As the EU AI Act enters force and U.S. agencies implement OMB Memorandum M-24-10, a defining question of the digital age emerges: what makes humans irreplaceable in law and governance? Policymakers rightly focus on fairness, transparency, and risk, but the deeper issue runs beneath the code—how to preserve the moral boundary between creators and their creations. My argument is simple: we cannot sustain democracy’s moral architecture if we forget the theological foundation underpinning it.
The biblical claim that humanity is made as the imago Dei—the image of God—is not merely a sectarian doctrine; it is the most stable philosophical anchor for human dignity ever articulated. Unlike modern accounts that tie worth to cognitive capacity or rational self-awareness, the Genesis framework grounds dignity in status rather than ability. The Hebrew grammar of Genesis 1:26-28—bĕtselem ʾĕlōhîm—conveys not that humans are made in God’s image but as His image, a predicative construction (the beth essentiae) signifying vocation, representation, and delegated moral authority.
Read Full Article »