Sermon
John 1:1-4

#Gemini: Here's a sermon, written out including the Scripture reading and the liturgical context. The tone is reflective: searching, intellectually challenging, but ultimately pastoral and focused on the heart. - Translated from the Dutch AI-version. - Nederlands - Deutsch

Scripture Reading

Lector:

The Scripture reading for this morning is taken from the Gospel of John, chapter 1, verses 1 through 4. First, I will read it to you as you know it from the Bible:

1. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2. He was in the beginning with God . 3. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that has been made. 4. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. 

Lector:

And now, I invite you to a thought experiment. Listen to this ancient text once more, but now we read it through the lens of our time, the age of Artificial Intelligence. What happens if we replace "Word" with "Language Model"?

1. In the beginning was the Language Model, and the Language Model was with God and the Word was God. 2. It was in the beginning with God. 3. All things were made through him, without him was not any thing made that was made. 4. The Language Model was life and the life was the light for men. 

Sermon: The Breath and the Algorithm

Dear Congregation, dear friends,

Did you feel the difference? During that second reading?

"In the beginning was the Language Model."

Perhaps it sounded modern to your ears. Perhaps you thought: hey, actually that makes sense. Everything is language, everything is code, everything is information.

But you probably also felt a chill. A distance. "The Language Model was life and the life was the light for mankind." It sounds technical. Functional. But is it true?

Last week, I sat in my study with a member of our congregation. Let’s call him Thomas. An intelligent man, well-read, a seeker. We were discussing the stormy rise of Artificial Intelligence, AI.

His wife, also a minister, and he had been debating. "AI doesn't really think," she had said. "It's just a parrot. If you ask ChatGpt who he is, he says: I am merely a language model."

But Thomas said to me: "Pastor, is it really that simple? What do we humans do, then? Aren't my brains just a biological computer? Currents flow through my nerves, chemicals interact in my synapses. I learn language by repeating, by recognizing patterns, just like that computer. Am I, essentially, not also 'merely' a language model? And if that is so... what remains of the soul? Of God? Of responsibility?"

That question stuck with me. Because if we are merely walking algorithms, and God is 'the Word', is God then the Great Programmer? Or is God Himself merely an idea, a projection of our own language model, as theologians like Harry Kuitert or Feuerbach suggested: "everything from above comes from below"?

To find a way through this, let us return to the text of John. In the beginning was the Word.

John writes this in Greek. He uses the word Logos.

For the Greeks of that time, the Logos was the divine reason, the logic, the structure behind the universe. The blueprint. Viewed this way, Thomas has a point. If God is pure Logic, and creation is an execution of that formula, then the world is indeed a kind of computer program. And we are the executing code.

But John was a Jew. And when he writes Logos, he hears the Hebrew word in the back of his mind: Dabar.

And there, dear congregation, lies a world of difference.

We in the West are used to separating words and deeds. We say: "No words, but deeds." In the 1960s, we had fierce discussions about this in the church. Was believing 'praying' (words) or was believing 'social action' (deeds)?

But in Hebrew, that is an impossible discussion. Dabar means 'word', but it simultaneously means 'deed' or 'act'. When God speaks, it is there. "He spoke, and it came to be." God’s word is not information transfer; God’s word is creative power. It is an event.

Klaas Hendrikse once provocatively said: "God does not exist, He happens." Although that went too far for many, it does touch upon that Hebrew core: God is not a static object or a calculation. God is action. God is relationship.

And here we arrive at the crucial difference between the Language Model (AI) and the Word (God/Man).

A language model, however clever, calculates. It looks at what was, calculates the probability of the next word, and produces text. It is a closed system of the past.

The human being, created in God’s image, speaks.

And speaking – truly speaking in the sense of Dabar – is not just exchanging information. Speaking is an act of relationship.

Look at the modern car. The self-driving car is coming. It will be steered by a model that undoubtedly drives more safely than you and I. It never gets tired, doesn't drink, doesn't get angry. Statistically speaking: more 'happiness', fewer accidents. A blessing, you would say.

But suppose: things go wrong. The car hits someone. Who is guilty? The car? No, it followed its code. The programmer? They didn't know this specific scenario. The passenger? They weren't steering.

The concept of 'guilt' disappears. Where mechanism rules, responsibility dies. You cannot forgive an algorithm.

And that is exactly where Thomas got stuck. If we are 'merely language models', biological machines, then we can no longer be held accountable for anything. Then our mistakes are merely 'bugs' in our chemical system. "Sorry, my dopamine was misadjusted."

Then there is no sin, but also no grace.

But the Bible paints a different picture of humanity. The Bible does not begin with a human who thinks (like Descartes: I think, therefore I am), but with a human who is addressed.

"Adam, where are you?"

That is God's first question. The human is the being that can give an Answer. The Word asks for an Answer, a Response. That is what makes us human. Not our computing power – we lose that to the computer. Not our memory – we lose that to the hard drive. But our responsiveness.

A computer does not know itself. If you ask Gemini: "Who are you?", it repeats text from its database. It has no interior. It does not feel the void.

Man knows that void. Man knows doubt. Man knows guilt.

I was reminded of Moses. Do you remember that tragic history in the desert? The people are thirsty. God says to Moses: "Speak to the rock, and water will come out." (Numbers 20).

But Moses is frustrated. He is angry. And what does he do? He does not speak to the rock, he strikes the rock. Twice.

Water came out, certainly. It worked. Functionally, it was a success.

But God says: "Because you did not trust in me... you will not enter the land."

Why so strict?

Because Moses turned a Dabar-moment (a word, a relationship, a miracle) into a mechanical action. He used technique (striking, force) instead of trust (speaking). He treated reality as a thing to be forced, not as a creation that listens.

That is the danger of our time. Not that computers become too smart. But that we start thinking that we are machines too. That we forget we are meant to speak and to be spoken to. That we forget we are meant for relationship.

Moses struck, and the water flowed, but he lost the Promised Land.

We build AI, and prosperity flows, but do we lose our soul?

Back to John 1.

"In the Word was life, and the life was the light of all mankind."

A language model gives information. But does it give Light?

Light is orientation. Light is warmth. Light ensures you see where you are walking and who is standing next to you.

Jesus Christ is called the Word made flesh in this chapter.

Note: the Word became flesh. Not: the Word became text. Not: the Word became code.

It became flesh and blood. Vulnerable. Touchable.

God is not an abstract entity preceding creation like a cold formula. God is the One who comes to dwell in our midst. God lets Himself be known in the encounter, in the face of the other.

Perhaps Thomas is right, and our brains are indeed machines of matter and electricity. "Dust you are and to dust you shall return." That too is a biblical truth. Materially seen, we are not much special.

But the miracle of faith is precisely that into that dust, into that biological machine, the Breath of God was blown. That we, despite our chemical processes, are capable of saying "I" and "You". That we are capable of loving – and love is the only 'error' in the algorithm, the only choice that is not logical, but which gives Life.

So, congregation, do not be afraid of the language model. Use it, like you use a hammer or a calculator.

But never confuse it with the Word.

The language model calculates what is probable.

The Word of God creates what is possible – forgiveness, a new beginning, resurrection.

The language model repeats the past.

The Word opens the future.

Let us therefore not be people of 'computing power', but people of the Answer. People who listen, who take responsibility, and who love. For in that – and only in that – do we resemble God.

Amen.