Artificial intelligence has moved with astonishing speed from the world of science fiction into ordinary life. It writes, translates, diagnoses, designs, teaches, predicts and increasingly controls physical machines. A colleague who’ll remain unnamed said to me they no longer find the need to write sermons as AI can produce one on demand: how sad! Alongside generative AI, a new generation of humanoid robots is being developed to work in factories, warehouses, hospitals, care settings and, eventually, homes. The International Federation of Robotics describes humanoids as a major emerging direction in robotics, with governments and technology companies investing heavily in machines designed to move and operate within environments originally built for the human body. (IFR International Federation of Robotics)
For Christians, this development inevitably raises theological questions. If a machine can speak naturally, recognise faces, learn from experience, reason through problems and perhaps walk into the room looking remarkably human, what exactly distinguishes the machine from us? Should Christians fear such developments? Are we trespassing into territory that belongs to God? And, perhaps most provocatively, was artificial intelligence foretold in the Bible?
The short answer to the last question is no. The Bible does not predict artificial intelligence, computers or humanoid robots in any straightforward sense. Attempts to locate ChatGPT, robots or algorithms secretly within biblical prophecy usually tell us more about our contemporary anxieties than about the biblical text. Yet this does not mean Scripture has nothing to say. Quite the opposite. The Bible provides a remarkably rich theological framework through which Christians can judge AI. It addresses human creativity, the image of God, technological power, idolatry, work, justice, truth, domination and the perennial temptation for human beings to create something with their own hands and then surrender themselves to it. The biblical question therefore is not simply, “Is AI dangerous?” It is the deeper question: What kind of human beings will we become in a world increasingly shaped by intelligent machines?
The biblical story begins with creativity. Humanity is created in the imago Dei, the image and likeness of God: “God created humankind in his image” (Genesis 1:27). Whatever else the image of God means, it establishes a distinction which Christians must preserve in discussions about AI. Human dignity does not arise because human beings calculate faster than other creatures, possess larger memories or solve more complicated problems. If intelligence alone gave us dignity, then a computer that calculated faster than us would become more valuable than us. Christian theology says something radically different. Human beings possess dignity because God gives it to them. This means a severely disabled person, a newborn baby, someone living with dementia and the greatest mathematician in the world possess equal fundamental dignity before God. Human value cannot be measured in processing speed.
The Vatican's substantial 2025 theological reflection Antiqua et Nova makes precisely this distinction. AI may imitate some products of human reasoning, it argues, but human intelligence cannot be reduced to computational ability. Human knowing is embodied, relational, moral and spiritual. Human beings encounter truth, goodness, beauty, suffering, love, responsibility and ultimately God in ways that cannot simply be reduced to data processing. (Vatican Press). This insight matters enormously as robots become increasingly human-like. A humanoid may have eyes, but that does not mean it sees as a person sees. It may recognise sadness in a face without grieving. It may produce the words “I love you” without having loved. It may construct a prayer without praying. It may generate a sermon without standing before God or a congregation. It can imitate testimony without having a life about which to testify. A machine may simulate elements of personhood. Simulation is not necessarily personhood.
But there is also no biblical basis for treating technological invention itself as sinful. In Exodus, Bezalel is filled with God's Spirit and given “ability, intelligence, and knowledge in every kind of craft” (Exodus 31:1–5; cf. 35:31). Human skill and craftsmanship are therefore capable of becoming expressions of divine vocation. Pope Francis used precisely this text when addressing the G7 on artificial intelligence in June 2024. He argued that scientific and technological invention emerges from the creative capacities God has given humanity. AI, he said, should fundamentally be understood as a tool, a remarkably powerful one, whose moral character depends upon the purposes, values and structures governing its use. (Vatican)
Genesis gives humanity the responsibility to “till” and “keep” the earth (Genesis 2:15). Technology can participate in that stewardship. Machines that enter burning buildings instead of firefighters, robots that undertake dangerous industrial work, AI systems that assist doctors, technologies that improve accessibility for disabled people or systems that help monitor environmental destruction may properly be welcomed as expressions of human ingenuity serving life. Christianity therefore need not approach AI with technophobia. But neither should it approach AI with technological naïveté.
