A.I. May Write Sermons for Pastors Until It Can Speak for Itself

 I saw an ad today on the internet for a site that composes sermons with artificial intelligence. Writing is already targeted as one of the primary occupations that A.I. may take over. It can write novels already and will only improve over time. Yet ministers using A.I. to write sermons is for me, something that hadn’t occurred to me.

There are hundreds and thousands of theological points. A.I. will need to select from those to build a sermon, and without the level of point of view consistency one might wish a church pastor to have. It is challenging perhaps even for church ministers to have exhaustive knowledge of and competence with the history of theology. A.I. will have that exhaustive knowledge, yet choosing between things like infant baptism, does original sin apply to infants, are the saints real and able to influence things on Earth now, etc is a level of competence that even A.I. won’t possess. In fact I doubt if Super Artificial intelligence will have the capability of understanding the truth about various competing theological points lacking guidance of the Holy Spirit. A.I. is without a soul being hard-wired into logic circuits.

Faith and Christianity are human concerns and opportunities. There would be a substantial change in direction of the worldly church if many pastors took the easy way to get that sermon completed before Sunday morning. I wonder if competition to exploit the instant erudition will drive to an A.I. takeover of sermonizing and homilies too, paradoxically. perhaps congregations will be too dull to understand subtleties in theological content if the A.I. eventually speaks for-itself with a groomed most persuasive voice for its robot body possible.

It is something to consider. Here is a sermon I asked ChatGpt to write on James, faith and sacrifice.

ChatGpt: “Here is a sermon on the life of James that pertains to faith and sacrifice:

Faith in action: lessons from the life of James

The life of James, the brother of Jesus and a leader in the early church in Jerusalem, offers a powerful example of the connection between faith and sacrifice. James’s life demonstrates that true faith involves action and a willingness to sacrifice for the Gospel.

James’ initial skepticism and his journey of faith

James, Jesus’ brother, initially doubted Jesus’ claim to be the Messiah. After the resurrection, James encountered the Risen Christ, which transformed him from a doubter into a devoted follower and leader. This transformation highlights that faith can be a journey, which requires confronting doubts.

Faith and action: James’ core message

The Book of James emphasizes that genuine faith requires action. Faith must be expressed through actions, as James stated, “faith without works is dead”. This doesn’t mean salvation by works, but that true faith leads to a transformed life and good deeds. Faith without works is dead says James in James 2:26.

Sacrifice for the sake of the Gospel

James’s leadership in Jerusalem required sacrifice and courage. The early church faced persecution, and James faced adversity. His commitment to Christ led to his martyrdom, an act of ultimate sacrifice. His death showed the power of the Gospel message.

Lessons for today

Faith requires action: It’s important to show faith through actions, such as how you treat others, your pursuit of justice and compassion, and service to those in need. Are words of faith supported by deeds?

Embrace the journey: Like James, you might have doubts. True faith is about embracing the journey and allowing God to transform you as you learn to trust Him.

Willingness to sacrifice: Following Christ often requires sacrifice—time, resources, comfort, or even life. Remember James and other martyrs who remind people that Jesus is the greatest treasure, worth any sacrifice says Christ Community Church – KC.

Allow your faith to be a living, active force that transforms lives, brings glory to God, and blesses others. May you, like James, live lives of faith, a faith that is both vibrant and willing to sacrifice for the one who sacrificed everything.”

Refining Writing Art; Form vs Function

 There are several ways of viewing the matter of Form vs function. The question for balancing creativity versus composition applies in many fields including writing fiction. To some form is all important; aesthetics are what matter. For others function is the essential purpose of building a story, building or whatever.

Solzhenitsyn's 'The Seventh Circle's fulfilled a purpose with expository writing through fiction of explaining life in the gulag for intellectuals. A philosopher writing science fiction would have a purpose- the function being invaluable and the form secondary. Plato's book The Republic, is logical analysis going so far in describing the realm of forms that it may be regard as science fiction twenty-three hundred years before Mary Shelly wrote Frankenstein. Like Sartre, Plato's prose- the syntagmatic axis, were flawless.

Without function and purpose that is interesting and edifying a novel is like an electric car without a battery. The paradigmatic axis need be built into a story as the chassis. One may produce beautiful meaningless verbiage without it. Build the story with a purpose and use the editing features described  others of rough draft and subsequent stages of refinement.  It is quite difficult to infuse purpose into a story with editing.

Words to Print; Creativity

The subconscious is a vast ocean with a lifetime of deep learning and experience stored within. Conscious awareness is unencumbered with that and usually interprets present experience. If one has ideas that one believes should be communicated to external media that process may commence without the composition being complete in mind a priori.

In writing a novel for instance, awakening from dogmatic slumber in the middle of the night given a subtle inspiration, one may begin writing it down as completely as possible before the inspiration vanishes amid other thoughts that may arise. The temporal phenomenon of time itself-even minutes, tends to disperse the thought like waves attenuating in scale as they pass away from a speeding boat.

What one writes from thought may be a fair representation of what was thought, yet it can also be somewhat different as the knowledge one has in the subconscious contributes emergent words directly to paper through consciousness so one may be surprised at the genius of creativity (not a self-reference lol).

https://www.udio.com/songs/n9yGHApaDeEoJgGPHo1ju2

Fast Upgrades in A.I. Tech

A.I. is improving and applied quickly. AI is moving toward super-intelligence. Its use in flying small, silent drones with claymore mines to hunt opfor will occur maybe next month when AI chips and instructions are produced. Fighters in Ukraine might like field testing to occur on a computer instead of in the real world.  With writing I believe it’s how you use it. AI is a very adaptable tool that can be employed like an artist’s apprentice’s work. Maybe it will change Sun Tzu’s ‘The Art of War’ in a new edition to make life on Earth more lethal before WW. 3 brings super AI varieties to be the sole survivors (didn’t I see a movie with that theme?).

I will say that using AI for writing doesn’t work for me for reasons other than AI not being fit. In fact keeping my writing more human perhaps may differentiate it later from ubiquitous AI works. Maybe some humans will prefer human works over AI.

AI can generate excellent scientific writing. Super AI is supposed to be able to actually invent things. As it is programmer biases show up a lot. Writing needs to have a political correctness about it that may not allow realistic dialogue.

I wonder how school students will avoid turning in perfect English papers someday without really understanding basic grammar and construction because AI does everything for them. Will writing even be something anyone does, or be like hand written letters that just the old remember?

Writing and the Point of No Return

I read somewhere that one should always finish what one starts if it was worth doing to start with. Just put your head down and ride into the wind coefficient of adversity typing late through the night until dawn's early light at the last line of the final chapter.

One may experience doubt taking a skiff into rising difficult water. When the point of no return arrives one need put away doubt and focus on the task.