Cultural Critique Column

This is also a  Viewpoint article. Viewpoint articles address relevant contemporary issues in discernment and apologetics from a particular perspective that is usually not shared by all Christians, with the intended result that Christians’ thinking on that issue will be stimulated and enhanced (whether or not people end up agreeing with the author’s opinion).

This article was published exclusively online in the Christian Research Journal, volume 49, number 03 (2026).

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Christians have a high stake in current debates over AI’s use in communication, especially given the high status God afforded writing in the communication of special revelation in the Bible (2 Timothy 3:15–17; 2 Peter 1:19–21). The Author of life (Acts 3:15) used human authors to communicate His living and active word (Hebrews 4:12) to the world. Thus, the concept of authorship is theologically charged and, thus, should be pondered wisely.

Our theology should ground our perspective and direct our engagement with these technologies. “In the beginning was the Word” (John 1:1),¹ but what happens to words used in communication in a world increasingly saturated with AI? We must exercise our theological intelligence to understand artificial intelligence (Matthew 22:37–40; Romans 12:1–2), lest we unconsciously bow to the spirit of the world and compromise our witness before God and others (1 John 2:15–17; James 1:27). Thus, we should resist worldliness in our use of AI, especially in writing. More constructively, we need a robust theology concerning AI and the potential breach of our integrity with respect to authorship. Human authors should not be eclipsed by AI. Consider a classroom example.

AI in Student Papers. When I teach my introduction to philosophy course, I lay down a strict policy on AI. Students may not use it for anything, not even grammar. Students now have a promiscuously broad sense of what grammar means, extending to style and content. I will help them with their writing style, and they can rewrite papers for a potentially higher grade. “Let me teach you how to write,” I plead. “Not AI. Don’t outsource your personality as an author to AI. Don’t let your personality be eclipsed by AI. And I’ve asked God to make you miserable if you do.”

After I explained my policy on AI to my class, a student asked me, “I know we cannot use AI to write our papers, but can we use it to inspire our papers?” I replied, “What do you mean by ‘inspire’?” She said, “I put your question into an AI and see what it comes up with. Then I will write the paper based on that in my own words.” To that, I said, “You should work with the assigned textbooks, class notes, and discussions, and ask the Holy Spirit to inspire you as an author.” My response assumed a theology of authorship, to which we now turn.

The Christian Worldview: Personality and Authorship. Christianity is rooted in the personality of the triune God: one God in three co-eternal and co-equal persons. God’s divine name is “I am who I am” (Exodus 3:14), an irreducible personal reference to self-awareness, the ability to communicate, and much more, of course. Jesus identifies Himself as this “I am” (John 8:58).² Personality, at minimum, requires knowledge, volition, and agency (the ability to put volition into action). The Holy Spirit is divine and personal as well (Acts 5:3–4). God’s personality is displayed as the primary Author of Scripture, as are the personalities of the human writers who are inspired.³ But we must return to the beginning.

God created human beings in His image and likeness (Genesis 1:26–27) as personal beings. We, like God, have awareness, volition, and agency; but, unlike God, our capacities in knowledge and power are finite, not infinite. God’s image bearers are under the authority of God and need God as their Savior, Lord, guide, and strength in all things. As such, God stipulates rules of conduct addressing the inner and outer person. Since we fail to keep these, we need Jesus to atone for our sins and set us right with God (Romans 5:1–8). But once restored to God, and with the awareness that we are saved by grace through faith alone in Christ alone, Christians need to obey God’s law as the pattern of sanctification in the power of the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:8).

This discussion of the personality of God and our derived personalities grounds the metaphysics and morality of authorship. Our ability to write is rooted in our being made in God’s image; it flows from our consciousness, rationality, agency, and creativity in God’s world. As such, it is a gift to be stewarded wisely and one to be protected from corruption by proper ethics.

But before developing our critique, first we assess the nature of AI in writing.

AI Writes Nothing. Authorship today is often falsely attributed to published words not written by any human being. These strings of words, while having a discernable meaning, are not written at all. This is, as John Warner rightly observes, because writing requires a conscious agent who attempts to communicate ideas in language.⁴ AI is not conscious — and never will be conscious — and thus can possess neither knowledge nor agency.⁵ AI, like all computing, can compute syntax (basic structures or order) but has no access to semantics (the meaning perceived by minds). Thus, it only simulates writing. It scans data and arranges it according to word association patterns. Yet it possesses neither mind nor will. I leave it an open question whether or not demonic beings might manipulate AI to their nefarious ends.⁶

The problems associated with AI in writing go far deeper than AI “hallucinations” (false reports). A Grok search told me that I won the “teacher of the year” award at Denver Seminary in 2002. I taught at Denver Seminary from 1993–2024, but the school never offered this award. But since AI is not sentient, it cannot “hallucinate,” since a hallucination is a subjective experience of X when X is not really there.

