Knowledge and Intelligence

1 Corinthians 2:6–16

Phrases that spoke to me today:
• the wisdom of this age
• the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God
• we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God
• we have the mind of Christ

Applying the Word to My Life:
Pope Leo XIV released an encyclical on artificial intelligence last week. The press wanted a verdict. Is AI good or dangerous? Should the Church embrace it or resist it? Those are the questions the wisdom of this age knows how to ask.

Paul's frustrations in today's reading could just as easily apply to the press' questions to Pope Leo. Paul is not impressed with the wisdom of his age. Not because it is wrong about everything — it is often right about a great many things. But it asks the wrong questions. It wants to know what is powerful, what is profitable, what will last. It was the rulers of Paul's age who crucified the Lord of glory, Paul says, because they could not see what they were looking at.

It's not surprising that the Pope, who has studied Paul's writings, did not answer the press. Not because he avoided the question, but because he asked a better one. Citing John Paul II, he asked: does artificial intelligence make human life more human? Does it make us more capable of love, of solidarity, of the things that reflect our dignity? The encyclical's primary choice, he wrote, is not between yes and no to technology — it is between constructing Babel or rebuilding Jerusalem.

That is exactly the wrong answer for a press cycle. It is exactly the right framework for a life.

The world wanted a verdict. The gift of knowledge gave a criterion. Not a conclusion about the thing — a question to bring to every use of it. And the criterion is the same one the Spirit has always used: does this draw us toward God, or does it pull us away?

Where the world asks what a thing is worth on its own terms, the gift asks what it is for. It sees created things — money, relationships, work, technology — not as ends in themselves, but in relation to God. A thing is useful to the extent it draws us toward Him. It becomes a problem when it begins to pull us away.

We have talked before about the freedom this gift produces: Holy Indifference. Not a cold detachment from the world, but a freedom from disordered attachment to it. The question it trains us to ask is not whether a thing is good or bad in the abstract — but whether, here, now, for me, it is moving me toward God or away from Him.

The gift of knowledge is not contempt for created things. It is the freedom to use them rightly — and to recognize when they are using us.

That awareness is usable everywhere. A business decision that increases profit but degrades the people making it — knowledge recognizes something is off before the balance sheet confirms it. A habit that is harmless by every worldly standard but quietly dulls our attention to God — knowledge sees what efficiency cannot. A relationship, a pursuit, an investment of time — the measuring stick works across all of it.

The encyclical on AI is new. The answer it offers is not. Leo XIV reminded us of what Paul already knew — that the Spirit has always provided a better question than the wisdom of any age. We tend to forget and need these reminders regularly, because that is how we are made.

Knowledge gives us the mind of Christ. That is not a credential — it is an invitation to use it.

My Response for Today:
I will look at one thing that is important to me and ask not whether it is useful or good by ordinary standards — but whether it draws me toward God.