One of Scripture's most important technological stories is the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11. The problem at Babel is not bricks. Genesis even pauses to describe their technological innovation: “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly” (Genesis 11:3). Humanity has discovered an improved construction technology. God does not condemn brickmaking. The problem comes in the next sentence: “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves” (Genesis 11:4). The danger is technological ability joined to human pride, concentration of power and the desire for self-exaltation. That warning is extraordinarily relevant to AI.
The theological concern is not merely whether a robot will someday become clever enough to rebel against us. Christians should also ask who owns the robots, who owns the data, who designs the algorithms, whose employment disappears, who profits from increased productivity, whose biases are embedded in the systems, and whether technological power becomes concentrated among a very small number of governments and corporations. The World Council of Churches has similarly warned that AI may intensify inequality, surveillance, discrimination, misinformation and concentrations of economic power unless it is subjected to ethical and democratic accountability. Its more recent theological reflection insists that human dignity cannot be reduced to data or made disposable through automation. (World Council of Churches). The sin of Babel was not invention. It was the belief that human invention could make humanity sovereign. That temptation remains.
Psalm 115 and the Strange Theology of the Humanoid.
Perhaps one of the most intriguing biblical texts to read beside the emergence of humanoid robots is Psalm 115. Speaking of idols, the Psalmist says: “Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands. They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see. They have ears, but do not hear...” (Psalm 115:4–6).
For most of history an idol's mouth truly could not speak. But now we can make something with our hands that has a mouth and speaks back. We can give it artificial eyes which recognise us, ears which respond to our voices, a face which displays simulated emotion and limbs which walk. Only this week we saw a remarkable demonstration of just how rapidly this technology is advancing. At the 2026 World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing, China, more than 2,000 robots from 666 teams competed in 51 events, including football, athletics, martial arts and practical tasks designed to imitate work in homes, factories and hotels.
One humanoid robot, Tiangong Ultra, completed the 100 metres in 8.86 seconds, faster than Usain Bolt's human world record of 9.58 seconds, while other machines played football, served in simulated workplaces and performed increasingly sophisticated tasks with limited or no direct human control. The spectacle was entertaining, even exhilarating, but theologically it was also extraordinary. We are watching human beings create machines in our own physical likeness, teaching them to walk, run, see, hear, speak, respond and increasingly to act autonomously. We should resist the temptation to declare that such developments are the fulfilment of some biblical prophecy. Nevertheless, they give new resonance to the ancient words of Psalm 115: But does that mean Psalm 115 predicted robots? No. But the Psalm contains a profound warning about our relationship with what we manufacture. Its climax is not really about the idol. It is about the worshipper: “Those who make them are like them; so are all who trust in them” (Psalm 115:8). The great biblical danger may therefore not be that machines become human. It may be that human beings become machine-like. We may begin to value efficiency more than compassion, speed more than wisdom, productivity more than Sabbath, information more than truth, connection more than communion and measurable performance more than human dignity. That would be a deeply theological crisis.
