Sunday, April 26, 2026
DIVINE INCARNATION, HUMAN ELEVATION, AND AI
The most important question about AI is not economic. Nor is it one of the accuracy of what AI generates. That is not to say they are not important questions. Moral questions are also obviously important – tied to AI’s ability to impersonate us. But are they most important? Are they central to the proper ordering of things? Our answer to this question depends on our image of what it means to be human.
I mean to say that the most important question of AI, by far, is of how it shapes us. AI’s question is of how it images the human person. Our guide to this is Incarnation.
I saw a study recently that compared student writing by those who used AI to a control group who didn’t. The conclusion was that kids who used AI lost their creativity. And, not only that, but, even after the student stopped using AI, their “creativity” was still gone 30-40 days later. The study was not longitudinal, so who can say what happens years after not using AI. But what is “creativity” in the first place?
Window Hang, drawing by the author.
One of the few drawings I did where my professor's only commentary was concise and positive. He saw it and exclaimed, "Now that is an elevation!" Of course, he meant something by that. And the direction of the elevation is from earth towards the heavens – in ancient and scriptural terms, the realm of divinity.
I learned a deep lesson about this from studying a Michelangelo drawing at London's National Gallery. See below for not that drawing but another of his that teaches us the same lesson. Keep in mind that the drawing was huge, probably about 2 ft. by 3 ft., on vellum. It was a portrait of a young woman. One line caught my attention. It gave form to her curly hair. It moved from the part in her hair, around the shape of the left side of her head, down to her shoulder, and then again down past her arm and to her torso, ending in multiple curls. Further, it didn't represent a single strand of hair. It set the contour of a section of hair, itself detailed by many other lines.
Why do I take the time to describe this line? What is my point? In order for Michelangelo to draw this line, he must have an image of that entire flowing body and section of hair in his mind. For that, he had to “see” this particular section of hair in relation to her whole head. To see this in his mind, he must also have seen the whole head of hair in relation to, well, her head – and then also in relation to her face and, not to mention, the rest of her body. Michelangelo had to “hold all of this together” in his imagination at once.
Study of a man shouting, also known as The Damned Soul, c. 1525-34, Uffizi, Florence, Italy, by Michelangelo (for reference, image from here).
This alone is beyond impressive, to say the least, and to the point of striking awe. It requires immense and intense energy, concentration, knowledge of the human body, and practice of the art of drawing. In order to make this line on paper, though, Michelangelo also had to translate what he "saw" in his mind onto paper. Or, in other words, he had to "draw" it out, onto the paper, or into the world of communal appearances, and with his pencil. The discipline, skill, practice, and gifting required to complete these two tasks to the perfection I witnessed is stunning. And, more to my point, it is beautifully edifying - of the woman imaged, of Michelangelo, and of the human person more generally.
Now – “holding it all together” – where else have we heard language like that? Paul tells us it’s what Christ does, right? And, he does so as our “head.” Through him, all that was made was made. This is not to say that Christ made Michelangelo’s drawing. Michelangelo did that. That, in turn, is not to say Michelangelo is God. That such questions arise, though, speak to the glorious wonder here…
AI, in this sense, too, is like a divinity. It holds together immense spans of information – basically all that has been made. And, from “all that has been made,” AI “creatively” generates artifacts – whether writings or AI art. And, if it imitates the human person to such a degree that we cannot know the difference, has our creation, in turn, created us? The question of divinity, and of relationship with divinity, is inevitable.
This was a parable. An opening – of the imagination, perhaps?
A parable of human agency, of passivity, and of humans – makers of AI - as self-ruled masters of our own destiny. Compare Michelangelo drawing to me prompting AI. Compare one BODY’s engagement to another. Compare the inter-relating of mind and body in one and the other.
If what AI does is basically memory and processing of human thinking in the form of writing, whether digital or print - if, when AI is used to generate art, the memory processing is just that of images, and interpretive words about them, rather than of printed words alone - then does the human who uses AI become information processing? Is a human a machine? Is the human body a machine? Is our humanity constituted in the consciousness or information itself?
Related Facebook post from friend Nick Freiling (who I often otherwise agree with and find to be extremely helpful).
What Nick doesn't point out is that actors are actual people. And there are interrelational and interpersonal dynamics between actors, and between actors and director. This is a question of what acutally appears before and among the communal world, and how. Is to flatten all that into "interface" to lose our very humanity or to drastically altar it? Is a person in, as the director says, "action," or is an information processing maching doing the work of said information processing? Does imaging the human person as information processing or consciousness elevate our image of the human person or altar it into a discarnate one?
