Book Review of "Made in Our Image" - Stephen Driscoll

 

Talk about Artificial Intelligence (AI) and I break out in a cold sweat with images of 2001: A Space Odyssey flashing before my mind’s eye, mixed with dismal scenes from the 1982 version of Blade Runner! It’s totus tenebrae (total gloom) for me, baby! Honestly, to be a Boomer has its issues. But Stephen Driscoll, author, partner with Australian Fellowship of Evangelical Students, husband and father has gently addressed my concerns, and more, in his 192-page paperback “Made in Our Image: God, ArtificialIntelligence and You.” In a nutshell, this useful and readable manuscript presents a biblical way for Christians to think about AI. And he does it without falling into the traps of either technological frenzy or forlornness. Rather, he walks a realistic line that clearly sees pros and cons.

 

Driscoll’s main aim in the book is to “zoom out to 40,000 feet to help us see how God’s big picture of reality – seen specifically through the lenses of creation, sin, the cross and new creation – help us to think about AI” (175). Not only does he work us through the biblical framework to guide readers on the subject, but he also pulls in some soberminded history as he directs our gaze into the foggy future. I found the biblical and historical aspects very worthwhile, even helpful for keeping my feet solidly grounded while the author guided me through what AI is and isn’t, how it works, the way it ‘reasons,’ the source of its ethical programming, and it’s place in the days and years ahead.

 

There were two subjects I found most helpful (out of many). First, AI will force humans to rethink who they are. In fact, it is already doing this. Driscoll spends quite a bit of time addressing human identity, and why it’s important, how we have been looking for love in all the wrong places (to quote the Country and Western song). We have looked inside our own heads for our value, when we are always to be looking upward. The God of creation tells us who we are – those made in his image – and even when AI can do anything we do better, we still are exactly what God says we are; that “identity flows from God, not from within” (pg. 65). We should not build our identity house on ourselves or our psychological happiness. Who we are as humans is found beyond society, beyond politics, rituals, and economics, and runs right into the arms of God. This recognition builds resilience into us, no matter what comes.

 

The second subject is that original sin, and all of our actual ways of transgressing, is being programmed into AI. That’s a given because humans, marred and spoiled by sin, are the ones feeding into the neural networks, intentionally or inadvertently. Humanity trains the works of the flesh (Galatians 5:19-21) into the chatbots and more. Large Language Models (LLMs) are “made in our image, with many of our flaws. They are trained to imitate fallen humanity” (pg.103). Even if the idealists think that building networks and machines with greater intelligence will lead to better morality, “Christians should strongly disagree with this claim. More than that, we should see it as dangerously naïve” (127). Driscoll’s point leads to a healthier mindset than complete euphoria or utter despair.

 

Since AI is here, and becoming more deeply integrated in our lives, our goal is to have some guiding principles to help us navigate the way we use – and don’t use – AI. Much of the book works through those principles. But also we have to be realists. All technology is usually amoral, neither good nor evil in and of itself. It’s the way we use it. And Driscoll shows examples from both sides (good and evil uses), for our awareness. One of the correctives the author posits in different ways is that we must be relational. Unfortunately, as we have become freer (and AI is likely to make us even more free economically and with our time), our greater freedoms have only made families more unstable, even unbundling our lives and relationships. The rise in loneliness and mental health issues place an exclamation point on this problem. And so, as Christians, buoyantly building and investing in marriages, churches, etc., will aid us in weathering the societal gusts and gales that lie ahead.

 

Maybe it was unfortunate, but as I worked through the book, I kept hearing REM singing in my head, “It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.” And yet, maybe that was the right tune to be humming in my brains. Because “Made in Our Image” is correctly pointing out some of the ways the world of my younger days is ending. Nevertheless, the God and Father of the Lord Jesus isn’t panicked or flummoxed; Jesus is still Lord and Savior and leading history toward his kingdom-come; and the Spirit is still making all things new. So, yes. I guess I do feel fine!

 

So, I think you need to get this book, pore over it, mark it up, argue with it, ponder it, and share it with a few mates. If you’re a Christian minister, like I am, you definitely must pick up a copy quick. I bought mine at the end of 2025 and couldn’t put it down once I opened its pages. I happily and heartily commend it.