How, then, does AI affect our writing? Consider an associated issue: plagiarism.

AI and Biblical Ethics. Following the Westminster Confession, I take the Ten Commandments to “summarily comprehend” the moral law and will make them my basic reference in what follows. Plagiarism breaks three of the Ten Commandments by lying (Exodus 20:16), stealing (Exodus 20:15), and coveting (Exodus 20:17). Francis Schaeffer notes that in order to break any of the other commandments, one must always covet, since breaking a commandment is always based on a warped desire.⁷

Consider AI in writing. John puts his name on a theology paper largely generated by AI following his prompts. He thus lies by claiming to write what he did not write. That is sin number one. He does this because he is covetous. That is sin number two. However, he is not stealing — at least if the AI was lawfully procured. (Hacking into a for-sale AI program would add another sin.) Thus, this AI imposture only breaks two of the Ten Commandments: not to bear false witness and not to covet. Still, the offender is in bad shape, since as James wrote, “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it” (James 2:10). Moreover, John is allowing his authorship to be eclipsed by AI, by a mere nonhuman technology that cannot write anything. This debases him as a human being, all for the sake of efficiency or achievement. According to philosopher Byung-Chul Han, this is the phenomenon of “auto-exploitation.” As he says: “Thus, the achievement-subject gives itself over to compulsive freedom — that is, to the free constraint of maximizing achievement. Excess work and performance escalate into auto-exploitation.”⁸

The Authentic Author. Despite all we hear of AI-written material, AI cannot write anything, although it produces oceans of text. An author is one who uses his or her knowledge to communicate in words. This requires human agency — thoughts and intensions that lead to actions. This ability is at the center of who we are as made in God’s image and likeness (Genesis 1:26–27).

Our authorship of texts should stem from our genuine selves — from our knowledge and our skills and our execution of both. Authorship should flow from the diligent work of mastering material — through much reading and study, through long hours at the writing desk, through failures in writing, through successes in writing, through the influence of good editors, and through the influence of bad editors. This is the art, craft, and skill of writing by human beings.

I owe much of my success as an author to my late wife, Rebecca Merrill Groothuis (1954–2018). She encouraged me to write my first book and promised to edit it along the way. That established a literary relationship between my writing and her editing that continued until her illness prohibited editing in 2010. (She was a superb writer as well.)⁹ She sharpened and clarified my prose, strengthened my arguments, and assiduously attended to my documentation. That is her legacy in my literacy as an author.

Some may think that literacy means having skills to access knowledge. Thus, having access to the internet makes everyone literate! However, skill in finding online material — whether you commit plagiarism or not — is entirely different from literacy, which consists in what you know while you are unplugged, which is the knowledge that you possess.

Plagiarism and using AI for writing outsources and off-loads intelligence and knowledge to a third and impersonal party, a non-author, and so eclipses authentic authorship. In so doing, it forfeits a part of your identity as a human being and concedes your rational and creative agency to an impersonal program that mimics humanity. You thus fail to develop God-given abilities and so love God with all your being (Matthew 22:37–40). Human dignity is not preserved when authorship is eclipsed. AI impostors or counterfeiters are not men or women of their word, but producers of alien and stolen words, emanating from the internet and captured to do the bidding of a grifter.

When you affix your name to a written work, you claim authorship — intellectual ownership and accountability. When you plagiarize or use AI in writing, you attribute knowledge and skill to yourself that you do not possess. That is a lie. You become a literary pretender. This is akin to someone claiming to compose music he or she did not compose. But God knows this sin, even if no one else knows. “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account” (Hebrews 4:13). We need the literary fear of God.

