NEW THEOLOGY REVIEW • NOVEMBER 2003

Artificial Intelligence and

Christian Salvation
Compatibility or Competition?
Ilia Delio, O.S.F.

Combining a deep knowledge of both science and theology, the author

compares and contrasts Christian salvation and the new techno-salvation
promised by artificial intelligence (A.I.). She cautions against the lure of A.I.
and its ultimate inability to satisfy the human longing for relationship and love.

O ne of the greatest challenges to the dignity of the human person today is

the development of artificial intelligence (A.I.). Among the most recent
advances in technology, artificial intelligence is not only an aid to human en-
deavors but promises to fulfill human desires and ultimately gain immortal life.
Some scholars today note that the fundamental impetus of A.I. is religious in
nature—freedom from suffering, relationships of love, and immortal life—and
motivates its progress. Indeed, the pursuit of A.I. seems to underlie the search
for “techno-salvation,” that is, an attempt to attain perfection and immortality
apart from suffering and death. Salvation, according to Christian belief, is
centered on the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It reflects the notion
that the human person is imago Dei and has the capacity for God. Whereas A.I.
proponents claim that the divine character of the human person rests in the
human mind and thus the mind alone is to be “saved,” Christians maintain that
the Word became flesh; thus salvation rests on the expression of love in a human

Ilia Delio, O.S.F., is associate professor in the department of ecclesiastical history at

Washington Theological Union, Washington, D.C., where she is academic coordinator of
spirituality studies and director of the Franciscan Center.

A R T I F I C I A L I N T E L L I G E N C E A N D C H R I S T I A N S A LVAT I O N 39
body by way of self-gift, as shown in the crucified Christ. My thesis is that
freedom in love and not mind distinguishes the human person as unique. Salva-
tion is bringing the human person into a relationship of integral love in union
with God. While the promises of A.I. are alluring, they are also deceiving, for
A.I. promises what it cannot fulfill: happiness and eternal life. The contingency
of human finite existence is such that it can only be transcended by the infinite
power of God’s transforming love, as in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Mortal Body, Immortal Mind

I t is no secret that the French mathematician and philosopher, René Descartes,

had a penchant for the human mind. Descartes perceived the mind as human-
kind’s heavenly endowment and, in its essence, distinct from the body, which
bore the burden of mortality (Noble, 144). For Descartes, the human intellect was
godly and defined precisely by those characteristics which the human being
shared with God contrary to the body which, he claimed, “was a hindrance to the
mind in its thinking.” Descartes’ goal was to liberate the mind from the prison of
the body so that it could attain to its God-like status of self-evident truths. The
dichotomy between mind and body which Descartes proclaimed became the
principal philosophical preoccupation for three centuries as diverse thinkers
sought to comprehend the mechanisms of human understanding, reason, and the
phenomenology of mind. The mathematician George Boole believed that human
thought was humankind’s link with the divine and that a mathematical descrip-
tion of human mental processes was also a revelation of the mind of God (Noble,
145–46). Boole’s religious beliefs were integral to his study of mathematics in
that the ultimate laws of thought were mathematical in their form. Thus, whereas
Descartes strove to divorce the mind from the body in his search for true knowl-
edge, Boole strove to develop mathematical theories of logic that would reflect
the divine character of the human mind.
David Noble claims that the reduction of human thought to mathematical
representation made imaginable the mechanical simulation or replication of the
human thought process. Now the mysteries of the immortal mind were rendered
transparent and comprehensible, able to be mechanically reproduced and
manipulated. The inspiration behind this transition, he states, was religious.
A thinking machine that replicated the defining characteristic of the human
species would not be irreverent but rather reflected a new form of divine wor-
ship, an exaltation of the essential endowment of humankind. The thinking
machine was not, then, an embodiment of what was specifically human, but of
what was specifically divine about humans—the immortal mind (Noble, 148).
“In Cartesian terms,” Noble writes, “the development of a thinking machine was
aimed at rescuing the immortal mind from its mortal prison. It entailed the