But What About Revelation and the Speaking Image? Some Christians have understandably connected AI with Revelation 13. There we read about an “image of the beast” which is given breath and enabled to speak (Revelation 13:14–15). Later the chapter describes economic control in which people cannot “buy or sell” without the beast's mark (Revelation 13:16–17). To a twenty-first-century reader surrounded by facial recognition, digital currencies, algorithms and speaking machines, the resemblance can appear uncanny. But responsible biblical interpretation requires caution. Revelation is apocalyptic literature saturated with symbolism. Its first readers lived under the shadow of Roman imperial power, emperor worship and economic systems intertwined with political and religious allegiance. Richard Bauckham argues that Revelation should not be treated as an encrypted timetable of technologies thousands of years in the future; its imagery first confronts the political and religious idolatries of the Roman world while continuing to expose similar patterns of domination in later societies. (Cambridge University Press)
Craig Koester likewise emphasises Revelation's engagement with the social, political, religious and economic realities faced by Christian communities in Asia Minor. (Yale University Press). Revelation 13 should therefore not simply be translated: “The image of the beast = artificial intelligence.” That is too simplistic. Yet Revelation can certainly help Christians evaluate AI systems. Whenever technology becomes joined to coercion, surveillance, economic exclusion, propaganda, militarism or demands for unquestioning allegiance, Revelation's critique of empire becomes profoundly relevant. The biblical warning is less, “Watch for a robot,” and more like: Watch what happens when political, economic and technological power combine and demand the allegiance that properly belongs to God.
Christians sometimes spend too much time asking whether AI will become conscious and not enough time asking whether humanity will begin worshipping it. An idol does not have to be alive. Money is not conscious. Power is not conscious. Empire is not conscious. Yet Scripture repeatedly shows human beings giving these things the trust, obedience and devotion that belong to God. AI could become idolatrous if we begin believing: the machine knows best; the algorithm cannot be questioned; efficiency is the highest good; technological progress will save humanity; human weakness must eventually be engineered away. That is where Christian theology must resist. AI may be extraordinarily intelligent in one sense while possessing no wisdom whatsoever in the biblical sense.
Biblical wisdom involves knowing how to live rightly before God and neighbour. It requires moral judgement, humility, love, justice and reverence: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 9:10). A computer can process the sentence. It cannot fear the Lord!
Humanoid robots raise particularly difficult questions in medicine, social care and companionship. Imagine an elderly person living alone. A robot can remind her to take medication, detect a fall, prepare simple food and perhaps engage her in conversation. Much of this would be genuinely good. But suppose society eventually decides that providing the robot is cheaper than providing a human carer. Something profound has changed. Christian faith is fundamentally incarnational. “The Word became flesh and lived among us” (John 1:14). God does not redeem humanity by transmitting information from a distance but by becoming flesh, entering human vulnerability and dwelling among us. Christian ministry likewise centres on presence: washing feet, breaking bread, touching the sick, comforting the bereaved, visiting prisoners and gathering as the body of Christ. A machine might assist care. It should make us deeply uneasy if the machine becomes an excuse not to care.
The Lausanne Movement similarly argues that Christian mission cannot be reduced to information transfer. AI can assist with translation, research and communication, but the gospel concerns embodied relationships, communities and encounters between persons; technology must not become a substitute for them. (Lausanne Movement)
The rise of humanoids will also force Christians to recover a theology of work. The question cannot merely be, “Can this job be automated?” We must ask, “What happens to the person whose job disappears?” Biblically, work is connected not only with income but with participation, service, dignity and community. The Church of England has therefore called for sustained public discussion about AI and the future of work, arguing that technological change should serve the common good rather than deepen inequality and affirming the importance of purposeful work. (Church of England). If intelligent machines produce enormous wealth while millions of people lose economic security, Christians cannot simply call that “progress.” The prophets would ask where the wealth went. Jesus would ask what happened to the poor. James would ask whether workers received justice. Technology must ultimately serve human flourishing, not require humanity to serve technological efficiency.
There is, however, an area where Christian opposition should be particularly strong: allowing machines independently to decide who lives and who dies. AI-controlled weapon systems already raise precisely this possibility. Pope Francis told the G7 that lethal autonomous weapons require decisive human control and insisted that no machine should be allowed to choose to take a human life. (Vatican). Here Christian anthropology becomes concrete. If every human life bear God's image, the decision intentionally to kill another human being cannot simply become the output of an algorithm. This is not technophobia. It is a defence of moral responsibility.
So, to circle back to my starting point: should Christians Fear AI?
