Should you use AI to theology-check your pastor?

It can be hard to identify why not to use AI. As Elena Bridgers writes above, the efficiency and organization that AI provides, at the speed it provides it, can make the use of AI seem like a no-brainer. Increasingly it is difficult to explain the “why not” of using AI, behind a vague sense that human work is superior. I think for theology there are some specific reasons that AI is deficient, and they are very hard to describe.

In March Aaron M. Renn posted a piece of AI-optimism, entitled “How I’m Using AI”. His piece helped me identify some of the intangible reasons that Grok fails as a theological side kick. TLDR: Theology is not simply information.

Aaron outlines how he has used the tool and why he encourages others to follow suit.

Renn writes:

Claude and Grok are also fantastic for getting background on topics. Think of them as an interactive encyclopedia. I recently read my first book by René Girard, and thought his interpretation of the death of Christ was pretty heterodox, and probably more aligned with Eastern Orthodoxy than Western Christianity, despite Girard being Catholic. Grok gave me all kinds of information about how various people had responded to Girard, as well as a comparison between his views and Eastern Orthodoxy.

This paragraph is a perfect example of why using AI is not equivalent to earning theological chops. Renn begins his query with an instinct- “Rene Girard’s view on the death of Christ is heterodox”. It turns out that a quick use of AI proves him right, in the sense that Girard is less compatible with his understanding of Western Christianity.

But this is where AI as your theological co-pilot gets a little off-kilter. Renn is mining Girard’s writing on the death of Christ (maybe The Scapegoat? though I’m not sure) for its theory of the atonement, and then evaluating it accordingly. But this is quite a limited way to engage what Girard wrote. I can’t tell from his description if this exhausts his approach, but reading to see if a book fits with one’s theological rules and principles would be a limited strategy.

When I taught theology, one of my main goals was to help students gain some distance from their own opinions as they encountered a text. I wanted them to inhabit the ideas and world of the author in order to understand how the author perceived the problem of the human condition and whatever questions the text might raise. For this reason, I’d assign a wide variety of thinkers. I sometimes got pushback about this, especially when I assigned people who veered too far from Christian orthodoxy. But I still maintain that the skills of listening, comprehension, and even discernment that result from this practice far, far outweigh any “risk”.

Theology is a rich and layered thought-world, and when you practice inhabiting a text with curiosity, what results is not simply a better idea of which ideas about God are “correct”. What results, instead, is a better sense of who we are as humans. You can gain a better set of questions or hone your instincts so that you perceive the world and its beauty and challenges a little differently.

The best theologians work to describe this realities of God and the world and embed them in their own thought-worlds. How theologians pursue this description varies quite a bit. As a teacher, I spent a lot of energy trying to help students move beyond “right” and “wrong”; or “ours” and “theirs”; to a posture of curiosity in regard to this variety. More than just providing the “spice of life”, theological variety serves to interrupt our assumptions about what we know, and can help us bump up against things we haven’t considered. This posture of openness is really critical to the set of virtues that allow us to speak well about God. (Perhaps it is not as important in other disciplines! I’m not prepared to say).

There isn’t a generic “all views are equal” ideal going on behind my view. It’s just that there is a lot that readers will miss if they are always jumping to evaluation first. If you do this, you can miss the sort of dexterity that I aim for. Ultimately, you can miss the fruit that reading provides. You’ll never get to good thinking without this sort of dexterity.

A second paragraph from Renn:

AI is great for getting a summary of how various commentators have interpreted passages of scripture. One of my favorites things to do with it is, when I hear something from a pastor that sounds like it might be a modern innovation, to ask whether or not any major figure in Christian history taught this prior to 1900. Out comes an entire history of the idea - if there is one.

If I want to use any of this material in print, I have it spit out links to credible sources.

Renn has started with what he perceives as a “red flag”- an overly modern innovation in a sermon or teaching- and looked to back fill his instinct from commentators. He then asks AI to confirm his instincts.

What even beginning students of interpretation know is that there are thousands of commentaries, and that they vary tremendously in their rigor, approach, and ideology. You can almost always find someone to validate your opinion. But when you approach the commentaries to affirm your opinion, you are entering a sort of doom loop characterized by the validation of your own ideals.

Renn also privileges history as a sort of interpretive trump card- as if “before 1900” is evidence of anything other than age- but that is a different interpretive problem of evangelicals.

Renn then skips a step, and looks for credible sources to validate his instincts. What he doesn’t do is listen and discern with an eye toward considering someone else’s ideas. He might not listen with a posture of openness, or trust, though, again, I can’t quite say.

I can promise you that this set of tools is going to make the work of the trained theologian miserable, if not impossible. If each listener thinks my words might be a “modern innovation” and goes to backfill these instincts by asking AI to confirm their instincts, we’ve created a near perfect loop of self-reinforcement. We’ve created a system where expertise is not useless- as some people warn- but where its fruit is devalued entirely. This is something I worry about quite a bit. You cannot get this fruit without doing the work of careful reading, arguing, and engaging with people who know more than you do. You won’t get it if you are seeking primarily to have your own ideas validated, either.

I understand why Renn uses the tools in these ways, but if he encourages this use without being aware of the shortfalls, it could impede the development of some of the higher skills, like discernment, and even wisdom, that I think the work of theology can ultimately provide. For this reason, I would not suggest regular use of AI in the way that Renn describes. Imagining ourselves to be the arbiter of all theological teaching- and imagining that theology is primarily about being on the “right side”, or gaining the “right information”- is a anemic understanding of what theology is for. More, maybe, on this point later.