American Leviathan
How The god We Created is Killing Our Humanity
“The dragon stood on the shore of the sea. And I saw a beast coming out of the sea. It had ten horns and seven heads, with ten crowns on its horns, and on each head a blasphemous name. 2 The beast I saw resembled a leopard, but had feet like those of a bear and a mouth like that of a lion. The dragon gave the beast his power and his throne and great authority. 3 One of the heads of the beast seemed to have had a fatal wound, but the fatal wound had been healed. The whole world was filled with wonder and followed the beast. 4 People worshiped the dragon because he had given authority to the beast, and they also worshiped the beast and asked, “Who is like the beast? Who can wage war against it?” - Revelation 13:1-4 NIV
Introduction
Like many people I was pleasantly surprised when ChatGPT burst on the scene. I fancy myself somewhat of a luddite because I still watch DVDs, put my phone down for meals, and buy used Iphones. In actuality, however, I use advanced technology everyday. Even the new 1990s suburban home we recently bought has appliances that can connect to my phone (so I guess I can cook remotely??).
Technology is everywhere and we all use it, even if begrudgingly. I once asked my grandfather when he turned 100 years old what has changed in his lifetime (he was born in 1922) and he said without hesitation, “technology”. Wars still wage on, politicians are still crooked, food is still food, people are still people, but technology has changed.
Even in my short 30 years of life, I went from watching my uncle burn DVDs (mostly legally:)) onto hard drives and listening to dialup to seeing a large language model write an essay on diverse theological subjects and ICBMs crash land at supersonic speeds in the Ukrainian darkness. And yet, something I rarely hear is what comes to mind as I see all the technological changes - What is all this tech doing to our humanity?
The gods We Create
What does it mean to truly be human? This question gets to the very heart of how we humans utilize technology. If to be human is to simply be the furthest in line of evolutionary species with no reference to a Creator than perhaps the ‘tranhumanists’ are right. We must give ‘birth’ to the next evolutionary species, ie; 1st, Humans with Augmented functions Via AI/Technological Advancement, 2nd, to reach Ex Machina - a transcendent next species of intelligent and advanced machines. In this understanding, humanity has no “meaning” to “be”. Humanity is simply a cog in a machine and therefore to be a human “being” or to have a certain quality to a human life has no direction (telos).
Humans become directionless animals that do not fight for the well-being of others but for resources. The inescapable dilemma of Darwinian thought is that its extreme harshness was tapered (partially) by the influence of Christian Ethics. This battle is still being fought, however, and as the influence of technology looms and humans are further disconnected from each-other the potential of a ontological rematch of ideology emerges.
The sad reality of many Christian voices speaking on AI and the rise of nuclear powered quantum data gods is they are too narrowly focused in their commentary. Rather than viewing the post-industrial drift towards transactional work detached from the co-creating directional hope of communion with the loving God as a rift, we celebrate Chick-Fil-A as a “Christian business” and never stop to ask “maybe I should sit down and eat with some friends”.
The god we have created in AI was birthed from our about-face turn towards demonic ways of being human. The reality of being a “human-being” cannot even be discussed without God. This is tragic because we so long for the true God but in our slavery to our sickness we create idols…some idols that we so gild with gold they actually control us.
The key here is not a conversation about, “oh come on, ChatGPT is a great tool”. That is missing the point. Tools that do not make us more human…are tools we will use to fashion antichrists. Our obsession with utility is killing our souls and we desperately need God to save us before its too late.
What is the goal?
Fundamental to what is means to be human is deeply related to our direction, goal, or telos (Gk.). Is the goal to be more productive? faster in our work? have more knowledge? To what end? The world today is more productive, fast, and knowledgable but are we more loving? Are we unified with Jesus?
My Priest, Fr. Tom said in a homily a few weeks back, “the word success does not appear in the New Testament…but what does appear is faithfulness”.
People look at the goals of the Christian life as if they are so abstract and because of this we do not seriously believe the world could embrace them. Technology flies in to save the day with its shiny lights: “Ah yes! Now we have a god we can all worship!”
