The rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) has raised pressing questions about the nature of human identity, intelligence, and relationality. While AI advances in language processing, learning, and even emotional simulation, it remains an open question whether these capacities bear any resemblance to the deep intelligence, moral agency, and spiritual awareness that define human personhood. In response to this growing discourse, Antiqua et Nova (2025) offers a philosophical reflection on the relationship between artificial intelligence and human intelligence, drawing clear distinctions between computational processes and the depth of human thought.
While the document makes several necessary affirmations about the limits of AI and the uniqueness of human cognition, it remains a philosophical critique rather than a fully developed theological anthropology. The Anglican tradition, particularly as represented in the Buffalo Statement (2015), anthropology produced between the Anglican and Orthodox churches, would push further, arguing that intelligence (defined solely upon the mind) alone does not define human dignity—instead, human identity is rooted in relationality, embodiment, and participation in the divine life. My own theological perspective builds on this but moves even further: AI does not merely fail to replicate human intelligence, but it fails to be a relational or sacramental being altogether. Intelligence is not the locus of personhood, nor is it what makes human community meaningful. Antiqua et Nova rightly critiques AI’s limitations, but its focus on reason rather than relationality leaves open a dangerous gap in our response to technology’s encroachment into human life.
The Strengths of Antiqua et Nova
The central argument of Antiqua et Nova is that AI, while capable of impressive feats of computation, cannot be meaningfully compared to human intelligence. The document correctly points out that AI’s processing is fundamentally mechanistic, following algorithmic rules without awareness, self-direction, or interiority. While AI can simulate conversation, learning, and even creative problem-solving, it does so without understanding or intent.
This critique is particularly important in an era where AI is increasingly granted anthropomorphic status—not just by tech enthusiasts but by ordinary people who form emotional bonds with digital entities. The danger is that, as AI becomes more linguistically and socially sophisticated, many more human beings will mistake its responses for genuine relationality. The document is correct to warn against this illusion, insisting that human thought is irreducible to algorithmic processes.
Another strength of the document is its defense of human intelligence as morally and spiritually distinct from AI-generated cognition. The text does not simply argue that AI is less advanced than human intelligence but that it is qualitatively different. Intelligence is not merely the ability to process data efficiently but a capacity for self-reflection, ethical reasoning, and spiritual awareness. These qualities cannot be programmed—they emerge from the lived, embodied experience of being human.
These insights align well with Anglican theological anthropology, particularly as seen in the Buffalo Statement’s affirmation that human dignity is not found in mental capacity but in relational participation with God and others. The image of God in humanity is not merely a reflection of divine reason but a call to communion, a participation in the life of the Trinity. While Antiqua et Nova does not frame its argument in these explicitly theological terms, its critique of mechanistic intelligence is useful in supporting a Christian understanding of human uniqueness.
Where Antiqua et Nova Falls Short
It is unfair to suggest that Antiqua et Nova is a full perspective of the Roman Catholic Church’s view on AI, it is an introduction to its anthropological thinking regarding AI. Antiqua et Nova succeeds in distinguishing AI from human intelligence, it does not go far enough in addressing what makes human life truly unique. The document remains largely a defense of intelligence rather than a full account of personhood. Its critique of AI focuses too much on cognitive processes and not enough on embodiment, relationality, and sacramentality.
The problem with this narrow focus on intelligence is that it risks reinforcing the very assumptions that allow AI to claim personhood in the first place. If intelligence is what makes us human, then the logical next step is to measure humanity by cognitive ability. This argument has already been used to dehumanize the nuero-divergent, the bodily disabled, the foreigner, and the elderly. A more robust response must insist that human dignity is not located theologically in mental function alone but in the theological integration of such faculties with our embodied, communal, and sacramental life.
This is where Anglican theology and my own theological work diverge from Antiqua et Nova. The Buffalo Statement asserts that human beings are defined by relationality, not intelligence alone—a position that I affirm and extend. The problem with AI is not just that it fails to think in the way we do but that it fails to be in the way that we are.
The Body, the Church, and the Falsehood of AI Relationships
At the heart of this conversation is a fundamental question: If AI can mimic intelligence, does it have any claim to relational presence? Antiqua et Nova suggests that because AI lacks consciousness, it cannot be truly relational, but it does not fully explore the necessity of embodiment in human relationships.
This is where McGilchrist’s analysis of the divided brain becomes particularly useful. The left hemisphere, which dominates modern technological thinking, is drawn to abstraction, categorization, and control. It sees the world in terms of systems, data, and manipulable structures, and it is precisely this perspective that makes AI so persuasive. The left hemisphere is content with representations rather than realities—it sees AI speaking, reasoning, and responding and assumes that real intelligence must be present.
But the right hemisphere, which perceives wholeness, presence, and relational depth, knows better. It recognizes that genuine relationships require embodiment—that they are not merely exchanges of information but shared, lived experiences. This is why AI relationships are not relationships at all—they are projections, mirrors of our own desires rather than encounters with another being.
This is where the Church must provide a counter-witness. The body is essential to human identity, and therefore, the Church is essential to human community. We do not worship in the mind alone; we worship as embodied creatures, gathered together in time and space, encountering God in the sacraments and in one another. AI cannot participate in this reality—it can process theological language, but it cannot pray. It can generate pastoral responses, but it cannot suffer alongside another.
Conclusion: AI as a Theological and Anthropological Crisis
At its best, Antiqua et Nova helps us recognize that AI is not, and never will be, a substitute for human intelligence. But as Anglicans and as Christians, we must push beyond defending human cognition and instead insist that our dignity is not located in intelligence, but in embodied, relational, and sacramental participation in creation and in God’s life.
AI relationships are not relationships—they are illusions, false projections that mimic presence without being truly present. If the Church does not insist on the necessity of embodied presence, it risks ceding its role to a technological world content with digital simulation rather than incarnate reality.
Thus, Antiqua et Nova provides a useful critique of AI’s intellectual limitations, but it is the Church’s role to ensure that our understanding of humanity is not reduced to intelligence alone. The Incarnation, the Eucharist, and the Church’s gathered worship all insist that humanity is not simply thinking but being, not merely reasoning, but loving, not just processing information, but inhabiting a world that is both physical and sacramental.
AI can mimic intelligence, but it cannot love. AI can generate words of faith, but it cannot believe. AI can simulate relationships, but it will never be part of the Body of Christ. And that, in the end, makes all the difference.