Earlier this month, I had the joy of leading a workshop at the Mockingbird Conference in New York City entitled Hopeful Intelligence. In it, we explored what it means to be people of hope in an age increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence, where the lines between creature and creator, imitation and imagination, are being tested daily.
What struck me most in the days since is how AI, for all its complexity and mystery, oddly affirms one of the Bible’s most radical claims about humanity: that we are both dust and glory. No other vision of the human condition is as unsentimentally humbling or as magnificently exalting as the one we find in the pages of Scripture. And strangely, this technological marvel that mimics our cognition, throws that paradox into even sharper relief.
Let me explain.
We Are Dust
The Genesis account insists, without apology or romanticism, that we come from the earth:
“Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life…” (Genesis 2:7)
The Hebrew word adam is a play on adamah, the word for ground or earth. We are not gods. We are not angels. We are not even self-made. We are “earthlings”, composite beings of breath and soil. And as Augustine so often reminded us, our very finitude and contingency should humble us. “You have made us for yourself, O Lord,” he wrote, “and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” This restlessness is the ache of dust longing for meaning beyond itself.
In the age of AI, we’re now building machines that can challenge aspects of our intelligence including our language, memory, and even our creativity. When faced with this kind of technological leap, we are uncomfortably confronted with how fragile and limited our greatest powers are. Calvin’s doctrine of human depravity, often misunderstood as pessimism, actually helps us see clearly here. We are not as strong, consistent, or original as we think. What AI reflects back to us is not just human brilliance, but human dependence—on patterns, on data, on the breath of life we could never generate on our own.
Yet We Are Crowned With Glory
And yet, paradoxically, this same Genesis account tells us that we are created in the image of God. Not because of our capabilities. Not because of our uniqueness. But because of God’s loving choice to make us divine image-bearers.
This is the staggering heart of Christian anthropology:
“What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.” (Psalm 8:4–5)
Martin Luther called this a “theology of glory through the cross,” where our worth is revealed not by what we do but by what God has done for us. Catholic social teaching echoes this in its insistence on the inviolable dignity of every person, not because we are useful, but because we are beloved. This dignity is not earned by effort or intellect but bestowed by grace.
The worth of the human person is inestimable, not because we are divine, but because Divinity Himself has stooped to love us, to dwell among us, and ultimately to dwell within us. The Incarnation reveals not only God’s heart, but also humanity’s home: we were made to be a temple for the Spirit of God. What more exaltation could there be?
Becoming More Human in an Age of Machines
For centuries, humans have taken great pride in our ability to think abstractly, to reason, to create. But now we’re building systems that can write poetry, diagnose illness, generate insight, and respond with uncanny empathy. And we’re left to ask: If intelligence is no longer uniquely human, what is?
But, perhaps this unsettling moment is, in fact, a kind of mercy.
Because in the challenging of our intellectual prowess, we are called back to something older and truer. A theology that never located our worth in what we can perform, but in who we are: creatures of dust, breathed into by God.
Here is our paradox: we are earthy, finite, vulnerable; but we are also filled with divine breath. We are ultimately animated not by processing power, but because of Christ by the very Spirit of God.
AI will continue to surprise us with its advancements of thought, language, and even emotional tone. And it’s wise to avoid drawing absolute lines about what it can never do. What we can confidently assert is who we are: beings loved into existence, redeemed at infinite cost, and invited into communion with the divine.
“See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.” (1 John 3:1)
Our value isn’t anchored in how well we think; rather, it’s in the One who thinks of us. Our uniqueness isn’t preserved by guarding our intellectual territory, but by remembering our created identity: beloved dust.
This is the framing of hopeful intelligence, not the triumph of human mind over machine, but the peaceful recognition that we are known, loved, and indwelt by God Himself. As we remain shrewd, let advances in AI lead us not to a defensive paranoia, but to deeper convictions concerning what does make humanity distinct. Because no matter how much the world changes, our dignity remains unchanged because God is unchanging: we are creatures of dust and glory, held together by God’s abounding grace.
Let us not forget the strange wonder of our own created being: earthbound and glorious, fragile and filled with the breath of God. We are not machines, but walking miracles. In Christ, our greatest calling is to be remade into living reflections of divine love.
Read David’s next post in this 3-part series: Not Picking A.I. Sides: How Love Holds Tension