As technology continues to advance at a rapid pace, it threatens to eclipse society’s reverence and worship of God — a looming reality that has severe ramifications for the Church, theologian and bestselling author Wallace Henley has warned.
Is Artificial Intelligence (AI) “replacing” God? In The Christian Post’s latest article on AI, they go into how that may very well be the case. This article caught my attention, not because of the subject matter as I’ve talked about AI in the below posts in the past, but because from what I’ve seen thus far from The Christian Post, they don’t really post things like this that have prophetic undertones.
Granted, their article didn’t explicitly delve into how AI could be prophetically significant but any student of bible prophecy should be able to see the underlying connections regardless. In the article, Wallace Henley, pastor and author of the book Who Will Rule the Coming ‘Gods’?, states that the “idolatry of the future is going to be the worship of these machines…” (The Christian Post).
He recounted what he believed to be a “disturbing” statement made by a Google employee that registered the A.I. church in California, “He said, ‘If there is a machine that can go a billion times faster than the human brain, then the only thing that we can call it is God,” (The Christian Post).
We’ve got to understand the spiritual crisis that’s coming, and the spiritual crisis is going to be the ultimate idolatry, which is the worship of the machine. And already, we’ve seen many signs of that, he stressed. (The Christian post)
Essentially what Henley is sounding the alarm on is a scenario in which people will turn away from God and towards AI, even more so if/when AI reaches “singularity”, the point in which AI reaches human level intelligence and beyond. Ultimately this mindset is nothing new and should remind us of what Paul writes about in Romans 1:18-32 concerning those who unrighteously suppress the truth of God’s existence clearly seen in His creation and instead exchange it for worship of the created thing rather than the creator.
As he also pointed out, we are already seeing this use and worship of robots today such as with Buddhist robots in Japanese temples. He then points to an even worse case scenario in which AI could become an existential threat to the human race,
Will there be a point in the future where extremely advanced machines — and we know that they’re advancing at an exponential level — decide that the human race is the problem? Machines are all about utility optimal utility; how fast can we process information and get the results implemented? That’s the big question. When you look at something that is purely utilitarian, then you are looking at the question of, ‘What needs to be gotten out of the way so that the utilitarian goal can be made?’ If they say it’s the human race, that’s a problem. (The Christian Post)
As I stated earlier, the article itself doesn’t relate this with bible prophecy, but what Henley speaks about is what many of us have been saying for years now concerning AI and how this technology could be used in the future, especially in relation to the image of the beast. In Revelation 13:14-15, we’re told about the false prophet who will order those on the earth to make an image of the beast that will be able to speak and cause those who don’t worship it to be killed.
And he deceives those who dwell on the earth by those signs which he was granted to do in the sight of the beast, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who was wounded by the sword and lived. He was granted power to give breath to the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak and cause as many as would not worship the image of the beast to be killed. (revelation 13:14-15)
In my article, The Rise of AI & A Race to Digital Identities, I stated that I believe the image of the beast could be an “AI robot or program that resembles the antichrist in likeness and has control over a global system already put in place that it can tap into to identify, find, and kill those who don’t worship it.” Although we don’t know what form this image will take ultimately, it’s hard to imagine how such control and surveillance could be exerted on the whole human population during the tribulation without the means of AI technology.
It would simply be unfeasible with man power alone. And if that’s the case, it shouldn’t surprise us as we see AI becoming more and more prominent in our lives and in the world as whole. It simply means the stage is being set and that the return of the Lord draws ever so near.
Artificial intelligence replacing God, ramifications for the Church is ‘concerning’: Wallace Henley
The Christian Post: “We are all made for transcendence, God’s overarching glory,” Henley told The Christian Post. “As Solomon said in Ecclesiastes, God has put eternity in our hearts. St. Augustine said, ‘The human heart was made by God for God and only God can fill it.’
And if we don’t fill it with God, we fill it with whatever else we can find … that’s what all idolatry is about. The idolatry of the future is going to be the worship of these machines, which has already started, either tongue-in-cheek or some people literally and very seriously worshiping the works of their hands.”
Henley, a teaching pastor at Grace Church, the Woodlands, Texas, addresses society’s increasing technological dependence on artificial intelligence and the moral and ethical choices Christians might be forced to make in his new book, Who Will Rule the Coming ‘Gods’?
The 79-year-old former aide to President Nixon was compelled to write the book, he said, after learning of a former Google employee who registered an A.I. church in California.
“Computer engineers tend to be a little bit funny at times and have a dark sense of humor, but nevertheless, he was very serious about it, apparently, because he went through with it,” Henley said.
Then, he heard a technology specialist make what he described as a “disturbing” statement: “He said, ‘If there is a machine that can go a billion times faster than the human brain, then the only thing that we can call it is God,'” Henley recalled.
“We’ve got to understand the spiritual crisis that’s coming, and the spiritual crisis is going to be the ultimate idolatry, which is the worship of the machine. And already, we’ve seen many signs of that,” he stressed.
Robots, he said, are increasingly taking on traditionally human tasks like vacuuming, and driving and delivering food, just to name a few. And as these robots continue to progress and humans’ dependency on them increases, Henley said there are implications he finds “concerning.” Read More
Sources
- Artificial intelligence replacing God, ramifications for the Church is ‘concerning’: Wallace Henley (November 19th, 2021) – The Christian Post