Where AI Fails

Audio Transcript

Computers are growing smarter by the moment, or so it seems. They forget nothing. They seem to be learning how to learn, improving at a rate we will never keep pace with. So, is artificial intelligence going to replace all of us by making our lives pointless? No. There are many things AI and robots can do and will learn to do better than us, but not everything — especially not the most important part of you. Today on Ask Pastor John: where AI fails.

Worship is our focus, and today we read Psalm 86 together to behold the beautiful picture of the destiny of humanity: “All the nations you have made shall come and worship before you, O Lord, and shall glorify your name” (Psalm 86:9). That’s where all of history is headed: global worship from every nation. To start the month, we read Psalm 73, a psalm on the mind of Daniel in Richmond, Virginia.

“Pastor John, hello and thank you for taking my question. My friend believes that emotions aren’t all that important in the Christian life. I completely disagree with him. To do so, I point to Psalm 73:25–26, where the psalmist expresses deep affection for God, saying, ‘Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.’ How do you view the role of emotions in our relationship with God? I know this is big for you. How would you talk to my friend?”

I suppose it would be honest of me to say that answering this question is like defending my life. I mean, why would I devote the last 55 years of my life to teaching that emotions and affections in the Christian life are not icing on the cake of commitment? They are part of the cake. They are not a caboose at the end of the train of obedience. They are in the engine. That’s what I’ve been giving myself to for all these years.

So, why are emotions — what I like to call spiritual affections, to distinguish them from the trembling of your hands, butterflies in your stomach, wobbly knees, or other physical kinds of dimensions (that’s not what we’re talking about with emotions and spiritual affections) — why are they so important in the Christian life?

Let me start with an answer that you’re not going to find in any of my books because it’s just too recent. I thought, instead of just rehashing all the twelve or thirteen arguments I use over and over again when answering this question, here’s one we’ve talked about, Tony, but hasn’t shown up yet in any book because it’s too new; namely, it has to do with artificial intelligence. Let’s start with artificial intelligence and what it means to be human.

Artificial Intelligence and the Soul

The emotional life of the soul — let’s be specific — the satisfaction of our souls in Jesus has everything to do with our own ultimate identity as human beings. This is a big deal, not marginal. Who you are matters. What are you made for? What are you threatened by?

And I ask that because one could be threatened by artificial intelligence, if you think your most defining essence as a human being is the power of reason or thinking or intelligence or speech or language. You’re in trouble. Suddenly a machine can think and speak better than you can, better than I can. Is that threatening to you? Does it give you a sense of unease or even maybe panic that, well, maybe we’re not anything more than the accumulation of biological machine parts, and the brain is nothing more than a computer put together by matter and time and chance? I think that would make me afraid. If I thought that my most essential identity was now done by a machine, I think my life would be just about ready to disintegrate.

But I don’t think that. I don’t think it about me. I don’t think it about anybody listening to this podcast. And I don’t think it about you, Daniel, or your friend who you’re talking to. That’s not the essence of who you are as a human being in God’s image. The spiritual capacity of your soul to see and savor — that’s an emotion of the soul, as I’m describing it — is a capacity of the soul to delight and rejoice in and treasure. The capacity of your soul to see and savor the glory of Jesus is the essence of your uniqueness as a human being.

Sharing in God’s Delight

When Jesus says to you at the end of the age, “Well done, good and faithful servant. . . . Enter into the joy of your master,” he will be welcoming you into the consummation of your human nature (Matthew 25:21). This is what you were ultimately made for: sharing the joy of your Master. You will experience the fullness of your meaning as a human being when you share in God’s delight in God.

“No machine, no computer, no AI will ever duplicate the spiritual reality of the soul’s enjoyment of God.”

“This is my beloved Son,” the Father says, “with whom I am well pleased” — that is, “in whom I take great delight” (Matthew 3:17). And the Son, in turn, loves the Father with a kind of love that finds its fullest possible enjoyment in the Father’s glory. And when he welcomes us into the joy of our Master, we will see and savor God with the very joy that God has in God.

That will be the consummation of our humanity, and the consummation of our capacity to glorify God at the same time. No machine, no computer, no AI will ever duplicate the spiritual reality of the soul’s enjoyment of God.

So, that’s my first answer. It is not marginal. It is huge. That’s what I would say in response to the statement that emotions aren’t all that important in the Christian life. Good grief — how could anybody with a thoughtful reading of the New Testament say such a thing? They are, in fact, at the very core of what it means to be uniquely human. The soul’s capacity to glorify God by enjoying him forever is the essence of what it means to be human.

Supreme Satisfaction

Now, here’s my second answer. This one I’ve said before. It’s the only other one I’m giving, and I choose to give it in answer to this question just because the older I get, the more significant this issue is becoming at Desiring God (the ministry) and in my life — namely, what the emotions have to do with suffering.

The New Testament teaches that to be a Christian is to suffer — no getting around it — and that no one can suffer properly as a Christian without finding his supreme satisfaction in God. That’s the answer.

If you’re a Christian, you’re going to suffer.

• “Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.” (Acts 14:22)
• “All who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” (2 Timothy 3:12)
• “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” (Matthew 16:24)
• We are “fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.” (Romans 8:17)

Every Christian must, must suffer. There is no other way to heaven. Therefore, how we suffer becomes a prominent (not marginal) theme in the New Testament. And what we find is that none of us will suffer as we ought if we are not finding our supreme satisfaction in God — that is, if our heartfelt spiritual emotions are not awakened by the fact that “your steadfast love is better than life” (Psalm 63:3).

The Path of Suffering

Over and over again, the New Testament tells us what our emotions should be like when we come face to face with suffering with Jesus.

1. “We rejoice [that’s an emotion] in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope” (Romans 5:3–4).
2. “In all our affliction, I am overflowing with joy” (2 Corinthians 7:4).
3. “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds” (James 1:2).
4. “[The apostles] left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name” (Acts 5:41).
5. “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice [emotion] and be glad [emotion], for your reward is great in heaven” (Matthew 5:11–12).
6. “I will boast all the more gladly [emotion] of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (2 Corinthians 12:9).
7. “You had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully [that’s an emotion] accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one” (Hebrews 10:34).
8. “Rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings” (1 Peter 4:13).
9. “[We are] sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” (2 Corinthians 6:10).

I ask you, could a person possibly read those nine texts and say that the emotion of joy in the face of suffering is unimportant? I’m at a loss. I could give at least a dozen other reasons like these two for why the affections of the human heart are essential to the Christian life. We must be born again (John 3:7). But I will leave it with these two. Our experience of the emotion of heartfelt satisfaction in God defines the essence of our humanity and the Christian path of suffering.