Nothing elevates the human person like divinity. This is not to say that Michelangelo is a divinity. Quite the opposite. Is AI – made by the “Michelangelos" of our time - a divinity?
All of this is a matter of “creativity.” Because it is a matter of order – of the ordering of things. Of course, to order is presumably to elevate. And order is ultimately accomplished by divinity. The question of divinity, and of relationship with divinity, is inevitable.
Information spans further than the vulnerable human body and its creaturely limits can see or hear. So - to depict the human person as an information processing machine – or even as the disembodied information itself – is to elevate the human, right?
This was a parable – a body of writing as an opening…
It was a parable of what it means to be a person. The most important question about AI is not economic. Nor is it one of the accuracy of what AI generates. Moral questions are obviously important – tied to AI’s ability to impersonate us. But the most important question of AI, by far, is of how it shapes us. AI’s question is of how it images the human person.
The answer to the parable is, of course, partly determined by HOW we use AI. But, because technologies shape our environment, and our environment shapes us, the fundamental question remains. As humans build a building up from the ground, so too, it perhaps lifts up the human person. As the hand moves the pencil, so the drawing is moving for the one who beholds it. These moves are extensions of the humans who make that which moves. I mean to say that the most important question of AI, by far, is of how it shapes us. AI’s question is of how it images the human person.
To so thoroughly disengage the body, and to so expansively give ourselves over to information processing, is obviously to either shape our image of the human person or to lose it. Which is it? What is it to "prompt"?
The reason we know it’s important that we have bodies – that our bodies are part of and wrapped up in who we are - is not only that we are known by God incarnate but that, in Incarnation, God becomes human. This, too, is of course a question of order, and thus of "creation":
"We won't be able to live the strange way of life set aside for us if we can't believe that God in fact sees us as friends, as partners, and as co-regents...We are God's glory, and God is ours. As St. Maximus says, divinity and humanity are paradigms of each other. God is the lifter of our heads; the last thing he wants is for us to grovel. What he wants is for us to be his equals - loving as he loves, knowing as he knows. We are, remember, flesh of his flesh, bone of his bone." - Chris Green, Being Transfigured: Lentin Homilies, pp. 75-76
Because God becomes human, we know God. To see is to know - to have been drawn out into the world of communal appearances. This seeing is embodied – incarnate. This is human elevation. And this is how we know what human elevation is.
If AI is like a god, then what does human elevation by AI look like? Is it economic? Is it moral? Is it human?
I mean to say that the most important question of AI, by far, is of how it shapes us. AI’s question is of how it images the human person. Our guide to this is Incarnation.
I saw a study recently that compared student writing by those who used AI to a control group who didn’t. The conclusion was that kids who used AI lost their creativity. And, not only that, but, even after the student stopped using AI, their “creativity” was still gone 30-40 days later. The study was not longitudinal, so who can say what happens years after not using AI. But what is “creativity” in the first place?
Window Hang, drawing by the author.
One of the few drawings I did where my professor's only commentary was concise and positive. He saw it and exclaimed, "Now that is an elevation!" Of course, he meant something by that. And the direction of the elevation is from earth towards the heavens – in ancient and scriptural terms, the realm of divinity.
I learned a deep lesson about this from studying a Michelangelo drawing at London's National Gallery. See below for not that drawing but another of his that teaches us the same lesson. Keep in mind that the drawing was huge, probably about 2 ft. by 3 ft., on vellum. It was a portrait of a young woman. One line caught my attention. It gave form to her curly hair. It moved from the part in her hair, around the shape of the left side of her head, down to her shoulder, and then again down past her arm and to her torso, ending in multiple curls. Further, it didn't represent a single strand of hair. It set the contour of a section of hair, itself detailed by many other lines.
Why do I take the time to describe this line? What is my point? In order for Michelangelo to draw this line, he must have an image of that entire flowing body and section of hair in his mind. For that, he had to “see” this particular section of hair in relation to her whole head. To see this in his mind, he must also have seen the whole head of hair in relation to, well, her head – and then also in relation to her face and, not to mention, the rest of her body. Michelangelo had to “hold all of this together” in his imagination at once.
Study of a man shouting, also known as The Damned Soul, c. 1525-34, Uffizi, Florence, Italy, by Michelangelo (for reference, image from here).
