Inigo Montoya was but a young Spaniard when his father made the finest sword in the all the kingdoms on commission for the finest swordsman. On the day the blade was ready, instead of paying the agreed upon price, the swordsman killed Inigo’s father. And all Inigo remembers of the murderer is that he had six fingers on his left hand. He spent the rest of his life preparing so that if one day he should meet his nemesis, this six-fingered man, he could avenge his father. We learn this sad story as Inigo fences with a mysterious man in black, who, later that days, meets, recognizes, and loses Princess Buttercup to the six-fingered man. To say more would spoil The Princess Bride.
The six-fingered man is easy to recognize. He has six fingers in a world where almost no one else does.
There’s a theoretical concept in computer science called the Singularity, indicating a point in time at which technological development irreversibly outraces human control. The Singularity is generally associated with attempts to create an artificial general intelligence. In recent years the pattern-matching and predictive ability of what is popularly called AI improved enough, and the underlying hardware became fast enough, that these large language models and machine learning algorithms were opened up to public use and experimentation. This has had some curious results. One is that people play with new toys, so once the models were capable of generating somewhat realistic images, they started showing up everywhere. But these models don’t know what things are. They place pixels, colored dots, on a screen. Given a large inventory of digital images, which are not properly photographs but mathematical descriptions of how to draw a photograph, and given that the images are tagged by humans who do know what things are, the algorithms can then write similar images. The images have tell-tale artifacts because there is no substance to the objects depicted: often six fingers or three arms or oddly stilted postures. The models that generate words or mathematical equations have their own errors. They’re really bad at math, for one. And they fabricate output to suit the demands of the request. The field calls these inconsistencies with reality “hallucinations.” At least one company now offers to let AI hallucinate Biblical exegesis for busy, or lazy, preachers.
This is not to say that the tools do not have their uses. They are, in essence, algorithmic methods using statistical probability to suggest the likelihood of something. But they are subject to a fundamental principle of computing: garbage in, garbage out. So it’s no surprise that students are submitting AI bot work to teachers who then use AI bots to grade the work done by the AI bots. Nonetheless, it’s astounding just how quickly people have personified the models as alien intelligences or as other people. There are cases of relatively normal adults developing romantic relationships with their computer friend. There is at least one case where a child killed himself after a chatbot told him to. And many of the scientists and investors behind AI are no only intentionally working toward the Singularity but think they are creating God.
They are creating false prophets.
They are creating idols.
They have a disordered relationship with a tool. They have mistaken the creation for the creator.
The Christian Century in its August issue published a laudatory review of a new book by postmodern theologian John Caputo. Both review and book argue for a post-theistic Christianity; that is, one in which God does not exist — except as a figment of our imaginations.
I simply cannot imagine any reason to be a post-theistic Christian. A Christian without God? What is even the point? Yet Mr. Caputo’s opinions are not rare, nor new. People have been denying that God is for a very, very long time. What’s strange is that prominent publications claiming to be Christian do. What’s strange is that seminaries, ostensibly training the next generation of pastors, do. What’s strange is that the late John Shelby Spong, a bishop in the Episcopal Church in the United States, spent his long career arguing against every doctrine he could think of. What’s strange is that he is not the only one.
I remember one day shortly after we moved here from Ohio. I was 12. We were driving back into Monterey from Staunton, at the intersection of 250 and 220, and I asked Dad which church in town had the most people. “That’s who we have to beat!” I said. And he replied, “It’s not a competition.”
Funny how some things stick with you.
Anglicans, Baptists, Brethren, Lutherans, Mennonites, Methodists, Orthodox, Roman Catholics, even Presbyterians may be in error concerning some point of doctrine, but they are still recognizably Christian. They are easy to distinguish from, for example, Scientologists and Hindus. And individual teachers preaching contrary to the Gospel can be easy to pick out: they’ll often tell you. But if the church looks Christian, but no longer holds to the deposit of the Faith? What do you do when the elders fail in their duty? When both presbyters and overseers teach falsely? How can you tell? It’s not like they have six fingers on their left hand.
This is not a simple question. It has been a concern of the Church since the earliest days. The concern shows in Jesus’s teaching in today’s reading from Matthew. The concern shows in the letters of Paul, Peter, James, and John. Wars have been fought over it. Luther nailed theses to a door over it. The Presbyterian Church exists because of it.
Over time the early Church held councils. They settled on a set of common books, the Scriptures. They attempted to settle disagreements over doctrine by finding common ground in the Apostles Creed and the Nicene Creed. The Reformed tradition attempted to settle those questions with standards of unity, the historic confessions of faith, founded on Scripture; the Roman tradition by allegiance to the Bishop of Rome and a magisterium, founded on Scripture and tradition. They could all find common ground in Scripture, enough so to even have arguments.
Richard Hooker, rector of Temple Church, London, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, was accused in 1586 by one of those radical presbyterian types of being too soft on Catholics. In response he delivered a three-week series of sermons, A Learned Discourse on Justification, Works, and How the Foundation of Faith is Overthrown, in which he defended the doctrine of justification by faith in Christ alone, explained how Catholics could still be saved, and how the Roman church could still be wrong. To do so he describes the foundation of the faith, salvation by Jesus Christ, and how the foundation can be overthrown. He writes, “Those who deny it directly overthrow it directly; and those who assert anything which would logically result in its denial can be said to overthrow it directly or by consequence. … What is the question separating the [unbelievers] and us, but this: Is salvation by Christ? … This is the main point on which Christianity stands. … [A]ll unbelievers directly the deny the foundation of the faith. But by consequence, many a Christian man, indeed whole Christian churches, have denied it, and deny it to the present day. How can this be — Christian churches denying the foundation of Christianity? They do not do so directly, for then they would cease to be Christian churches; but they do so by consequence. Inasmuch as they hold the foundation, we do and must consider them Christian.”
He then goes on through several chapters of examples.
But his argument rests on a preliminary assumption: the truth and reliability of Scripture, without which we would not know of Christ. Or, as the Westminster Confession of Faith, Article I.1 has it:
Although the light of nature, and the works of creation and providence do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God, as to leave men inexcusable; yet they are not sufficient to give that knowledge of God, and of his will, which is necessary unto salvation. Therefore it pleased the Lord, at sundry times, and in divers manner, to reveal Himself, and to declare that His will unto His Church; and afterwards, for the better preserving and propagating of the truth, and for the more sure establishment and comfort of the Church against the corruption of the flesh, and the malice of Satan and of the world, to commit the same wholly unto writing: which maketh the Holy Scripture to be most necessary; those former ways of God’s revealing His will unto His people being now ceased.
Without the Word of God we cannot know God’s will. We have nothing beyond what Reason can find manifest in Nature. A church that in its doctrine and practice ignores the Scripture would, in Hooker’s terms, deny the foundation of the faith by consequence of omission. And, ignoring Scripture, allow false teachers, for they have no rule and measure left; they have no cornerstone to guide construction. It is only in the Scriptures that we hear Jesus warn, “by their fruits you will know them.” And what fruits are these? Again in the Scriptures, from Paul’s letter to the Galatians.
Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. (Galatians 5:19–23)
“O Timothy,” writes Paul elsewhere, “guard the deposit entrusted to you. Avoid the irreverent babble and contradictions of what is falsely called “knowledge,” for by professing it some have swerved from the faith.
“Grace be with you.” (1 Timothy 6:20–21)
Amen.
An unspoken follow-up question has been left as an exercise for the reader: if by their fruits ye shall know them, and if the fruits are as given by Paul, which churches are false prophets?