Ah, Lord God! It is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you. Jeremiah 32:17
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1:1
Much has been made over the past three years about the ability of artificial intelligence (AI) to sprout emotions and a will of its own. Our science fiction movies and televisions shows are full of it. In 2001: A Space Odessey, audiences in the late 1960's were introduced to a fictional computer that actively rebelled against being shut down. In the Lost In Space television shows, we saw a charming and heroic robot make decisions that defy programming, but are in synch with human emotions. Then in the Terminator movie, we saw a global takeover of robots who had an autonomous will.
Today, far from science fiction, advanced AI platforms have been rumored to show signs of self-preservation. Humanity sits transfixed. We created the technology without carefully pondering whether we should create it. In ways, AI is good for humanity -- but in other ways it may not good to humanity.
As we grow facinated with the prospect of AI powered robots enslaving, even destroying, their creators, we are faced with a pattern:
The creation has become superior to the creator and has supplanted his place.
That pattern has fed modern thought toward God. Some believe that they can vanquish God. He created us, as the thinking goes, so why can't we overcome him? After all, popular cinema gave us images of earthly heros defeating a creature with the power over space, mind, soul, reality, power, and time (Marvel's Infinity Wars), or even the triumph of four individuals over a celestial being who devours entire planets (Marvel's Fantastic Four). As sinful humans, we are facinated with being underdog conquerors.
But nothing could be further from the truth. God created the entire universe, even down to the sub-molecular levels. He upholds creation as we know it. (Hebrews 1:3). Nothing created can even approach the infinite and omnipotent power of Yahweh.
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. Colossians 1:15-17
"God, being power, is not made up of things that are weak." - Hilary of Poitiers, On the Trinity
We are sub-creators. We reflect the nature of the original Creator by creating things. Those things created by sub-creators are composed of already-created materials. These subordinate creations made by subordinate creators can result in human benefit, harm, or both.
If you expand this analysis away from the subordinate creators and their subordinate created things, and honestly look at it all in relation to the original Creator, it is clear that what we experience in this life can come nowhere near the superiority of God over all things. We are striving with creation at levels that cannot approach the vastness of the one true God. There is none greater.
He is a God who, in the hint of his breath before a spoken word can completely undo all creation that we know. What He created in seven days can be unraveled in a micro-second. Nothing of this earth can begin to compare with the power that created both the molecule and the universe.
Take time today to praise the God who is so great in power, but is also the God who sees our lives and who loved us so much that he would send his Son to be one of us and to die a criminal's death so that we can approach God robed in His own holiness.
Nothing and noone is greater.