“We must lovingly safeguard the grandeur of humanity bestowed upon us and revealed in its fullness in Christ, the splendor of which no machine can ever replace” (Magnifica Humanitas #15). Pope Leo XIV in his new encyclical Magnifica Humanitas: On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence gives a rich and variegated account of the need to use artificial intelligence in a way that fosters integral human development. His treatment makes no claim of being exhaustive and indeed the Church needs to approach this question from various angles and surely the conversation will continue to deepen. Here I would like to offer a reflection on the limits of AI in terms of spiritual interiority and the depths of the word—human and divine. This will hopefully help us to monitor our own engagement with such technologies and articulate more richly the infinite dignity of the human person to the world today, especially as it is threatened by AI.
Other ages of the Church have put a greater emphasis on the interior life than our own age. Hence the language of interiority can seem foreign to our world today, like unfamiliar territory. The language of interiority can even seem to be not real, when in fact it is the most real thing there is! It touches on our share in the very interior life of God, the life of the Triune God that always was, is, and will be forever. It touches on carrying out our actions in our day-to-day lives not just robotically but from a depth of love, a love alone that endures into Eternity. In the end, we need not just more information but more wisdom and more love. Perhaps a machine can do little things just as well as we can but it cannot do little things with great love.
With our world today being less at home with interior realities, it can be difficult to articulate convincingly what AI lacks when compared to the human being. AI can certainly gather information more quickly and can scan more widely than we often can. But what is lacking here is personal interior depth. If we remain on the surface level in our dealing with information, it leaves us scattered and alienated from our deeper self and fount of creativity. We have all reached the point of looking at too many websites in investigating an otherwise worthy topic, and we are left dissipated and exhausted. We have wandered from our true depths of self. And we need to re-collect ourselves. A word (or account of something) generated by AI is quite different from a word generated from the depths of a recollected heart.
I recall an interview with Fr. Donald Haggerty, where he said he began to read St. John of the Cross seriously in seminary and, 40 years later, he has the same volume of John of the Cross and is still underlining and highlighting new things! It’s hard to imagine being able to continually draw forth new insights like this from a text generated by AI. What’s the difference here? We see it but it’s hard to describe. Words can bear a depth of meaning that only break open and flow forth as they are taken into the depths of our interiority, and pondered in our heart over the years as in a birthing process. This is most true of the inspired Scriptures, the divine Word of God, so that the 14th century Dominicans of the Rhineland spoke of the grace of contemplative depth as the “birth of the Word in the soul.” Indeed, even in common language, any idea of some significance or weight is said to be conceived or birthed in the soul as in a conception. Wisdom and a deeper share in the Word of God offers something different from just more information. And note that we share in the Word while we possess information. The former involves the communion of love in wonderment over something greater than ourselves and that we can possess.
As we think about the essence of the human being, we can hearken to Aristotle’s definition of man as a rational animal, but if we’re not careful, that can leave us with just a knowledge that puffs up. As a definition of the human being, I have been pondering recently this: the human being as a bearer of the word of love. Let’s consider each of these three elements. Word rather than just rationality already implies communion, an I-thou relationship in which you receive and speak a word, rather than just a solitary pursuit of knowledge. And the word of love highlights the cherishing and affirming quality that our words are to carry in our hearts and as spoken aloud. To be a bearer of the word of love, then, suggests a womb-like quality to our conceiving creative ideas and words in our heart to then be expressed to another. It is Mary pondering the mysteries of the Word in her heart and giving expression to it in her Magnificat and in visiting Elizabeth. The human being as a bearer of the word of love is made in the image of the Trinity as the Father conceives in His heart and begets His Son, the Word, a Word that breathes forth Love (the Holy Spirit).
Lectio Divina and a contemplative engagement with the Word of God bears the depths of interiority that captures the heart of what the human being is as a bearer of the word of love. This summer, July 24th to the 26th, we will explore this and other themes further, with a host of dynamic speakers, in our 3rd annual contemplative symposium, “Saints Francis and Dominic: A Mysticism of the Word in the World” (click here for more information and to register). As this Symposium will open up, through speakers like Dr. Mary Healy, Dr. Anthony Lilles, Fr. Francis Mary Roaldi, CFR, Bishops Massa and Barres, myself, and others, the Franciscan and Dominican traditions provide rich accounts of this deeper share in divine Wisdom that comes through the Word of God from such figures as Dominic, Catherine, Aquinas, Tauler, Francis, Bonaventure, Angela of Foligno, Anthony of Padua, and more.
It is common to speak of the dignity of the human person, and rightly so, but how do we articulate what sets the human person apart with such great dignity? The depth of interiority is one way to do this. Animals do not have this, and even less so does AI. Those of us involved with Avila Institute and SpiritualDirection.com enjoy a stronger emphasis on the interior life than even many of our Catholic peers, so perhaps this is a little contribution we can make to this pressing debate about AI, perhaps something like “AI vs. Carmelite Interiority.” For instance, there are Teresa’s seven (and many more) interior dwelling places, John’s richly arrayed interior garden, Elizabeth’s finding our neighbor enfolded also within our interior, and Therese’s little things suffused with a depth of bottomless love. With such rich accounts of the interior life as we have among the Carmelites, Dominicans, Franciscans, and others, we have a litmus test for our own healthy engagement with AI and other technologies: Is it all fostering the depths, expansiveness, and rootedness of the interior life as described by these saints? We also have here a sophisticated language about interiority that we can ponder and bear within our hearts to speak a more effective word to our world today about the unfathomable mystery and treasure that the human person is and that we seek to cherish and nourish amidst the helps and threats of our own day.
____________________________________________________
Image: Unsplash