40 I L I A D E L I O, O. S. F.
deliberate delineation and distillation of the processes of human thought for
transfer to a more secure mechanical medium—a machine that would provide a
more appropriately immortal mooring for the immortal mind. This new machine-
based mind would lend to human thought permanent existence, not just in
heaven but on earth as well” (Noble, 148). Totally freed from the human body, the
human person, and the human species, the immortal mind could evolve indepen-
dently into ever higher forms of artificial life, reunited at last with its origin, the
mind of God.
One of the significant developments in thinking machines emerged in the
work of the British mathematician Alan Turing. Turing was interested in machines
for their own sake, with the ability to solve problems of thought, specifically
problems of mathematics and the philosophy of
mathematics posed by thinkers such as Hilbert
and Goedel. In order to resolve such problems,
machines would have to imitate human think-
ing, including the ability to learn, teach, search, While the promises
and make decisions (Hodges, 406, 413). He sug-
gested the famous “Turing test,” which was a of A.I. are alluring,
kind of guessing game. If a computer, on the
basis of its written replies to questions, could they are also
not be distinguished from a human respondent,
then “fair play” would oblige one to say that it deceiving, for A.I.
must be “thinking” (415). Turing rejected the
notion that there is a force or “mind” behind the promises what
brain that is responsible for what the brain does
(292). It is not the biology of the physics of the it cannot fulfill:
brain that is critical for what it does but rather
the logical structure of its activities. Therefore, happiness and
those activities can be represented in any medium
that replicates that structure of logic, including eternal life.
machines (219).
The inventor and futurist, Ray Kurzweil,
claims that we are entering a new era. He calls
this era “the singularity” because it is a merger between human intelligence and
machine intelligence in which machine intelligence will appear to biological
humans to be their transcendent servants. The development of intelligent
machines that can do all things better than humans is the core of Kurzweil’s pre-
diction. “We identify more with our brains than with our bodies,” he claims
(Kurzweil, 121). He foresees two possibilities: either machines might be permit-
ted to make all of their own decisions without human oversight or else human
control over machines might be retained. In the first scenario the fate of the
human race will be at the mercy of the machines by drifting into a position of

A R T I F I C I A L I N T E L L I G E N C E A N D C H R I S T I A N S A LVAT I O N 41
 dependence, whereas in the second case the average human may have control
over certain private machines of his/her own (car, computer) but control over
large systems of machines will be in the hands of a tiny elite. Kurzweil predicts
that in 2029 intercommunication between humans and machines, between
nerves and “chips” will become “natural.” Machines will claim to be conscious,
and their claims will be largely accepted (220–24).

Embodied Artificial Intelligence

Since World War II, the mechanization of the human, the vitalization of the
machine, and the integration of both into cybernetics has produced a whole
new range of informational disciplines, fantasies,
and practices that transgress the mechanical-
organic border. This marked a major transition
from a world where distinctions between human
[W]esterners possess and tool, human and machine, living and dead,
organic and inorganic, present and distant,
a cultural proclivity natural and artificial were no longer reasonable
(Kull, 283). The term “cyborg” aptly maps con-
to respond to temporary bodily and social reality as a hybrid
of biology and machine. Although the cyborg
machines not as tools concept initially developed in the arts, begin-
ning with Mary Shelly’s nineteenth century
to use but as role novel, Frankenstein, the term “cyborg” origi-
nated in the sciences. Its first appearance was in
models to emulate. 1960 in a speculative article on the future of
space travel authored by two research scientists
(Clynes and Kline) and signified the physical
integration of cybernetic mechanical systems
and living organisms. Rather than developing human-friendly environments to
travel through space, Clynes and Kline made the unorthodox proposal that
scientists try to alter the human body so it could thrive in space. They referred to
these space-adapted humans as “cyborgs.” As advances in medical technologies
enabled medical specialists to replace certain defective or deficient human
organs and limbs with artificial or animal implants, the specialists involved
referred to implant recipients as cyborgs (Brasher, 812).
Donna Haraway, in her cyborg manifesto, has endorsed technology’s influence
on human life, insisting that cyborg imagery offers a “way out of the maze of
dualisms in which we have explained our bodies and our tools to ourselves
(Haraway, 81). Naomi Goldenberg, on the other hand, decries the enlarging role of
machines in human socialization. The philosophical and religious heritage of the

