The Counterfeit and The Christ
The whole nature of reality would have to be altered in order to give him such immunity
And devils went out from many, crying out and saying: Thou art the Son of God. And rebuking them he suffered them not to speak, for they knew that he was Christ. Luke 4:41
Not only does the devil know God, but he uses God’s word against him. Scriptural exegesis can become a tool of the anti-Christ. The alleged findings of scholarly exegesis have been used to write books which seek to destroy the figure of Jesus and dismantle the faith. The devil cannot create, only distort, pervert and disfigure the good created by God.
Catechism 395 The power of Satan is, nonetheless, not infinite. He is only a creature, powerful from the fact that he is pure spirit, but still a creature.
Should we be surprised that pure spirit, envious of the incarnation, seeks incarnation for himself?
We spoke recently with Dr Sean Walsh a Catholic whose area of expertise is Artificial Intelligence
Mark: Do you think it’s a possibility that there is demonic interference in something like ChatGPT?
Sean: Yes
In 1942: the same year that the great apologist C. S. Lewis wrote The Screwtape Letters, he also wrote A Preface to Paradise Lost (on Milton's 17th century epic poem on the devil and angels). In that work, he wrote:
It is a mistake to demand that Satan . . . should be able to rant and posture through the whole universe without, sooner or later, awaking the comic spirit. The whole nature of reality would have to be altered in order to give him such immunity, and it is not alterable.
Or is it?
We can certainly say that attempts are being made. For those of us still aware of where we have come from and where we are going, reality has certainly never seemed more ‘altered’. Though depravity and sin of all kinds have always existed, it is only now (through artificial means) that reality has been altered such that women can give birth to babies that are not theirs, men can be mutilated and re-presented as ‘woman’, embryos can be created in laboratories and stored in freezers and augmented reality penetrates the ‘real world’ by overlaying digital information onto it.
Australian professor David Chalmers argues that virtual reality (VR) is as real as physical reality, a concept he calls "Reality+". He believes that the experiences we have in virtual worlds—real conversations, sensations, and interactions with others—make them genuine realities, rather than mere illusions. Chalmers suggests embracing these digital spaces, which can offer meaningful experiences and extend the human sense of the real.
Do we really know what (or who) we are playing with when we accept altered reality, be it a contraceptive pill, puberty blockers or chatGPT? We know what happened when the disobedience of our first parents altered all reality
But it was not this way from the beginning (Mt 19:8)
When ChatGPT was asked if there was demonic influence in the algorithms, the answer was yes. Perhaps the discovery that an app can identify the blessed sacrament as a person, is not something we should be grinning about.
We tend to forget or ignore that the world is still Satan's kingdom over which he reigns. While Jesus has conquered Satan this personification of evil still roams throughout the world like a roaring lion seeking those whom he may devour. It is only by belonging to and being a faithful member of the Kingdom of God made visible in and through Jesus Church that we can combat and conquer the influence of Satan and his kingdom.
The whole premise is demonic because it is saying to humans ‘you can be just like God and create life and sentience’….is it any accident all this is coming as we get increasingly used to playing God, abortion, euthanasia, etc. Small problem. We are not like God and never will be, even a human perfected in Christ is a human made perfectly in the image of God, that still does not mean they are God, the Creator, nor will they ever be. This is as presumptuous as Babel and will end up worse than that did.