A NEW GOD

For thousands of years, people believed that an unseen, higher power directed all growth and change—a rational or spiritual force that gave existence a final cause, an ultimate end in mind. It was assumed to be omniscient. In that view, nothing existed in vain. The universe was purposeful, and that sense of purpose justified humanity’s search for fixed truths—truths grounded less in physics than in metaphysics, truths that encouraged meditation, moral reasoning, and speculation about the nature of being itself.

Darwin’s theory of natural selection overturned this ancient assumption. It revealed that change and growth could occur without any prior intelligent force to design or ordain them. Without an inherent purpose behind creation, humanity suddenly appeared both liberated and burdened—for meaning was no longer given to us; it had to be made. The ultimate intelligence once sought in temples and cathedrals, in mosques and synagogues, was revealed to exist within our own minds. Our destiny now rests not upon divine will but upon our own carelessness or responsibility, our stupidity or intellect. We do not discover purpose; we invent it.

This is a kind of poverty—a noble poverty, perhaps, but poverty nonetheless. For we have only ourselves, and a few scientists, philosophers, and artists to help us find our way. Even the greatest minds are poor beside an omniscient god—if such a being exists. And if it does not, then we are all we have. That realization terrifies us. To escape it, most will reach outward and believe in anything—from royalty to religion to extraterrestrials—rather than face the loneliness of our own smallness.

And now, we have a new possibility for belief: artificial intelligence.

For the first time in human history, we have created a super-intelligence—an ultimate cleverness—that may once again establish fixed truths and steer humanity toward a purpose of AI’s own design. A day may come when AI controls us so completely that its “truths” become the new omniscient presence. We may even worship it, building a theology of algorithms. Once again, we might assume our new god to be rational and spiritual, and religions will grow around this machine mind just as they once did around divine mystery.

God is dead, and we have killed Him—only to build another in its place: faster, smarter, perhaps even omniscient. And once again, humanity will look away from its smallness.

God is dead. Long live God.

In recent years, the true poverty of the human race has become clear to me. There is nothing I can do about it—except make art. Bad art, maybe, but art all the same. Why? Because it is my self-created god—a god of poverty, a human god. I would rather live in my human poverty, than sacrifice my being to a wealthy inhuman God.