42 I L I A D E L I O, O. S. F.
west, she claims, leaves westerners predisposed to form harmful attitudes
toward the technologies overtaking their lives. This heritage has taught us “that
human life is a rough copy of something out there—something better, wiser and
purer” (Goldenberg, 17). As a result, westerners possess a cultural proclivity to
respond to machines not as tools to use but as role models to emulate. As people
act upon this proclivity, she states, the isolation and loneliness of modern life are
being increased. We are becoming more comfortable with machines than with
people.
The rapid success of cyborgs has made the advancement in embodied Artificial
Intelligence a reasonable pursuit. The Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology is currently at the forefront of embodied
A.I. research, having developed the humanoid robots Cog and Kismet (among
others). Anne Foerst points out that Artificial Intelligence originally centered
around the question of intelligence and how one might build an intelligent ma-
chine. Some researchers now hold that it is impossible to abstract intelligence
from bodily features and conditions: hence the new direction of embodied A.I.
Embodied A.I. researchers build robots as embodied entities that interact with
their real environments. According to their philosophy, human intelligence can
emerge only in a body that is as humanlike as possible. For this reason any entity
with humanlike intelligence must have a body that is built in analogy to a human
body (Foerst, 100). The robots Cog and Kismet have enabled researchers to study
characteristics of human features including intelligence, personal interaction,
and, on a more primitive level, emotions. What is startling is that computerized
robots are being programmed to mimic human behavior to the extent that
machines and humans are becoming personally interactive.

Artificial Intelligence and the Religious Quest

T he avid pursuit of A.I. impels us to ask why this technology is alluring and,
in some ways, irresistible. After all, aren’t we simply talking about ma-
chines? Michael Heim in his book The Metaphysics of Virtual Reality has argued
that “our fascination with computers . . . is more deeply spiritual than utilitar-
ian.” “When on-line,” he writes, “we break free from bodily existence . . . what
better way to emulate God’s knowledge than to generate a virtual world consti-
tuted by bits of information. Over such a cyber world human beings could enjoy
a god-like instant access” (Noble, 159). The spiritual dimension of A.I. technol-
ogy seems to tap into the human capacity for transcendence. Noreen Herzfeld,
for example, claims that the drive to develop A.I. is related to the human imago
Dei and a desire to create an “other in our own image” (Herzfeld 2002, 304). The
notion of image as relationship, according to Herzfeld, underlies the goal of A.I.
She asks, “Is this image that humans share with God related to the image we

A R T I F I C I A L I N T E L L I G E N C E A N D C H R I S T I A N S A LVAT I O N 43
 wish to share with our own creation in A.I.?” (Herzfeld 2002, 304). “If we hope to
find in A.I. that other with whom we can share our being and our responsibili-
ties,” she writes, “then we will have created a stand-in for God in our own image”
(Herzfeld 2002, 313). Such an ersatz image, she suggests, is bound to be a dis-
appointment, for, ultimately, it is not an image that will make us whole.
While Herzfeld offers a caveat for A.I. development, others maintain a more
optimistic view. Anne Foerst, for example, explores the relationship between
A.I. and the image of God from a functionalist point of view by examining the
mechanistic anthropology assumed in the robot, Cog. In her view, A.I. research,
especially embodied intelligence such as Cog, can enrich us and create a new
perspective on human reality. She writes: “Cog is a creature, created by us. The
biblical stories of creation describe us and all
living beings as creatures created by God. On
that ground, God’s creative powers are mirrored
in Cog. The Cog project also tells us a story
The dazzling about the human creative powers that are a part
of the image of God. The Cog project does not
development of A.I. necessarily have to be understood as a hubristic
attempt to be like God but can be seen as a re-
technology leads to sult of our God-given imagination and courage
to create something new” (Foerst, 108).
a complexity of While Foerst sees a positive dimension to A.I.
technology, Philip Hefner, like Herzfeld, sees a
interpretations. thwarted religious dimension to the pursuit of
artificial intelligence. He claims that A.I. creates
a virtual reality to counterbalance the reality
that is given to us, and that we create these tech-
nologies in order to compensate for our finitude (Hefner, 659). The robot boy,
David, in the movie A.I., for example, desires to be human, only to discover that
being human means to be mortal. When he finally fulfills his dream to be a real
human boy, he dies (Hefner, 658). Hefner notes that a number of A.I. movies place
an emphasis on death and suggests that a good deal of our technology seems to
be a denial of death and an attempt to escape it. His insight corresponds to what
we might call the A.I. pursuit of “cyber-immortality.” Ray Kurzweil claims that
machine-dependent humans will eventually create the virtual reality of eternal
life, possibly by “neurochips” or simply by becoming totally machine dependent.
This futuristic “post-biological” computer-based immortality is one also envi-
sioned by Hans Moravec who claims that the advent of intelligent machines
(machina sapiens) will provide humanity with “personal immortality by mind
transplant.” Moravec suggests that the mind will be able to be downloaded into a
machine through the “eventual replacement of brain cells by electronic circuits
and identical input-output functions.” In this way there is the possibility of