This alone is beyond impressive, to say the least, and to the point of striking awe. It requires immense and intense energy, concentration, knowledge of the human body, and practice of the art of drawing. In order to make this line on paper, though, Michelangelo also had to translate what he "saw" in his mind onto paper. Or, in other words, he had to "draw" it out, onto the paper, or into the world of communal appearances, and with his pencil. The discipline, skill, practice, and gifting required to complete these two tasks to the perfection I witnessed is stunning. And, more to my point, it is beautifully edifying - of the woman imaged, of Michelangelo, and of the human person more generally.
Now – “holding it all together” – where else have we heard language like that? Paul tells us it’s what Christ does, right? And, he does so as our “head.” Through him, all that was made was made. This is not to say that Christ made Michelangelo’s drawing. Michelangelo did that. That, in turn, is not to say Michelangelo is God. That such questions arise, though, speak to the glorious wonder here…
AI, in this sense, too, is like a divinity. It holds together immense spans of information – basically all that has been made. And, from “all that has been made,” AI “creatively” generates artifacts – whether writings or AI art. And, if it imitates the human person to such a degree that we cannot know the difference, has our creation, in turn, created us? The question of divinity, and of relationship with divinity, is inevitable.
This was a parable. An opening – of the imagination, perhaps?
A parable of human agency, of passivity, and of humans – makers of AI - as self-ruled masters of our own destiny. Compare Michelangelo drawing to me prompting AI. Compare one BODY’s engagement to another. Compare the inter-relating of mind and body in one and the other.
If what AI does is basically memory and processing of human thinking in the form of writing, whether digital or print - if, when AI is used to generate art, the memory processing is just that of images, and interpretive words about them, rather than of printed words alone - then does the human who uses AI become information processing? Is a human a machine? Is the human body a machine? Is our humanity constituted in the consciousness or information itself?
Related Facebook post from friend Nick Freiling (who I often otherwise agree with and find to be extremely helpful).
What Nick doesn't point out is that actors are actual people. And there are interrelational and interpersonal dynamics between actors, and between actors and director. This is a question of what acutally appears before and among the communal world, and how. Is to flatten all that into "interface" to lose our very humanity or to drastically altar it? Is a person in, as the director says, "action," or is an information processing maching doing the work of said information processing? Does imaging the human person as information processing or consciousness elevate our image of the human person or altar it into a discarnate one?
Nothing elevates the human person like divinity. This is not to say that Michelangelo is a divinity. Quite the opposite. Is AI – made by the “Michelangelos" of our time - a divinity?
All of this is a matter of “creativity.” Because it is a matter of order – of the ordering of things. Of course, to order is presumably to elevate. And order is ultimately accomplished by divinity. The question of divinity, and of relationship with divinity, is inevitable.
Information spans further than the vulnerable human body and its creaturely limits can see or hear. So - to depict the human person as an information processing machine – or even as the disembodied information itself – is to elevate the human, right?
This was a parable – a body of writing as an opening…
It was a parable of what it means to be a person. The most important question about AI is not economic. Nor is it one of the accuracy of what AI generates. Moral questions are obviously important – tied to AI’s ability to impersonate us. But the most important question of AI, by far, is of how it shapes us. AI’s question is of how it images the human person.
The answer to the parable is, of course, partly determined by HOW we use AI. But, because technologies shape our environment, and our environment shapes us, the fundamental question remains. As humans build a building up from the ground, so too, it perhaps lifts up the human person. As the hand moves the pencil, so the drawing is moving for the one who beholds it. These moves are extensions of the humans who make that which moves. I mean to say that the most important question of AI, by far, is of how it shapes us. AI’s question is of how it images the human person.
To so thoroughly disengage the body, and to so expansively give ourselves over to information processing, is obviously to either shape our image of the human person or to lose it. Which is it? What is it to "prompt"?
The reason we know it’s important that we have bodies – that our bodies are part of and wrapped up in who we are - is not only that we are known by God incarnate but that, in Incarnation, God becomes human. This, too, is of course a question of order, and thus of "creation":
"We won't be able to live the strange way of life set aside for us if we can't believe that God in fact sees us as friends, as partners, and as co-regents...We are God's glory, and God is ours. As St. Maximus says, divinity and humanity are paradigms of each other. God is the lifter of our heads; the last thing he wants is for us to grovel. What he wants is for us to be his equals - loving as he loves, knowing as he knows. We are, remember, flesh of his flesh, bone of his bone." - Chris Green, Being Transfigured: Lentin Homilies, pp. 75-76
Because God becomes human, we know God. To see is to know - to have been drawn out into the world of communal appearances. This seeing is embodied – incarnate. This is human elevation. And this is how we know what human elevation is.
If AI is like a god, then what does human elevation by AI look like? Is it economic? Is it moral? Is it human?
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