In response to the rise of generative artificial intelligence (AI), many question the value of human creativity. What’s the point of human creativity if computers can out-create in both speed and caliber? Against such pessimism, this chapter offers hope from the Christian tradition. In particular, it offers a theological framework for understanding what creativity is. It argues that creativity is not a merely technical ability, a faint echo of God’s capacity to create ex nihilo, but rather a fundamentally moral phenomenon that reflects creativity in imago—that is, God’s wise ordering, loving care, and transformation of all created things. This is a hopeful paradigm that tempers AI-hysteria with scriptural realism. The chapter proceeds in five parts: Part 1 follows the example of AI philosopher Margaret Boden who uses analogy to understand what creativity is. Part 2 utilizes analogy to understand human creativity in light of Old Testament descriptions of God’s creative, moral action: the part distinguishes creativity ex nihilo from creativity in imago and defines creativity writ large with respect to the latter. Parts 3 and 4 use analogy to differentiate divine and human creativity from their computational counterpart: the parts stress the moral difference that transformation in Christ makes. Part 5 concludes by emphasizing the moral responsibility of God’s image-bearers to question their use and development of AI: the part looks to scriptural exemplars who fail and succeed in questioning astonishing, non-human intelligences.