44 I L I A D E L I O, O. S. F.
transferring a mind from one support to another and hence the survival of the
soul after death in a new, more durable medium (Noble, 161). A.I. practictioner
Daniel Crevier argues that A.I. is consistent with the Christian belief in resurrec-
tion and immortality. Since some kind of support is required for the information
and organization that constitutes our minds, Crevier suggests a material, me-
chanical replacement for the mortal body. Christ was resurrected in a new body,
he states, why not a machine? (Crevier, 278–80).
Antje Jackelén furthers the religious argument by suggesting that A.I. tech-
nology has messianic dimensions. She writes: “When John the Baptist was in
prison and heard what Jesus was doing, he sent his disciples to ask, “Are you the
one (the Messiah) to come, or are we to wait for another?” Jesus answered,
“Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame
walk, the deaf hear, the dead are raised and the poor have the good news brought
to them” (Matt 11:2-6). As Jackelén notes, the development toward techno sapiens
might well be regarded as a step toward the kingdom of God. What else can we
say when the lame walk, the blind see, the deaf hear, and the dead are at least
virtually alive? The requirements of the Gospel and the aims of technical devel-
opment seem to be in perfect harmony (Jackelén, 294).

The Dignity of Being Human

T he dazzling development of A.I. technology leads to a complexity of inter-

pretations. Should we simply assume [à la Gertrude Stein] that a “machine
is a machine is a machine” or should we, following Hefner, see the creation of
A.I. as a significant mirror of ourselves? As he writes, “What we want and who
we are coalesce in this mirror” (Hefner, 656). The question is what do we want as
humans? Do we want a machine to facilitate human endeavors or do we want
something more? Are we in search of an aid to human function or a divinized
other that can help us attain immortality in a quasi-mortal way? Is the mirror of
artificial intelligence a reflection of our deepest religious desires?
One of the Cartesian dimensions of A.I. is the elimination of the human body
in pursuit of true and certain knowledge. Whereas Descartes viewed the body as
an obstacle to true knowledge, so too some A.I. researchers see the body as an
obstacle to immortality and happiness because the body is flesh and dies. Danny
Hillis, for example, states, “I believe in the soul and the importance of it. I believe
that there is something fundamentally good about humans. I’m sad about death,
I’m sad about the short time that we have on earth and I wish there was some
way around it” (Noble, 163). Ray Kurzweil predicts that by the year 2099 life
expectancy will no longer be a viable term in relation to intelligent beings
(Kurzweil, 280).

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 Kurzweil’s evolutionary forecast may seem like authentic science-fiction, but
such predictions raise the question, how important is the human body in its rela-
tion to mind? Can the human body be separated from the mind in such a way
that it can be replaced and disposed while the mind remains immortal? Are the
mind and body “parts” that constitute the human person or is the dignity of the
human person such that mind and body are inseparable? The evidence of science
today, particularly Neuroscience, points to the latter, that mind is a fundamental
aspect of nature. If so, then, can we extract mind from nature and still call it
“mind” or “human” for that matter? Or is A.I. pushing us beyond being “human”
toward techno sapiens and, if so, how does this affect our relationship with God?
Can techno sapiens image God or bear a relationship to God and what would be
the goal of this relationship? While these questions cannot be readily answered
they underscore two basic points challenged by A.I.: the dignity of being human
and the quest for salvation, life, and happiness, which is the deepest human
longing grounded in the imago Dei.