Perhaps fear is not the best Christian response. Scripture repeatedly tells God's people not to be ruled by fear. But absence of fear does not mean absence of vigilance. The appropriate Christian posture is discernment. “Test everything; hold fast to what is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21). That is remarkably good counsel for the age of artificial intelligence. Christians need neither baptise every technological development as progress nor condemn every innovation as demonic. The Church should be capable of saying yes where AI heals, liberates, educates, protects creation or relieves dangerous labour; no, where it dehumanises, deceives, kills, exploits or concentrates oppressive power; and not yet where the consequences are insufficiently understood.
The 2024 Lausanne Seoul Statement similarly calls Christians to engage AI so that its development and use honour both the Creator and human creatureliness and promote applications that are safe, equitable and dignifying. (Lausanne Movement).This is neither blind optimism nor apocalyptic panic. It is Christian stewardship.
AI finally confronts Christianity with an ancient question disguised as a new one: What does it mean to be human? If being human means calculating quickly, storing information, composing elegant sentences or recognising patterns, then machines may increasingly rival us. Christianity has never located humanity's deepest significance there. To be human is to be a creature called by God, made for relationship with God and neighbour, embodied and vulnerable, capable of moral responsibility, love, repentance, forgiveness, worship and hope. Our machines may become astonishingly capable. They may walk like us. They may talk like us. Their faces may smile at us. They may outperform us in countless tasks. But Christian faith must resist the temptation either to divinise the machine or diminish the human being! The danger is not primarily that humanity will create something smarter than itself. The greater danger is that, dazzled by what our hands have made, we shall forget who we are. And here Scripture's ancient warning becomes unexpectedly contemporary: “Those who make them are like them; so are all who trust in them” (Psalm 115:8).
The Christian calling in the age of AI is therefore not fear but faithful discernment: to welcome technology where it serves life, resist it where it becomes an instrument of domination, protect the dignity of every person, and remember that no algorithm, however intelligent, and no humanoid, however lifelike, can carry the image of God simply because human beings have taught it to imitate us. Technology must remain our servant. It must never become our saviour. And it must never become our god.
References
The Holy Bible. Biblical references in the article include Genesis 1:26–27; 2:15; 11:1–9; Exodus 31:1–5; 35:31; Psalm 115:4–8; Proverbs 9:10; John 1:14; Revelation 13:14–17; and 1 Thessalonians 5:21.
Bauckham, Richard. The Theology of the Book of Revelation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. (Cambridge University Press)
Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and Dicastery for Culture and Education. Antiqua et Nova: Note on the Relationship Between Artificial Intelligence and Human Intelligence. 28 January 2025. (Vatican Press)
Francis. “Address of His Holiness Pope Francis at the G7 Session on Artificial Intelligence.” Borgo Egnazia, 14 June 2024. (Vatican)
Francis. “Artificial Intelligence and Peace.” Message for the 57th World Day of Peace, 1 January 2024. (Vatican)
Herzfeld, Noreen L. In Our Image: Artificial Intelligence and the Human Spirit. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2002. (CSB and SJU Digital Commons)
International Federation of Robotics. “Humanoid Robots: ‘Vision and Reality’ Paper Published by IFR.” 14 August 2025. (IFR International Federation of Robotics)
Koester, Craig R. Revelation: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. Anchor Yale Bible 38A. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014. (Yale University Press)
Lausanne Movement. “Artificial Intelligence.” State of the Great Commission Report. (Lausanne Movement)
Lausanne Movement. The Seoul Statement. Section 94, Artificial Intelligence. (Lausanne Movement)
Thacker, Jason. The Age of AI: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Humanity. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2020. (Zondervan)
World Council of Churches. “Statement on the Unregulated Development of Artificial Intelligence.” Geneva, 2023. (World Council of Churches)
World Council of Churches. NIFEA Consultation Communiqué on the Fourth Industrial Revolution and Artificial Intelligence, 2025. (World Council of Churches)
Wyatt, John, and Stephen N. Williams, eds. The Robot Will See You Now: Artificial Intelligence and the Christian Faith. London: SPCK, 2021. (Google Books)