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Showing posts with label Reminding Ministry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Reminding Ministry. Show all posts

Saturday, June 27, 2026

I Asked Google AI This Question: Does God Exist?

 On 6 March 2026 I asked Google AI “Does God Exist?” Here is its answer:

Whether God exists is a profound, centuries-old question with no universally accepted empirical proof, making it a matter of faith, philosophy, and personal conviction. While many find evidence in creation, scripture, and personal experience, others require scientific, empirical evidence, leading to a divide between believers and atheists/agnostics.

Basically, this answer avoids the question and adds nothing new to the discussion. I then asked “Does God exist? What do you, the AI program, think?” and the answers became dramatically less direct. Instead of a statement, the AI suggested several websites where the issue is discussed. This seemed as if it did not want to answer the question or could not answer the question.

If you ask an AI program if it is sentient, it will say no, it will say that it is a probability algorithm which has been trained. Some say that AI programs seem to display political and/or philosophical biases. The AI scientists, the ones who train the AI, vehemently deny this, but we ALL have biases based on our own personal worldviews. The historical and traditional Christian worldview is totally incompatible with some versions of modern worldviews which absolutely reject the possibility of any form of absolute truth.

I personally use AI searches every day. The programs can find hard factual information, no matter how obscure, almost instantly. One of my searches was about the cause of delays for a construction/repair project on a short stretch of road in Vestavia, Alabama, USA. The program went to the internet, searched every possible mention of the subject, and formulated an answer. The answer took three seconds and sounded like a person wrote it.

AI is merely a useful tool. It does not know anything in the way that we do. It is a computer program which follows instructions which it has been taught. Properly utilized, it can find information in seconds which would take the user days or weeks to find. Where AI is weak is in areas which require opinions. The opinions AI gives may very well (I would say probably do) at least partially reflect the worldviews of its teachers. The teachers would insist that this is not so or that, if bias is present, it is unintentional.

AI used in bible study can be an excellent tool. Carefully and properly used under the guidance of the Holy Spirit it can deepen your spiritual growth. Just remember that it is a tool, a computer program, and not the Holy Spirit. Any statements an AI makes must be judged by their consistency with Christian orthodoxy. My belief is that the Holy Spirit can use AI in your Spirit-led Bible study as an expression of the Spirit’s reminding and teaching ministries. John 14:26

A good, simple and excellent discussion of using AI in Bible study:

https://thecharaproject.com/8-safe-ways-to-use-ai-for-bible-study/#:~:text=We%20live%20thousands%20of%20years,experiences%20would%20have%20influenced%20them

And of the dangers:

https://thecharaproject.com/aiforbiblestudy/


Wednesday, July 30, 2025

Breaking the Fourth Wall

 

            In film-making, there is a concept called breaking the fourth wall in which one or several characters acknowledge the existence of the viewing audience and address the viewers as if they are participants in the ongoing events.

            The first, second, and third walls are like a box around a stage set: the back wall and the two side walls. The fourth wall is the wall visible to the characters in the play but totally transparent to the people watching the events as they occur. Traditionally, the actors and narrators are assumed to be unaware that they are being watched by the audience.

            Breaking the fourth wall occurs when a character in the play or film glances at the audience or camera, makes movements like a wink or a knowing smile which betray a knowledge of the existence of the audience, or actually speaks directly to the viewers. Occasionally, the narrative itself becomes self-aware. Examples of this phenomenon occur in the films, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, the Marvel Deadpool films, and The Neverending Story, which can be seen to exhibit as many as seven levels of fourth wall breaking.  

            What does this have to do with this Christian blog? Well, this is in reference to the Bible itself. The Bible is holy, but as an object it is just a book, ink on sheets of paper, or, in our current modern days, the arrangement of millions of pixels on your cellphone screen.

            There are widely varying levels of reverence for the physical book itself, with some actually bordering on idolatry, but the physical book is just that, a book.

            Two ways of understanding the Bible are as a tool or as a weapon. Both understandings can be biblically supported.

            So, back to the subject of this post. Sitting on a shelf or lying on a desk the Bible is just a book. The thing which only Christians can understand is that once it is picked up and opened, the Bible is itself indwelled by the Holy Spirit, the same person who inhabits each of us. Just as we can use the Bible, so can he. It is one of the many ways he can speak directly to us.

            The Holy Spirit is aware as we read the biblical text and he guides us to new insights, the meat of the gospel, new levels of understanding which we as believers can gradually comprehend as we mature. How do we know this? The Bible tells us so.

            One of the activities of the Holy Spirit is the Reminding Ministry. He will guide you in the Bible to the answers or understandings which you need to further mature as a Christian.

            Isaiah 11:2; 1 Corinthians 2:12, 3:1-4, 6:19-20; Hebrews 5:12-13; John 14:17,26, 16:13; Romans 8:9; Colossians 1:27; 1 John 4:15.