a “city on a hill” to light the way to it?

More on Robotics, AI, and the theological and societal consequences later this week.

— DR

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Daniel Roberts is a Catholic convert from Protestantism with a Master’s in Philosophy in Religion from an evangelical seminary. My writing explores the intersection of faith, culture, and technology.