This chapter examines the various trajectories of Christian reflection on current and potential developments in artificial intelligence (AI). It reviews the theological questions generated by the emergence of intelligent machines and explores some of the most interesting solutions proposed in response to these quandaries. The first part is dedicated to inquiries about hypothetical AI developments and their potential implications for Christian theology. Could intelligent machines become authentic selves? If so, could they also partake in the image of God? Could the Christian imaginary envisage a future where robots develop their own religiosity and robotheologies? Could robots also aspire to be saved? The second section adopts a theological anthropological angle of inquiry, considering how insights gained from AI may contribute to refining this approach. What do our fascination with AI and our deep desire to create an intelligent other reveal about human nature? How would our theological self-understanding change if intelligent machines became ubiquitous?

This chapter argues for a revised theory of moderate vaccine cosmopolitanism, grounded in a Thomistic natural law interpretation of the principle of solidarity, tempered by the principle of subsidiarity. Solidarity does call for love of neighbour, and therefore for global responsibilities of mutual care among nations. However, love of neighbour does not necessitate equality of treatment and resources, or equality of care and concern. Instead, it necessitates equity: love requires shared yet differentiated duties to care for those in need, according to their needs and our relationships to the most vulnerable. So, love tolerates – and even justifies – some partiality in taking care first of those in one’s own community, without abandoning outsiders to their own luck. This understanding of solidarity is predicated on the idea of equality of dignity – meaning, equal respectful consideration and loving regard among persons and nations. Equality of dignity is consistent with treating, caring, and being concerned with different people in different ways, according to their different needs and their different relationships to us, like the principle of subsidiarity suggests.

This chapter reviews Catholic teachings regarding human dignity and how the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) – the official representative of the Catholic hierarchy in the Philippines – has interpreted it in several issue areas, including capital punishment, contraception, poverty, and electoral fraud. Catholic doctrine teaches that all people possess intrinsic dignity because they have been created in the image of God (the imago Dei), thereby imposing certain moral principles regarding the treatment of oneself and others, including solidarity, care for the poor, and the sanctity of human life. The Church’s views have taken on distinct local characteristics shaped by high levels of societal poverty, economic inequality, and corruption, as well as the Church’s historically strong political influence. Catholic bishops have harnessed the concept of human dignity to point out dehumanizing practices in Philippine society and call for greater respect for human life. In recent decades, though, the Church’s moral authority has been severely challenged, revealing the limits of its ability to promote Catholic teachings on human dignity.

Ideas of likeness are central to accounts of participation. In this chapter, we consider not only what it means for creatures to derive their existence (or – better – being) from God but also their nature, essence, or characterfulness. This is the territory of exemplarity and exemplary causation. A Platonic tradition of thinking about exemplarity is considered, not least in terms of the way it has been taken up and transformed by writers working in a Biblical tradition. Different ways to think about exemplarity are considered, particularly the theological distinction between likeness, image, and vestige, and between a likeness to a divine idea and a likeness to a divine perfection. Attention is given to the idea of the imago dei.

In the first of five opening chapters on participation and divine causation, we look at 'efficient' or 'agent' causation: what it means, from a participatory perspective, for God to be the cause and agent of creation. The chapter situates the idea of participation within the foundational doctrine, common to the Abrahamic faiths, of creation as being ex nihilo. Nothing is coaeval with God; nor did God rely upon anything else for creation: on eternally existent matter, for instance. Creation is not some past event, now over, but should rather be seen as a relation of dependence upon the creator. This is explored in terms of gift and of the relation of the doctrine of creation to the doctrine of God. This leads on to a discussion of theological apologetics.

Chapter 4 explores Gregory’s re-telling of the fall against the backdrop of the ‘garments of glory’ tradition. After being persuaded by the devil to eat the fruit in paradise, the image of God is banished and clothed in garments of ‘thick, dull flesh’, which equates to being shrouded in sin. This renders the human person at greater risk from the devil. Here, we examine the way in which Gregory discusses the devil, arguing that Gregory attributes to the devil a diminishing existence. The battles with the spiritual powers of darkness form a primary strand in Gregory’s narrative of the image of God’s existence, in which the devil hovers behind conversations of sin, the flesh, the world and the passions.

Chapter 2 establishes that Gregory considers anthropology within the theological framework of his doctrine of God who is Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and in particular the Son, who is the ‘identical Image’. Through examining how Gregory speaks about Christ as the Image of God, we discover significant aspects of his thought about the human person as an image of God: Christ is a divine, living and dynamic Image, which differentiates Christ from motionless images. Gregory goes to great lengths to argue that Christ is unified, which has significant implications on the way in which Gregory considers the physicality of the image of God. Christ’s kenosis makes possible the theosis of the human image of God. Finally, Christ battles with and defeats the devil, restoring the potential divinity of the image and securing the human person’s victory over the devil.