AI, Theology, and What It Means to Be Human | Noreen Herzfeld
What does artificial intelligence reveal about what it means to be human — and what should people of faith make of it?
In this episode of The UpWords Podcast, host Dan Johnson sits down with Noreen Herzfeld, a scholar who holds advanced degrees in both computer science and Christian theology and has been thinking seriously about AI and humanity since the 1980s. Together they explore why we are driven to create AI in our own image, what Christian theology says about embodiment and relationship, and why the church should be cautious about embracing AI tools — especially in ministry.
Noreen brings a uniquely grounded perspective: she understands how large language models actually work and what Christian anthropology has to say in response. Her conclusion may surprise you.
In this episode, you'll learn:
· Why humans are compelled to create AI in our own image — and what that reveals about us
· How the Imago Dei (image of God) shifted from intellect to relationship in 20th-century theology — and why that shift matters for AI
· What Christianity's strong theology of embodiment means in a world increasingly dominated by language models and the cloud
· Why AI chatbot "relationships" are fundamentally different from — and inferior to — genuine human relationships
· Where AI has real, appropriate uses (narrow, domain-specific tools like AlphaFold) and where it falls dangerously short
· Why Noreen sees significant risks in using AI for pastoral care and counseling
· How large language models differ from earlier AI systems — and why they hallucinate
· The collision course between AI energy consumption and climate change
· Why Noreen's advice to most people is simply: don't use it
About Noreen Herzfeld Noreen Herzfeld is one of the rare scholars who bridges computer science and Christian theology. She earned her M.S. and M.A. from Penn State before taking a sabbatical to study why humans want to build AI in our image — a question that led her to earn a Ph.D. in Theology from the Graduate Theological Union at Berkeley. She has been teaching and writing at the intersection of technology and faith for over two decades.
Her books include In Our Image: Artificial Intelligence and the Human Spirit (Fortress, 2002), Technology and Religion: Remaining Human in a Co-Created World (Templeton, 2009), and The Artifice of Intelligence: Divine and Human Relationship in a Robotic World (Fortress, 2023). She also directs the Benedictine Spirituality and Ecotheology Program at St. John's School of Theology and Seminary and is a Senior Research Associate at the Institute for Philosophical and Religious Studies in Koper, Slovenia.
Resources & Links
· Noreen Herzfeld's faculty page: csbsju.edu/sot/person/noreen-herzfeld/
· In Our Image: Artificial Intelligence and the Human Spirit (Fortress Press, 2002)
· Technology and Religion: Remaining Human in a Co-Created World (Templeton, 2009)
· The Artifice of Intelligence: Divine and Human Relationship in a Robotic World (Fortress, 2023)
· AlphaFold (DeepMind protein-folding AI): deepmind.google/technologies/alphafold
· Sherry Turkle, MIT — referenced in discussion of AI and human relationships