Guest Speaker: Paul List, Author of “Mount Doom”
An alarming and cautionary article on AI published by Rolling Stone last month under the headline, “People Are Losing Loved Ones to AI-Fueled Spiritual Fantasies” led me to revise our seminar schedule and invite our special guest for this program: Paul List, a scholastic Christian philosopher who will discuss the dangers we face from the “Men behind the Machines,” land how they are not led by virtue or Christ, but by profit and control. According to List, our future looks less like innovation—and more like idolatry harnessing Artificial Intelligence as an Oracle: a predictive power that promises unlimited potential but does not admit the dangers. List says the cost of this ambition is the human soul. AI is taking over our lives an an alarming speed, and we are losing control in this major threat to our free will. We face an existential choice. Will America, with its Christian foundations, build an AI that counters godless superpowers like China? Or will we surrender our future to billionaires chasing dopamine highs and dollar signs? The time to decide is now.
Post by Dr. Vliet and Major Gary:
Our guest speaker Paul List, the author of Mount Doom, discussed the history of Artificail Intelligence (AI) and the Biblical Christian perspective on why Christians in particular should avoid using AI as “The Machine” or a Goliath that threatens to control and destroy us by usurping our God-given free will. Avoidance of AI is one approach to consider, and our guest speaker presented a cogent case for doing just that.
On the other hand, perhaps a more pragmatic approach, is for Christians to find a way to engage “Goliath,” to stand up to this giant and use our free will and God-given creative mind to harness its power and use it wisely, with discernment and an appreciation that only God is the true source of wisdom. We need not be afraid of this Goliath, but rather meet it head on
At its core, AI is simply a powerful tool that can be used for good or evil. In fact, even its name is deceiving. It is not true wisdom. In fact it is not artificial intelligence. Rather it should more correctly be described as artificial information. based AI generates answers to queries based on algorithms sorting through massive databases of information looking for patterns. As users of AI, we need to take the next step to verify the information AI provides, using independent sources. In the case of medical questions, that means don’t just accept the AI summary but seek out actual medical research articles we can read for ourselves. AI can be useful for scientific inquiry, being a tool for searching and sorting through massive amounts of data in nanoseconds to save use time. But we should not depend on AI database owners’ opinions on Faith, political or legal matters, unless statements retrieved from their database are truly factual and can be verified as such.
From a Christian perspective, artificial intelligence is a tool that carries both promise and peril. Properly used, it can help us sort through vast amounts of information, deepen understanding in areas like science and medicine, and even provide new ways to share truth and strengthen our witness. Yet Scripture cautions us to be “as shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves” (Matthew 10:16), because AI is ultimately shaped by its human creators, whose agendas may not always align with biblical truth. That is why discernment is essential: we should not approach AI with fear, but neither should we be naïve about its risks. Instead, Christians are called to model wise engagement, guiding younger generations to use these technologies faithfully, calmly, and with their eyes fixed on the true source of wisdom—our Creator. END of POST
