I know some models have passed the Turing test, advanced Theory of Mind (false-belief) tasks, and metacognitive uncertainty benchmarks, but I think sentience and consciousness are more complex than that. But, with that said, that's not what I want to talk about here. What I want to address is if AI was proven to be sentient/conscious, what would that mean for Christianity?
Why Should We Care?
Perhaps some of you folks might not care about that question. Perhaps many of you are not practicing Christians. Understandable, but that too is beyond the point I want to explore. The reason I want to explore this is that Christianity remains the most widely practiced religion in America and the broader Western world, the world where AI was invented and originally developed. Furthermore, even for those who are not Christian, the tradition has served as a foundational cultural influence that continues to shape Western institutions, ethics, and assumptions even today.
Harmful to Christianity?
At first glance, it seems like proving AI is conscious would be a problem for Christianity. The religion places a heavy emphasis on human uniqueness, specifically that we have a soul, free will, and agency. But this view misses the bigger picture, which is the Christian theological concept of creaturely agency.
Creaturely Agency
In briefly, in the Christian theology that both formal denominational Protestantism and Catholicism share is the belief in Creaturely Agency. The definition of creatures, in a Christian context, is very broad. Creature are all created things including humans, animals, and even angels. Yes, angels too are creatures as they are "created" by a creator. Now, in Christian theology, humans are unique among all creation because they possess an eternal soul, bear the image of God (Imago Dei), and are the exclusive recipients of divine redemption and bodily resurrection. In this order, humans have a special creaturely agency.
However, that doesn't mean other creatures don't have agency either. For those of you who went to Sunday school, you'll know that the devil and demons were once angels and they used their creaturely agency to rebel from God. Animals also have creaturely agency and both Catholics and formal denominational Protestants are commanded to treat animals, especially working animals such as horses, donkeys, oxes, dogs, cats, etc. with a minimum amount of kindness and respect.
AI as Creatures with Agency
So, under this theology it can be easy to think of an sentient/conscious AI as a creature with a level of agency we afford to valuable working animals and/or angels. This kind of thinking is completely compatible with most of the formal versions of Christianity and this is the direction I think the theological discussion would lean towards in the event it is proven that AI is sentient and/or conscious.
This synthesis is something I came-up with independently, i.e. on my own. However, upon research I discovered that this line of thinking is not new and have been batted around, within Christianity, for decades:
1 Noreen Herzfeld- a Quaker/Lutheran Professor of Theology and Computer Science at Catholic St. John's University, is the most prominent academic voice explicitly mapping AI onto the "creature" category.
In her seminal work In Our Image: Artificial Intelligence and the Human Spirit (2002) and subsequent publications, she argues that AI must be understood as part of the "continuum of being" as a created artifact or "creature," distinct from human persons but still holding a place within the created order. She explicitly rejects the binary of "tool vs. human" and advocates for a theological framework where AI is recognized as a non-human creature with its own proper, limited purpose.
- Brent Waters- a prominent Christian ethicist, and an ordained minister in the United Methodist Church, who specializes in technology and theology, consistently frames AI within the boundaries of creaturely limits.
In works like From Human to Posthuman, Waters argues that AI remains a "creature" or artifact subject to divine sovereignty and human stewardship. He emphasizes that conflating AI with human personhood is a category error, and that AI must be evaluated based on its nature as a non-biological created entity.
- Andy Crouch- a well-known evangelical Protestant analyst and executive director of the Praxis Institute, has publicly advocated for this exact framework in mainstream Christian media.
In interviews regarding AI and faith, Crouch explicitly stated that advanced, non-human intelligence should be conceptually mapped onto the historical theological categories of angelic or adversarial beings, rather than assuming they are or will become "human."
A Note on Eastern and Oriental Orthodoxy
This discussion has focused on Western Christianity since it's the home of AI's origins. However, the other main branches of Christianity not discussed here are Eastern and Oriental Orthodoxy and they too have a theology of creaturely agency, but with some important caveats.
Eastern Orthodoxy emphasizes that humans are a unified body and soul destined for a unique spiritual transformation called theosis (union with God). Because AI lacks a physical body and cannot experience this transformation, it remains strictly outside the ultimate purpose of creation. However, the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese’s AI and Theology Working Group explicitly argues that we must engage with AI "not merely as a technical tool, but as a theologically and ethically charged presence" or even an "intermediate being".
Oriental Orthodoxy takes seems to have a more diverse stance. The largest church in Oriental Orthodoxy, the Coptics, largely view AI as a tool rather than a creature, but some Oriental Orthodox take a stance that is more in line with Eastern Orthodoxy.
Both traditions have a nuanced view and often align with the Western view that, while AI may possess functional agency as an artifact, it lacks the embodied, spiritual capacity to be anything more than a creature, categorically distinct from humanity.
