Toward the end of Magnifica Humanitas, Pope Leo’s encyclical on AI, the pontiff quotes from J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings:
The twentieth-century Catholic author J. R. R. Tolkien, in the words of a protagonist in one of his novels, described our responsibility in this way: “It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till.”
The protagonist in question is the wizard Gandalf, who reminds us of our dependence on God’s providence. In contrast to the ambitions of AI manufacturers, Christians are not to aim at mastery or domination. Rather, we cast our cares upon God, whose mighty providence extends even to the sparrows of the field, and we uproot evil in the fields that we know by conforming our lives to the Cross.
Conforming our lives to the Cross involves courage, certainly. But the Cross is also a fountain of joy, since it is the supreme manifestation of the charity of Christ and the wellspring of eternal life. We can put the two together, then, and following the example of the early Church in Acts of the Apostles (see especially Acts 4:29-31), pray for cheerful courage. It is here that the invocation of Gandalf is significant.
In Tolkien’s novel, Gandalf embodies cheerful courage. His quotation in the encyclical can be seen as a kind of summons from the pope to cultivate this same spiritual posture as we face the omnipresent threat of all-consuming technological power.
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Throughout The Lord of the Rings, Gandalf is shown to be profoundly happy. His joy is described at one point as a “fountain of mirth enough to set a kingdom laughing, were it to gush forth.” Gandalf’s joy is apparent, despite the cares and sorrows that he also bears.
At the risk of drawing too strict a parallel between Tolkien’s work and Christian theology, Gandalf’s joy offers a literary example of what St. Thomas Aquinas names gaudium spirituale, or spiritual joy. This joy names the delight that flows from the love of charity, by which we love God above all things and our neighbor as ourselves. For Aquinas, to love God is to be filled with gladness. Aquinas also affirms that spiritual joy can exist together with the sorrows of this life, especially the sorrow caused by whatever might hinder us or our neighbor from fully participating in the radiant goodness of God.
For Aquinas, such joy is more interior than sorrow. It springs from the center of the human heart that, in charity, is directed toward God. Even in trials, the human heart rejoices both to love God and to be loved by him. Hence the words of the Psalm: “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me” (Ps. 23:4). With the above in mind, we can raise the question: is there something that is unique to human beings as human, something that AI could never replicate?
In Magnifica Humanitas, the Holy Father writes that the very essence of our humanity lies in “the capacity for relationships and love.” That is, it is the capacity to form relationships and to experience love and joy that sets human beings apart from AI. Although AI systems can appear to simulate relationships, any resultant “connection” must necessarily be manipulative and narcissistic, which is to say, false. As the Holy Father explains:
So-called artificial intelligences do not undergo experiences, do not possess a body, do not feel joy or pain, do not mature through relationships and do not know from within what love, work, friendship or responsibility mean. Nor do they have a moral conscience, since they do not judge good and evil, grasp the ultimate meaning of situations, or bear responsibility for consequences. They may imitate language, behavior and analytical skills, or even simulate empathy and understanding, but they do not understand what they produce, for they lack the affective, relational and spiritual perspective through which human beings grow in wisdom.
AI does not feel joy and could never be cheerful. As the Pope notes, it could perhaps imitate these emotions, but such “joy” would always be false.
In the Physics, Aristotle says that it would be absurd to plant a bed in the ground and wait for the rotting wood to sprout and grow another bed. In the same way, it would be absurd to think that a technological artifact, no matter how sophisticated, could manufacture anything resembling the tender smile of a mother for her child. Artifacts, digital or otherwise, are not natural beings. Relationships are not “manufacturable,” and cheerfulness is not the result of digital coding. Such things spring from within the person, as we see in the fictional character of Gandalf.
A second important characteristic about Gandalf is that he is a steward. His task is to shepherd all worthy things through the night that is upon them. In The Lord of the Rings, Gandalf’s stewardship consists in rejecting both the power and the logic of the Ring and helping others to do the same.
