Artificial Intelligence as Art
The rise of increasingly sophisticated simulations of human reasoning, creativity, and language presents many challenges to individuals, institutions, and societies. For religious and spiritual traditions navigating the tension between adoption and rejection, AI revitalizes long-standing debates on human nature, the relationship between science and faith, and the natural and supernatural. Simultaneously, it fuels both secular and religious radical forms of techno-criticism against the industrialization and rationalization of culture. Within the Catholic tradition specifically, AI is often met with skepticism, as computational processes are seen to lack human qualities such as consciousness, emotion, and understanding, a stance exemplified by the Vatican document Antiqua et Nova. While many current Christian responses to AI development focus on the ethical, environmental, and social risks of large-scale AI adoption, this paper investigates whether a Thomist framework can offer an alternative evaluation that avoids a binary antagonism between humanism and automation. In a discussion with Edward Feser's critique of AI in Immortal Souls (2024), the paper argues for understanding AI through the lens of art (ars) rather than mere mechanics. As biotechnology further blurs the boundary between the organic and the mechanical, a theology of creation and art may better balance human nature in relation to artificial simulations than a humanism based on the privilege of interiority. This paper suggests that Thomism provides intellectual resources helpful for developing such a perspective.
Published in Nature Lost, Nature Regained: Rethinking Nature Across Theology, Philosophy, and the Sciences, 2026
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