Stealing Fire

11/17/2023

Wis 13:1-9 All men were by nature foolish who were in ignorance of God, and who from the good things seen did not succeed in knowing him who is, and from studying the works did not discern the artisan; But either fire, or wind, or the swift air, or the circuit of the stars, or the mighty water, or the luminaries of heaven, the governors of the world, they considered gods. Now if out of joy in their beauty they thought them gods, let them know how far more excellent is the Lord than these; for the original source of beauty fashioned them. For they search busily among his works, but are distracted by what they see, because the things seen are fair. But again, not even these are pardonable. For if they so far succeeded in knowledge that they could speculate about the world, how did they not more quickly find its Lord?

Boys and girls, have you heard of a program called Chat-GPT? My brother was telling me recently about Google’s version of Chat-GPT called Bard – another form of artificial intelligence (AI) – and he showed me how it works. I was curious if it could create a homily for a Sunday Mass as well or better than I could. You’re probably thinking: that’s impossible, Fr. John!

He said first I needed to give Bard certain prompts, like give it the gospel reading for that day (Mt 23), that the homily is for Sunday not a weekday, it should be 8-9 minutes long, and it should be Catholic theology not Presbyterian. And in less time than it takes you to blink your eye, the Bard had produced a very clear, practical, and theologically-sound sermon. My hair would have been blown back, if I had any.

Then my brother said that he could also add the prompt, “In the style of Fr. John Antony of Fort Smith, Arkansas,” and immediately another homily appeared on the screen which was even more personal and even used phrases and vocabulary that I normally use. It was not only fascinating but also frightening. Why?

Well, it’s a priest’s job to preach, but if Bard instantly creates your sermons, whose homily are you hearing on Sundays: Fr. John’s homily or Fr. Bard’s homily? In other words, have we arrived at the moment where we can replace a human being with a machine and not be able to tell the difference? In other words, did I write this homily you’re hearing now or did Bard write it for me? How can you tell?

By the way, this is not a new question. When I was ordained back in 1996, I was assigned to Christ the King in Little Rock. I was visiting the 8th graders one day and a student raised his hand and asked, “Fr. John, can we clone a human being?” Earlier that year, on July 5, 1996, scientists had successfully cloned Dolly the Sheep, which looked, bleated, and gave birth to other sheep. How would you answer that question: can we clone people?

Well, I said a quick prayer to the Holy Spirit and blurted out something like: “Well, if the newly cloned human could kneel down and pray to God, then I think cloning a real human might be possible.” Then I looked at my watch and gasped, “Wow, look at the time! Gotta go!” In other words, what makes a human being truly human is the soul that God alone can give us.

As you know from biology, your mom gives you 23 chromosomes, and your dad gives you 23 chromosomes, but neither mom nor dad can give you a soul. Only God can. And only those who have souls can pray to God because your soul tells you who created you. No matter how clever machines may become in creating homilies and humanoids (clones), only God can give us a soul, and that is what makes us unique and unrepeatable.

As I said, this is not a new problem but a very old one, thinking we don’t need God or we can do what he does. The first reading from Wisdom – one of my favorite books of the Old Testament – says: “All men were by nature foolish who were in ignorance of God, and who from the good things seen did not succeed in knowing him who is, and from studying the works did not discern the artisan.” The artisan is not bread but God.

In other words, when we look at the beauty of the world, especially the utter uniqueness of a human being, we should see that only God could have created such a magnificent being, and such a wonderful world. But we are always tempted to take God for granted and think I don’t need the Holy Spirit to write my homilies. I only need Bard. The rapid growth of technology and science makes some people foolishly believe they are god. But the Bible tells us that is not wisdom.

I know students at OCA study Greek and Roman mythology. And mythology tries to warn us like the Bible does. Have you heard of the Greek god named Prometheus? He is god of science and technology. Why? According to his myth, he stole fire from the gods on Mt. Olympus and gave it to human beings allowing humans to become powerful and develop their science and technology. Discovering fire was the first step that eventually led to the creation of Chat-GPT and Bard.

But Zeus, the chief god, punished Prometheus by binding him in chains to the side of a mountain. Zeus ordered than an eagle would come very day and peck at Prometheus’ breast and eat his liver. Every night though his liver would grow back. The next day the eagle would return, peck his breast and devour his liver again. And that cycle would continue forever as Prometheus’ punishment. Greek mythology is gory, but also very good in teaching us life lessons.

Now, some of you may be thinking: Fr. John, I don’t care about all that. I am just happy that Chat-GPT will write my papers for me and my teacher can’t tell the difference! Or a priest might think: Yay, I don’t have to work so hard on my homilies anymore, or pray to the Holy Spirit, the real Fire of God that came down at Pentecost! And that may all be true.

But the real question remains: can you replace real people with machines? Can you clone a human being? Put differently, can you steal fire from the gods like Prometheus, and go unpunished? I don’t think so. We cannot steal fire from the gods just like we cannot steal our soul from God. He has to give it to us as a gift. And the good news is that God is happy to give us both our soul and the Fire of the Holy Spirit. And we don’t even have to ask for them.

Praised be Jesus Christ!