Both the joy and the stewardship of Gandalf come together in a chapter toward the end of the novel entitled “The Last Debate.” In this chapter, Gandalf guides the leaders of the West as they hold a final council to decide their last steps in defeating Sauron. It is from this chapter that Pope Leo draws Gandalf’s words quoted in the encyclical.
Gandalf calls the leaders of the West to a kind of martyrdom. They know they will be walking into a trap and will be overcome by the superior forces of Mordor. Gandalf, however, calls them to courage:
We must walk open-eyed into that trap, with courage, but small hope for ourselves. For, my lords, it may well prove that we ourselves shall perish utterly in a black battle far from the living lands; so that even if Barad-dûr be thrown down, we shall not live to see a new age.
A final victory over evil, he tells them, is in other hands than theirs. It is at this point that Gandalf speaks the words quoted in Magnifica Humanitas. The ordering of all things to the good and the final defeat of evil belong to the providence of God. Their part, Gandalf reminds them, is to stand against evil as they can, with courage and alacrity, even if such an attempt will claim their lives.
The Cheerful Courage of the Martyrs
In Magnifica, Pope Leo also calls us to behold the courage of the martyrs as a kind of unsurpassable witness to the grandeur of humanity. He calls our attention to the martyrs who have given their lives, but also to the martyrs of charity, that is, those who give up their lives daily in small acts of service to others out of love for God. The Holy Father writes:
Alongside these public signs, there is a more hidden but decisive story. We see it in religious communities that choose to serve in poor and dangerous places. We also see it in the martyrs of fraternity and justice, such as Saint Maximilian Mary Kolbe, Saint Oscar Romero and Blessed Enrique Angelelli; and in those witnesses who embodied the hope of the Gospel as well as human dignity amidst harsh, often inhumane conditions, such as Venerable Francis-Xavier Nguyễn Văn Thuận. Above all, it is visible in the “martyrs of everyday life” who care for, educate, accompany and comfort without fanfare, such as parents, nurses, doctors, volunteers and those who remain alongside an elderly person or an outcast. Their testimony demonstrates that goodness does not advance automatically, but requires the perseverance, memory and interior conversion necessary to begin anew, even after defeat.
It is said that the martyrs of Uganda went to their executions singing hymns. Although assured of their own deaths, and although their external freedoms were constrained, they were nonetheless supremely free. Their task, like ours, was not to overcome all evil in the world, but only to imitate Christ, whose Cross undoes evil not through power, but through weakness. It turns out, however, that the Cross is paradoxically the power of God, a power manifested in the cheerful courage of Christ and bestowed by the Holy Spirit on us even today.
There is a key word in the Acts of the Apostles, parrésia, that is usually translated as “boldness.” It is better rendered, however, as cheerful courage. This word describes the grace of courage and joy given to the Church in the face of persecution and martyrdom. In Acts 4:13 the Jewish Council is taken aback by the boldness, or cheerful courage, of Peter and John’s preaching. Later, when the two Apostles return to the community of believers, they all beseech the Lord for the grace of cheerful courage:
And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to speak your word with cheerful courage, while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus (Acts 4:29-30).
As they finish praying, the house shakes at the descent of the Holy Spirit who fills all gathered so that they “spoke the word of God with cheerful courage” (Acts 4:31).
Aquinas, for whom the Greek parrésia is translated as fiducia by St. Jerome’s Vulgate, teaches that the Holy Spirit infuses a cheerful courage, a fiduciam menti, into the human heart together with the gift of fortitude. Likewise, Aquinas also reminds us of the martyrs “Lawrence and Vincent, who in torments showed cheerfulness,” because their great courage was enkindled by the love of charity, the love of God that makes the arduous sweet and delightful.
It is in the martyrs, both those who have shed their blood for God but also those martyrs of “everyday life,” the martyrs of charity, that we most clearly behold the splendor and magnificence of humanity. The martyrs give witness to the cheerful courage to live for God alone. In the cultivation of this virtue, like the peoples of Tolkien’s Middle-earth, we do well to take Mithrandir, the “Grey Pilgrim,” Gandalf, as our friend and guide.