Committing Literary Suicide. Using AI or plagiarism means that you deny yourself true authorship for the sake of faux authorship, which is a kind of literary suicide. Suicide forfeits one’s life at one’s own hand. Literary suicide forfeits authorship through the hand of AI. All suicide is wrong, since it is the murder of the self by the self (Exodus 20:13). Therefore, we should avoid literary suicide by keeping our integrity as authentic authors and not by becoming mere manipulators of information through plagiarism or AI deceptive scheming. If we include suicide in our account of writing with AI, it brings our sin total to three, since it breaks the command, “You shall not murder,” as well — at least metaphorically.¹⁰

Preserving the Person in an Age of AI. In 1977, philosopher C. Stephen Evans wrote an excellent and timely book called Preserving the Person,¹¹ in which he argued that certain worldviews applied to psychology undermined a fully biblical view of the person through some form of reductionism. We face a similar problem today with the use of AI. It is not that the idea of a person is being undermined but that personhood itself is being replicated and thus debased through AI counterfeits. Yet we should preserve the person, the authentic author, given our biblical worldview and ethics. To use AI and claim authorship is a case of imposture and an eclipse of the uniquely human value of authorship. I close by offering several principles for keeping the integrity of authorship in light of Christian theological commitments.

First, do not use AI for the actual writing of any document that bears your name as author. This principle does not condemn in principle the creation of written AI documents so long as no human authorship is claimed. But once human authorship is claimed, then the lies begin.

Second, instead of using AI for editing or writing, we should reestablish a human community of writing and editing. Remember my comments about my first wife. I now have a friend who edits much of my work before I submit it for publication. A few philosopher friends evaluate my arguments in books and articles before submission. No AI could or should substitute for them.

Third, the use of AI in research must be carefully vetted and verified, not only because of “hallucinations,” but because of illicit shortcuts. After nearly fifty years of research, writing, and teaching, when I use an AI summary of research on a topic, I have a good sense of whether it is accurate and comprehensive. Perhaps it will jog my memory on original sources, but I need not depend on it too much. However, a younger scholar, and especially an undergraduate, would not have this background knowledge. In this case, the writer could use true information for some writing, but not know that it is true, since he or she lacks the justification. This is because the AI on its own cannot provide the justification that makes a true belief into knowledge.

Saying No to AI. While AI has many authentic and morally acceptable uses, it must be strictly controlled in anything claiming to be authored by an image-bearer of God. While everyone around is screaming “Yes” to AI, in many cases, Christians must simply say “No” in order to preserve the author qua author and to do good in God’s world. I give the divine Author of Scripture the last word:

For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope — the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good. (Titus 2:11–14)

—Douglas Groothuis

Douglas Groothuis, PhD, is Distinguished University Research Professor of Apologetics and Christian Worldview at Cornerstone University and Cornerstone Theological Seminary.

NOTES

1. Bible quotations are taken from the NIV.
2. See Douglas Groothuis, “Before Abraham was, I Am,” World Religions in Seven Sentences (InterVarsity, 2023).
3. I hold to human cooperation with God in the authorship of Holy Scripture. This is called confluent inspiration.
4. See John Warner, “Only Humans Write,” More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI (Basic Books, 2025).
5. I claim this because I am a mind-body substance dualist. Matter cannot be conscious nor can it evolve into consciousness. See J. P. Moreland, The Soul (Moody, 2020) and Douglas Groothuis, “The Uniqueness of Humanity: Consciousness and Cognition,” Christian Apologetics, 2nd ed. (IVP Academic, 2022).
6. See Rhitu Chatterjee, “Their Teenage Sons Died by Suicide. Now, They Are Sounding an Alarm About AI Chatbots,” Shots, National Public Radio, September 19, 2025, https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/09/19/nx-s1-5545749/ai-chatbots-safety-openai-meta-characterai-teens-suicide.
7. Francis Schaeffer, True Spirituality (Crossway, 2001), 6.
8. Byung-Chul Han, The Burnout Society (Stanford University Press, 2015), 11, Kindle Edition.
9. Rebecca Merrill Groothuis, Women Caught in the Conflict (Baker, 1994); Good News for Women (Baker, 1997); Rebecca Merrill Groothuis, “Equal in Being, Unequal in Function,” Ronald Pierce and Rebecca Merrill Groothuis, eds., Discovering Biblical Equality (InterVarsity, 2004).
10. See Douglas Groothuis, “Plagiarism, Artificial Intelligence, and the Suicide of the Author,” Minding the Campus, November 4, 2024, https://mindingthecampus.org/2024/11/04/plagiarism-artificial-intelligence-and-the-suicide-of-the-author/.
11. C. Stephen Evans, Preserving the Person: A Look at the Human Sciences (InterVarsity, 1977). See also Francis Schaeffer, Back to Freedom and Dignity (InterVarsity, 1972) and Francis Schaeffer and C. Everett Koop, Whatever Happened to the Human Race? (Revel, 1979).