Should ChatGPT Write Your Prayers? Probably Not.
The final minutes of John Piper's sermon from TGC2025 are excellent. Piper reads a prayer made on ChatGPT and asks "Is that praise?"
Piper's point is that a prayer made by ChatGPT is not worship because worship cannot happen without the affection of a person happily loving God. I agree.
But that isn’t the most pressing question I'm asking about AI and prayer. Also, most people don't ask me if ChatGPT can worship. They ask if using prayers made by ChatGPT to worship God is right. They wouldn't ask Piper if the AI was worshipping, they would ask if he was worshipping while he read the AI-generated prayer.
Every pastor must wrestle with this. When your congregants struggle to pray, why not suggest using ChatGPT to write prayers for them? After all, we already have prayer books. What's the difference?
I don't have a fully formed answer yet, but my initial response is: Don't have ChatGPT write your prayers.
The second commandment speaks especially to this question.
Do not make an idol for yourself, whether in the shape of anything in the heavens above or on the earth below or in the waters under the earth. Do not bow in worship to them, and do not serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, bringing the consequences of the fathers’ iniquity on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, but showing faithful love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commands. (Exod 20:4-6).
In one sense the first commandment- "Do not have other gods besides me"- relates primarily to who we worship while the second commandment relates to how we worship. God cares about what we use to worship. When Israel made the golden calf, they weren't claiming to worship other gods, they were crafting "God" according to their desires (See Exod 32:1-6). We don't have a license to worship God however we want, even if we are sincere about it. Just because we say the right things does not make our worship pleasing and acceptable to God. Form matters.
Would reciting words given by a machine be an acceptable form of worship?
Consider the difference between using a prayer book, like the Valley of Vision, versus a collection of ChatGPT prayers. One set of prayers is born from years of reflection and contemplation of God and life in Christ from a fellow Christian. The other set of prayers is formed by a machine obeying a human command. One set connects me with fellow Christians from different times and places. One set plugs me into the internet. There is a spiritual reality behind reciting the words of the Lord's prayer or even the Valley of Vision that, by all appearances, is absent from reciting what Chat GPT generates.
As I said, I don't have a fully formed answer yet, but pastors cannot simply be pragmatic about this. Yes, it would be easier to use ChatGPT to write prayers. Yes, by the letter they might be theologically orthodox. But I'm not certain using ChatGPT to write prayers isn't similar to the Golden Calf. We worship God with the things we make not through them.
Is it okay for ChatGPT write your prayers? Probably not.