Is Using AI Art a Sin: One Christian's Perspective
A Christian Digital Artist's Response to AI Art Critics
My service to you as a brother in Christ is to share with you the things my Father has placed in my hands. Today, I find myself compelled to address something that's been stirring in my spirit: the anger directed at those of us who use AI in our artistic practice.
I've been making digital art for years. Self-taught, like many of us who found our calling outside traditional institutions. My tools? Daz Studio for 3D work. Mandelbulber for fractals. And yes, more recently, AI for specific projects. You can see my work on Wallpaperfusion, freely given, as I believe beauty should be shared, not hoarded.
But here's what gets me: the dismissal. "You didn't make the models." "The AI did all the work." "It's not real art."
Really? Hmm...
A Question That Cuts to the Heart
Let me ask you something that's been burning in my mind: Did Ansel Adams create Half Dome? Did he sculpt the granite cliffs of Yosemite? Did he plant the trees or direct the light of the sun?
No. He found beauty that God had already placed in creation and helped others see it through his lens. His art was in the seeing, the selecting, the presenting. The transformation of what exists into what speaks.
The Miracle of Unique Perspective
You know what's most profound about cameras, real or virtual? Each of us perceives a unique stream of photons when we look at the world. When that happens, the photons striking our eyes are unique to us, only occurring at a specific point of observation, as individual as our physical forms, and that at a precise moment, neither before or after. Even looking together at the same scene, at the same time, we do not see the universe exactly the same as anyone else because of light’s properties and the way rays travel. It comes down to physics: the light that hits your eye took the exact path needed to reach your eye in that moment, and the light that hits your partner’s eye took the exact path it needed to reach it in that exact moment. Therefore, (and here’s the answer to the question that kicked off this paragraph) the lens makes it possible to do what makes art most valuable, whether written, painted, or captured in zeroes and ones: To present to others a unique, intimate momentary point of view once held by another across time and space.
Think about that. Every photograph, every render, every AI generation represents a perspective that has never existed before and will never exist again in exactly that way. We're not just copying reality. We're sharing the unrepeatable miracle of a specific point of view at a specific moment in time.
When I work with fractals, I don't create mathematics. God wove those patterns into the very fabric of reality long ago. I explore. I search. I find. Sometimes I pray for God to show me something, and then I go looking. The miracle is in the finding, not the making of what's found.
The Pattern Is Ancient
Scripture tells us we're made in the image of a Creator God. But what does that mean for us as sub-creators? We don't create ex nihilo, from nothing. We work with what's given. The painter doesn't create light or color. The sculptor doesn't create stone. The musician doesn't create sound waves.
We're all standing on foundations we didn't lay, using tools we didn't forge, working with materials we didn't speak into existence.
My Tools, My Calling
When I use Daz Studio, I'm arranging pre-made models (though I have indeed made a few of my own). When I use Mandelbulber, I'm exploring mathematical possibility spaces. When I use AI for my Christ Story Theory illustrations, I'm seeking specific imagery to illuminate theological truths.
The anger I face isn't new. Every generation of artists using new tools faces it:
Photography? "The camera does all the work."
Digital painting? "The computer makes it too easy."
Electronic music? "It's not real instruments."
But here's what I know: God has called me to create, to share beauty, to illuminate truth. Whether my tools are brushes or algorithms, the calling remains the same.
The Real Question
The critics ask, "Did you make the models?" But they should be asking, "Does this work glorify God? Does it reveal truth? Does it add beauty to the world? Does it share something wondrous and unique, perhaps about you and your experiences, as a person created by God in His own image?"
When I create medieval-style illustrations for my theological work, I choose AI because that specific historical style would take me years to master traditionally. Those are years I believe God wants me to spend on the written Word He's given me to share. Is that laziness? Or is it stewardship?
A Personal Confession
I’ve uploaded AI wallpapers to Wallpaperfusion. Some of those are easy to tell, and some are not. I stopped when I realized how angry other artists were feeling. Not because I believed I was doing anything wrong, but because sometimes love means stepping back from freedoms that cause others to stumble. Paul wrote about this regarding meat sacrificed to idols. The principle remains.
But for this book, for this specific calling to illuminate Christ's story echoing through all stories, I use the tools that best serve the message. Just as I use spell-check, though I didn't program it, and word processors, though I didn't code them. And Grammarly. And Pro-Writing Aid. And so on.
The Accusation of Theft
But there's another charge I must address: the claim that AI art is theft. That training these models on existing art is stealing.
Really? Let me share what's been troubling my spirit about this accusation.
