The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) and transhumanist ideologies poses a paradigmatic challenge to Christian theological ethics, particularly concerning personhood, embodiment, and moral agency. Defined by disembodiment, autonomy, and post-human ambition, these movements recast human identity through technological prowess, mirroring the typological hubris of Babel (Gen. 11:1–9). This paper argues that such ideologies constitute algorithmic idolatry—humanity’s pursuit of self-deification via synthetic mastery over divine limits. Drawing on the theological-ethical framework articulated in From Babel to AI: Idolatry, Transhumanism, and the Crisis of Imago Dei (Dawn Sutherland, Wipf & Stock, March 24, 2025), this study offers a response anchored in biblical anthropology, virtue ethics, and Christocentric theology.
Exegetically, the Babel narrative (Gen. 11:1–9) indicts technological self-exaltation, prefiguring transhumanist efforts to replace the imago Dei with algorithmic constructs (e.g., AI-optimized identity Against functionalist or technical readings, the imago Dei emerges as a relational vocation—fulfilled in Christ (Col. 1:15–20), nurtured in ecclesial community, and lived through embodied moral agency. Jacques Ellul’s critique of autonomous technique—where technology, divorced from theological moorings, evolves according to its own amoral logic—grounds this analysis. Building on Ellul, this paper weaves Noreen Herzfeld’s relational anthropology (“humans as the image of a relational God”) with Oliver O’Donovan’s creaturely contingency, Stanley Hauerwas’s narrative ethics, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Christological realism to counter reductive, algorithmic personhood.
Methodologically, a typological hermeneutic links biblical theology to contemporary ethics, enriched by dialogue with AI ethics and transhumanist thought (e.g., Nick Bostrom, Ray Kurzweil). This study rejects both technological utopianism and cultural withdrawal, advocating a witness to embodied, relational humanity. Such witness views limitation not as lack but as the basis for communion with God and neighbor (1 Cor. 12:12–27). Implications for theological education include cultivating practices like communal discernment and theological imagination to equip evangelicals against technological idolatry.
This work advances evangelical scholarship by reasserting the imago Dei as a theological, not technical, reality, offering a Christ-shaped anthropology to challenge transhumanist narratives. It fills a gap in ETS discourse by uniting scriptural exegesis, historical theology, and ethical reflection to address a pressing cultural issue. Rather than yielding human worth to algorithmic metrics or retreating into suspicion, Christian ethics must proclaim a humanity formed by humility, relationality, and dependence on God’s redemptive order. This study thus critiques technological idolatry while proposing a vision for faithful engagement, enriching evangelical responses to AI and transhumanism within a biblically rooted ethical framework.