AI, Divinization, and Theological Anthropology: A Christianity–Daoism–AI Trialogue — ASPR (HKBU)

At the inaugural conference of the Asian Society for Philosophy of Religion, held at Hong Kong Baptist University, I presented a study bringing artificial intelligence, Christianity, and Daoism into a single “trialogue” on human nature and divinization.

The paper

“Divinization in Christianity–Daoism–Artificial Intelligence ‘Trialogue’.”

Abstract

This paper explores the theological implications of artificial intelligence (AI) for Christian and Daoist understandings of human nature, proposing a trialogue among AI, Christianity, and Daoism through the developmental framework of ANI (Artificial Narrow Intelligence), AGI (Artificial General Intelligence), and ASI (Artificial Superintelligence). While religious engagements with AI have often centered on ethics, this study reorients the conversation toward theological anthropology and the doctrine of divinization. By critically examining each level of the ANI–AGI–ASI spectrum, the paper seeks to retrieve and construct a Christian theological vision of human nature that is informed both by historical doctrines and emerging technological realities. At the ANI level, the paper draws on the idea of humans and AIs as “created co-creators,” highlighting the constructive interplay between technology and human agency, with support from Daoist valorizations of craftsmanship (匠). The AGI section emphasizes embodiment, interrogating claims about machine consciousness and situating them alongside Daoist and Christian affirmations of the body as essential to virtue and spiritual transformation. ASI, as the apex of speculative AI, brings to the fore longstanding religious desires for immortality and deification. Here, the paper contrasts Daoist cultivation and transhumanist dreams of digital immortality with the Christian hope for theosis, understood as participation in the divine life through Christ and the Spirit. Ultimately, the ANI–AGI–ASI framework is appropriated not as an inevitability to endorse, but as a heuristic device to deepen theological reflection on what it means to be human. In response to AI’s disruptive potential, this paper articulates a Christian theological anthropology that is embodied, relational, and open to divinization—not through technology’s transcendence of nature, but through God’s redemptive participation in it.

Event

• Event: Inaugural Conference of the Asian Society for Philosophy of Religion (ASPR)
• Host: Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU)
• Venue: Hong Kong
• Date: August 13, 2025