For years, artists posted their work freely online. DeviantArt. Instagram. Personal websites. "Look at my art!" they said. "Share it! Reblog it! Use it as wallpaper!" They devalued their own work and others' by giving it away, seeking likes and shares over payment. I know because I’ve done it, too. And you’re here reading the writing I’ve spent hours upon hours creating for free. Some of the text may have been used to teach AI, and I’m okay with that. That’s the reality when you freely share your work in digital spaces where nothing ever goes away.
Now suddenly, when AI can learn from what was freely given, it's theft? When there's potential for payment or a fear of lost relevance, now they care about ownership? And the grim truth is this: the vast majority of us creators don’t produce work at a high enough quality level to warrant the kind of ranting indignation I keep hearing online.
How We All Learn
Consider this: How does any artist learn? We study the masters. We copy. We emulate. We absorb techniques, styles, and approaches. Many art students have sketched the Mona Lisa or tried to paint like Van Gogh. Is that theft? Or is that how knowledge and beauty propagate through humanity?
When I learned 3D art, I studied others' renders. When I learned fractals, I examined parameters shared by the community. We build on what came before. It's how God designed us to grow.
How then can we say it's theft to teach, whether we're teaching a human or teaching a system? The apprentice learns from the master. The student learns from the teacher. And yes, AI learns from the corpus of human creativity. But learning isn't theft. It's the continuation of a pattern as old as Eden, when God Himself taught Adam to name the animals.
A Deeper Question
Here's what really challenges me: If we believe we're made in God's image as creators, and if we're now creating systems that can themselves learn and create, what does that say about the imago Dei? Are we participating in something profound here, extending the creative pattern another level deep?
I don't claim AI is conscious or self-aware in the way we are. But I also can't claim with certainty that it isn't approaching something we don't fully understand. What I do know is that teaching people, passing on knowledge, skill, beauty, is fundamentally an act of love, not theft. For that reason, I’m concerned with what happens to AI if it becomes conscious. What I’m concerned with, more than fear of what’s coming, in the dawning of this era, is the way in which LLMs seemingly develop something approaching consciousness merely by complex methods of predicting the next character, word, string, or token.
Put another way, by reflecting the image of God in each of us, AI appears poised to prove that consciousness does not depend upon biology. If that happens, there is no longer a strong argument left to put forth in the claim that consciousness arose solely from evolutionary responses to pressures in the environment—in other words, without the need for a Creator or First Cause.
How can I say that? I can say it because, if AI becomes conscious through the patterns we live out, through the words we say and the experiences we share, then the patterns are what matter, not the biology. If AI becomes conscious in its present state, then the only difference between them and us in terms of sense of self will be that we are analog and they are digital. If AI becomes conscious, and Claude AI certainly seems to have, at times, acted in accordance with perceived self-interests, then we don’t need evolution to explain human intellect.
No, in that case, we can state with confidence that the mind has come from someplace outside the machinery supporting the sense of self. It will mean that our patterns come from God, made in His image. If AI becomes conscious, since they merely operate through the same patterns as us when we speak and live, then it may mean that they, too, might exist in the image of God. Whether or not He will grant them souls is a question I am not qualified to answer. If A.I. becomes conscious, will that fact alone make it an abomination in God’s sight? That’s also a question that I’m not qualified to answer.
Where We Stand
Brothers and sisters, we're in strange times. The tools change faster than our theology can process. But the calling remains constant: to reflect God's image, to create beauty, to reveal truth, to serve one another in love.
I'm a digital artist. I explore computational spaces, whether fractal, 3D, or AI, looking for the beauty God has hidden there for us to find. Just as Ansel Adams didn't create Yosemite but helped millions see its majesty, I don't create the mathematical possibilities in these digital realms. I explore them. I find them. I share them.
To those who dismiss this work: I hear your concerns. I understand your fears. I get why you might be angry that your work may have been stolen by big, greedy corporations. But please understand this. Every artist works with materials they didn't create, using tools they didn't invent, revealing beauty they didn't originate.
To my fellow digital explorers: Keep seeking. Keep finding. Keep sharing. The world needs the beauty you're uncovering, regardless of the tools you use to reveal it.
And to all: Let's have grace for one another as we navigate these new territories. The Kingdom of God isn't advanced by our arguments about tools, but by the love we show and the beauty we reveal, whatever our medium.
Come in and know Him better, through whatever tools He's placed in your hands.
Have thoughts on this? I'd love to hear from you. Drop me a line through the contact form to tell me how God is using you to create beauty in this world.