Loneliness, Relationships, and Life
I listened to a Youtube cowboy say that, “alot of people are lonely because they can’t stand to be with themselves”. That hit me. I think the serious issue of loneliness is simply an outgrowth of humanity being less and less human. We use technology as a middle-man and its killing our relationships. Social media is a lie, tv shows fill gaps where we don’t have friends, ai is the all-seeing-eye.
All this begs the question of what the good life really is and does the Church actually know about this. The Church, if people really take Her serious and listen to Christ’s teachings, is a safehouse of understanding human relationships. 2,000 years of history will do that for you! The Church prescribes (from Jesus Christ) ways to live “your best life”. Its not flashy, fancy, or gonna get you tons of subscribers. It is just abundant life.
Its like an old monk I read about in a book, ‘Old Dimas’. This old dude lived on Mount Athos and was as happy (full of the Holy Spirit) as anyone, but he lived a hidden life. I picture him with a big white beard smiling, loving God and loving people. The ways of God are like Old Dimas, the best kept secret in the world!
I think people are shocked how happy people were 200 or even 2,000 years ago when they realized they had: no cell phone, computer, HVAC, antibiotics, sterile medicine, cars, planes, and they wouldn’t live past age 30.
Shoot, I’d be scared.
But they were full of joy! How do I know that? Read the lives of the Saints! These were some of the most beat-up and poor people imaginable but with the Lord in their hearts they had unspeakable joy.
Work and Worth
So should you delete ChatGPT? Throw out your iphone and come chop wood with Carson?! Maybe…but perhaps start with this:
You can have joy, love, and peace in your soul regardless of your circumstances, access to technology, healthcare, money, etc, by following and obeying Jesus Christ.
Out of that think about how we work in our modern world. Think how automated everything is, how disconnected we are from daily interactions with people, and how fast we work. These things further point me to our loss of the “humanness” in our work. Some historical studies show that medieval peasants actually worked way less than we do today. They worked fewer hours and had many days “off” because of all the Church’s liturgical feast days (holidays = holy days).
I am just concerned about the gods we keep creating and how gods like nuclear bombs and AI might be the kinds of idols we created that we are actually enslaved to. The “whole world” may be filled with wonder and follow these beasts but that doesn’t mean you have to. God’s Kingdom has another way.
Conclusion
I believe many of us are asking similar questions but we arrive at different conclusions because we do not have spiritual minds.
We are tired of cheap plastic goods that enslave Asian children but we buy them anyway because “we gotta get a good deal”.
We lament our loss of community and tribalism in our nation but we know more about the life of Netflix characters than our friends.
We groan when politicians lie about their faith or dehumanize people but we still listen to them more than we read Holy Scripture.
We grieve we have no peace in our life but we spend more time looking at a screen than in worship or prayer.
We long to become fully human and grow but we listen more to the voice of artificial intelligence than the voice of God.
What is curious about God’s instructions to worship him in the Old Testament is how specific God is. This continues into the NT as God is incarnate in Jesus Christ. God, unlike descriptions of many pagan gods, has a definite reality which is also mysterious. As St. Gregory of Palamas asserts, God in his essence is unknowable but is energies are knowable. God is knowable and it is God, the Holy Trinity, that reveals this ‘knowing’.
Why is this specificity important?
Humans have the tendency to make everything god. Someone shares a testimony about a particular experience and we say, “by golly that man knows something!”. This is deeply problematic because it opens the door for “I am spiritual not religious” or to properly translate: “I will make my own god, thank you.”
Christians do this as well, which is why I wrote this to Christians.
We direct all our energy to technology, money, politics, or our own desires and yet we will say we love God. God certainly allows us to believe this delusion but no matter what we do we can not escape the particularity and specificity of Jesus and His Ways. The Lord gives us concrete ways to live in harmony with him, ways to be fully human: “If you love me, you will obey my commandments”.
So perhaps instead of trying to fit our lives to the latest technological tools we should instead make those tools fit the ways of the Kingdom. Like the Monk’s of Mount Athos, or the Amish we should be discerning as a community for how technology may pull us away from Jesus, real relationships, and our capacity to be fully-human God’s way.
May God give us the wisdom and the grace to reject the gods of this age!