Image and Incarnation

O ne could approach these questions from different views but the one that gets
to the heart of the matter is the Christian understanding of Incarnation. It
is in the mystery of God made human that we realize the dignity of the human—
body and soul—in one’s capacity to express God. Early Christian writers main-
tained that the person of Jesus Christ reveals to us the true image and likeness of
God. Francis of Assisi claimed that we are to be conscious of the dignity in
which we are created, a dignity in which each person is formed as image of the
Son according to the body and likeness according to the Spirit (Francis of Assisi:
Admonition 5). The body therefore is not a “house” for the soul nor can the soul
exist apart from the human body. As image of God, Christ is the one who fulfills
the human potential for God through self-gift and in whom we are saved or
brought to completion in God. To be an image of God, according to Francis, is
not a matter of mind or knowledge alone but how we act, like Christ, in relation-
ship to one another. The more we grow in the image and likeness of God, the
more we are to express this likeness in the spirit of compassionate love.
The notion that love characterizes human dignity is not new. Throughout the
history of Christian spirituality, many writers have noted that while knowledge
plays a role in our relationship to God, such knowledge is not one of the intellect
per se but of the heart, an experiential knowledge based on union with Christ.
Even writers such as Origen of Alexandria, who emphasized an intellectual
union with God, held up a type of knowledge not of the intellect alone but of the
experience of God. In this respect, knowledge is not the end but the means by
which one unites with God. While some writers such as Bernard of Clairvaux

46 I L I A D E L I O, O. S. F.
saw love as a type of knowledge, others such as Bonaventure claimed that love
goes further than knowledge, for it is love that leads one into the heart of God.
The important point is that the integral relationship between knowledge and
love makes the human person unique in creation, and not intellectual knowledge
alone. It is not simply that we can know God but that we are able to love the one
we know by way of self-gift.
The Fathers of the Church posited that to act as image of God by way of love
involved freedom. They claimed that to be in the image of God is to be a personal
being, that is, a free responsible being. Today freedom may be defined as unpro-
grammed behavior as compared to programmed or determined behavior which
we can identify not only in humans but in the natural world as well (Hefner, 663).
But this freedom is different from the freedom of
conscious choice, the freedom that corresponds
to being imago Dei. Such freedom is convenantal
in nature. Augustine held that true freedom is
willing according to truth, and loving what one The more we grow
wills. The deeper one’s participation in God, the
greater the freedom in loving God. The person in the image and
who loves according to truth and is really free
achieves unity with God, self, and others. likeness of God,
For the human person, love is the key to
freedom, the possibility of choice and refusal. the more we are to
To be what one must in loving God, one must
admit that one can be the opposite; one must express this likeness
admit that one can revolt. God creates an “other”
a personal being capable of refusing him. God in the spirit of
becomes powerless before human freedom. The
human person was created by the will of God compassionate love.
alone but cannot be deified by it alone. A single
will for creation, but two for deification. A single
will to raise up the image, but two to make the
image into a likeness. The love of God for humans is so great that it cannot con-
strain; for there is no love without respect. Divine will, therefore, always will
submit itself to gropings, to detours, even to revolts of human will to bring it to
a free consent (Lossky, 72). The nobility of the human image, therefore, lies in the
fact that we are free to determine ourselves. As Vladimir Lossky writes, “[to be]
a personal being is [to be] capable of loving someone more than one’s own na-
ture, more than one’s own life” (72).
While we may define the human as one who is free to love, such a definition
underscores the idea that the identity of the human person is not functional but
relational. The word “person” is related to the Latin “per- sonare” which means
“to sound through.” To be a human person is based not on what we are or what

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 we do but who we are in relation to God, self, others, and world. It means to be
in relationship with another by which the other sounds through in one’s life. The
debate in theology and A.I. today is between functional and relational views.
Each of these approaches locates the core of our humanity in a different sphere
and suggests different trajectories for the project of A.I. Contemporary American
society supports a functional approach by which we are defined by what we do
or are capable of doing (Herzfeld 2002, 311–12). Those who fear that we may be
replaced by machines follow a functional view of A.I. whereas those who follow
a relational view need not fear replacement, as Herzfeld maintains. The relational
view emphasizes “being in relationship” in such a way that loving another
is integral to being a person. A person who expresses compassionate, self-giving
love, expresses God-likeness because the ability
to give oneself to another reflects being an image
of God. There is no form of A.I. that approaches
this notion of personhood since A.I. emphasizes
To be a human doing (function) as a product of thinking rather
than thinking as a way of doing/loving (rela-
person is based not tionship). A robot cannot suffer out of compas-
sion for another nor can it freely offer itself for
on what we are the sake of another.
The relationship between suffering and love
or what we do but is explicit in the Christian mystery of the cruci-
fied Christ. Bonaventure maintained the Christ is
who we are in the fullest statement about who God is for us—
unconditional, kenotic love. Revelation is the
relation to God, self, movement of God to poverty so that in the mys-
tery of the cross God shows his openness to and
others and world. acceptance of humanity. The mystery of suffer-
ing and love in the cross signify that the human
body is not only the place where God comes to
meet us but it is the place of transformation, as
we move from finite existence to infinite life in God. Because Christ is the center
of our life in God, eternal life is marked not by individual happiness and perfec-
tion but by the unity of all things in love. The Croatian theologian Miroslav Volf
writes that, in the cross, Christ unites different “bodies” into one body, not simply
in virtue of the singleness of his person [one leader—one people] or of his vision
[one law—one community] but above all through his suffering. Thus, the One
bread that grounds the unity of the body stands for the crucified body of Jesus
Christ, the body that has refused to remain a self-enclosed singularity, but has
opened itself up so that others can freely partake of it. It is partaking of this
body of Christ that we move towards our true life in God which is a life of mutual
indwelling, a unity of members bound in the one Spirit of love (Volf, 47).

