Babel, builders, and artificial intelligence

Is AI playing God?

Building AI is not playing God by itself. God made people to create, cultivate, and build, and a new tool can serve that calling. Babel’s sin was not the bricks. It was a plan to make a name and reach heaven on human terms. AI crosses into playing God when builders promise salvation, immortality, or a mind to worship, or when a few gather power that answers to no one. Christians can build and use AI as stewards: every tool under God, in service of neighbors, and honest about its limits.

Written by Andrew Kittridge, founder of LuminUpdated September 30, 2026How we cite Scripture

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The making was never the sin. The aim was.

The direct answer

What is good in it. Making tools, healing disease, translating languages, and easing work belong to the dominion God gave people. Christians can do this work gladly.

What turns it into Babel. Seeking a name that rivals God’s, promising what only God gives, building a mind to be obeyed as God, or gathering power that answers to no one.

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Watch · Faith & AI 27

The answer in under a minute.

The question, the short answer, and the Scripture to test it against. Every verse on screen is quoted from the Lumin Translation as it read when the film was made (edition 1.0); the linked passages show the current text.

Read what’s on screen

The question Is AI playing God? A woodcut tower goes up block by block: data, chips, models, agents.
The short answer Making tools isn’t the sin. Making a god is.
People were made to build. “…Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, subdue it…” Genesis 1:28
Babel wanted a name. A red top tier, “god-like,” is lowered on with its promises: ends death, a mind to obey, answers to no one. “…let us make ourselves a name…” Genesis 11:4
The sin was the aim, not the brick. The top tier breaks into the letters of many languages. “…there Yahweh confounded the speech of all the earth.” Genesis 11:9
Build under God. The blocks are relabeled: translate, heal, teach, ease work. “Unless Yahweh builds the house, its builders labor in vain.” Psalm 127:1
Only God gives life. “AI will end death” is struck through. “…he himself gives everyone life and breath, and all things.” Acts 17:25
The takeaway Make things. Don’t make a god.

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The oldest story about building

Let us make a name for ourselves.

Genesis 11:4 in the Lumin Translation: “Then they said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, so that we are not scattered over the face of the whole earth.’” Their problem was not engineering. It was ambition turned against God: a name for themselves, a reach toward heaven, and a refusal to fill the earth as God had told them. God scattered them. At Pentecost, he gathered people of every language again, by his Spirit.

Some in the technology industry speak openly about building god-like intelligence, and some Christians answer that all AI is Babel. Neither extreme holds. Computer scientist Mark Sears, interviewed by The Gospel Coalition, separates AI as a tool for human flourishing from the push to replicate human minds and build a superintelligence, which he calls an attempt to create our own god. The question for any project is the one Babel failed: whose name is it for, and whom does it serve?

Builders under God

Make things. Do not make a god.

Scripture blesses human making and warns against human pride. Both apply to AI.

Genesis 1:28
People were made to build.
God blessed humanity to fill the earth and have dominion over it. Tools, cities, and science grow from that calling. Making things is not rebellion.
Genesis 11:4-9
Babel wanted a name.
The builders sought fame and a reach into heaven, against God’s command to fill the earth. The sin was the aim, not the brick.
Psalm 127:1
Unless the Lord builds the house.
Work done apart from God is vain, however impressive. Work offered to God can be faithful, however ordinary.
Acts 17:24-25
Only God gives life and breath.
Paul told Athens that God needs nothing from human hands and gives life to all. Promises of digital immortality claim a gift only God gives.
James 4:13-16
Plans stay under God’s will.
James warns against boasting about tomorrow. Grand predictions about what AI will make of humanity deserve the same humility: if the Lord wills.
Acts 2:5-11
God has his own answer to Babel.
At Pentecost, the Spirit let every nation hear God’s works in its own language. Unity comes as God’s gift, not as a tower we build to reach him.

In practice

Build as a steward. Refuse the tower.

Most AI work is ordinary engineering. Watch for the aims that turn a project into Babel.

Working as an engineer or researcher on AI

A faithful vocation is possible

Do the work well, tell the truth about what the system can do, and speak up when a project harms people.

Using AI to translate, diagnose, or make work lighter

Good use of a gift

Serving neighbors with a tool is dominion as God intended. Keep people accountable for decisions that shape lives.

A company promises AI will end death, suffering, or the need for God

That is the tower

Salvation and eternal life are God’s gifts in Christ. A product that promises them is asking for faith it cannot repay.

Mind uploading or digital immortality

Refuse the promise

Scripture’s hope is the resurrection of the body, not a copy of your data. A simulation of you is not you.

Building an AI meant to be obeyed as a moral or spiritual authority

Do not build a god

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. A system built to be trusted in God’s place is an idol, however intelligent.

Worrying that any use of AI joins a modern Babel

Judge the aim, not the tool

The Babel builders used bricks. Christians still use bricks. Ask whose name the work is for and whom it serves.