48 I L I A D E L I O, O. S. F.
 The heart of salvation for Christians lies in the healing and wholeness of rela-
tionships—with ourselves, God, and with others. Christian salvation stands in
sharp contrast to the techno-salvation promised by A.I., which is a bloodless, dis-
passionate, gnostic type of salvation that rests on knowledge alone. Good here-
sies never die. But A.I. deceives by what it promises—freedom from suffering
and death. One wonders if there should be a warning label on computers: “Warn-
ing, A.I. may distort the human capacity to love.” For the mystery of Christian
salvation rests on the belief that suffering and death are the path to eternal life
and happiness. To attain perfection is not to eradicate human suffering but to
transform it in Christ, by way of love, into union with God.

The False Hope of Artificial Intelligence

A uthentic love entails freedom and only the human person has the capacity
to love freely and to receive love. Freedom in love requires the capacity to
choose. Artificial intelligence whether in the form of robots or miniature com-
puters can never escape the fact that it is “contingent contingency,” that is, it is
contingent on the creativity of the human person who in turn is contingent on
God. Only God is truly free and the contingent human person is free only in rela-
tionship to God. That is why if we try to find freedom of immortality in cyber-
space we are bound to be disappointed. The only contribution technology can
make to the human search for eternal life is to prolong time, to stretch out finite
existence a bit further until the silicon chips wear down and die out. A.I. can
never provide the perfection of life and immortality because it is based simply on
logical machines. Using Whitehead’s language, A.I. may lead to a “fallacy of
misplaced concreteness” because it makes the human mind alone the basis of life
and perfection. It offers an antiseptic form of happiness that ultimately cannot
satisfy the human longing for love. As Christians we maintain that Christ is the
truly human person because in him the fullness of God [who is love] shines
through. That is why Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do you say that I am and
not what do you say that I am?” To be a person is not to be a collection of parts
but to be an instrument of otherness by which the other sounds through in one’s
life.
In conclusion, the promises of artificial intelligence—eternal mind/eternal
life—are not congruent with the dignity of the human person as imago Dei. We
may be lured by A.I.’s promise of “techno-salvation” but we will be disappointed
by the utter contingency of it all. We may celebrate A.I.’s benefit to humanity
(e.g., biotechnology) but if we are seeking immortality and happiness through
A.I. we will ultimately be disillusioned. For A.I. may offer a bloodless type of sal-
vation—techno-salvation—but in the end it will never be free of its dependency
on human logic. Christian salvation is really illogical. It is based on the freely

A R T I F I C I A L I N T E L L I G E N C E A N D C H R I S T I A N S A LVAT I O N 49
chosen suffering and death of the person Jesus of Nazareth. Can a computer or a
robot freely destroy itself out of love for another so that the other may have life?
A.I. is a contingent endeavor that can never transcend the inevitability of
death. The Incarnation shows us that the path to eternal life is one that involves
suffering, death and transformation. Christians believe that death—and not pro-
longed finite existence—opens up to the fullness of life in God. Happiness and
the fulfillment of life is not a privatized and individualized achievement in union
with a computer but the realization of mutual indwelling in the dance of the
Trinity. It is the Christian hope, centered in Christ, that all of humanity and crea-
tion will share in this dance through a unity in love.

References

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