Painting: Saint Augustine in His Study by Vittore Carpaccio, about 1502, Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni, Venice (public domain). Augustine looks up from his writing as light fills the room, an old picture of wisdom as something received rather than manufactured.
What does the Bible say about AI? Scripture never mentions artificial intelligence, but it has a great deal to say about wisdom, honest work, and the perseverance that forms a mature soul. Those are the very goods a student is tempted to set aside when a machine offers to do the work. What follows is how Scholé Academy thinks about classical education and AI, and why we believe authentic wisdom is still worth the struggle.
Generative AI (artificial intelligence) is a term for machine-learning algorithms used to generate new content that can include written text, images, audio, videos, and other content. ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini (formerly Bard), Microsoft Copilot, Midjourney, and DALL-E are examples of readily available AI tools, and their use has only grown since this post first appeared in 2023. Many are now built into the search engines and word processors that students use every day.
These are exciting times, but also fast-moving times. Scholé Academy and Classical Academic Press are communities that prize effective and engaging modes of learning, particularly through contemplation and virtue cultivation. As we consider how to respond to culture shifts, we want to proceed with wisdom and clarity, neither being hasty nor passively sitting by.
We spent much of 2023 educating ourselves about the nature of AI and how its use would bolster or weaken the larger mission and vision we have here at Scholé Academy. While we have created a handbook policy to address potential academic abuses of AI within our community, the underlying issues surrounding AI are far more complex than a simple policy can explore. We hope what follows will be a dialogue between us that begins by remembering who Scholé Academy is and how its mission serves our community.
In this post
- Classical Education and AI: Scholé Academy’s Deeper Values
- At the Crossroads of Virtue and the Virtual
- What Does the Bible Say About AI?
- Wisdom vs. Intelligence: Why the Difference Matters
- The Critical Partnership Between Home and School
- Frequently Asked Questions About AI and Classical Education
- A Final Word
Classical Education and AI: Scholé Academy’s Deeper Values
As a classical, online, homeschooling service, we have never wanted to assume the characteristics and mass values of progressive education. We are not trying to reinforce a “cram, pass, forget” cycle for our students. Students completing work quickly, without contemplation, without an honest consideration of complex questions, without the need for revision and conversation, is not our goal. An argument for AI based on efficiency is therefore baseless for us.
In contrast, the intent and practice of a scholé education is to create space and time for the formation of virtuous character. We do not sell a product; we cultivate a pursuit. These values do not mean that we are a community of Luddites, opposed to progress, development, or technology in general. We are grateful for and, in part, exist on account of technological innovation. But when it comes to selecting which technological tools to adopt, we are disinclined to permit any innovation that is more likely to subvert virtue formation than foster it. So, where does that leave us in relation to AI?
At the Crossroads of Virtue and the Virtual
Given AI’s current state of development, we believe students’ use of this tool is more likely than not to subvert virtue and swindle them of opportunities to truly be students. The word student is derived from the Latin studere, which means “to be eager for” or “zealous.” If AI becomes a tool of efficiency that removes opportunities for students to eagerly and zealously grapple with their studies, then it becomes a barrier to our real purpose as an educating community.
Almost anyone can ask an AI bot to generate a compelling essay, with commas neatly and correctly placed, and sentences smoothly strung together. However, in taking this route, a student misses the opportunity to forge the skills that lead to knowledge, diligence, perseverance, patience and, ultimately, wisdom. What’s more, a student’s use of AI, even as a catalyst to get himself started, may easily encourage vices like laziness, impatience, recklessness, flippancy, and academic dishonesty.
The Virtue of a Blank Page
There is virtue to be developed in every student who sits facing a blank page and a blinking cursor. Which virtue? Is it patience? Is it endurance? Is it the seeking of wise counsel? Is it the humility that comes from reaching out for help from an instructor or classmate? Is it the honesty that comes from admitting that the task has been challenging? Is it the habit of faith that is built as a student avoids the temptation to cut corners? Is it simply the peace and joy that accompanies a life of integrity?
Mastery Takes Time
Is virtue formation easy? No. Is there a lure to the conveniences of modernity? Of course. No good student wants to earn a bad grade, and no good teacher takes pleasure in recording them. But we also know that if you believed that education was only a means to getting good grades, you would have chosen a different path. At Scholé Academy, we believe in a mastery approach to education, not a grade-centric model that rewards the quickest and most efficient product. More often than not, mastery takes time, practice, failure, second attempts, and deep contemplation. This is the way of a leisurely education. This is the way of scholé.
You are a part of our community because, like us, you believe that education is formation. You believe that the pursuit of knowledge through academic endeavors is about shaping the loves of your children, so that they come to love what God loves. You believe that mastery comes through the diligent work of perseverance, the kind referred to in James 1:2-4: “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” Mature and complete, wisely formed young men and women: that is the goal we share with you. Here at the crossroads of virtue and the virtual we shoulder this work together.
What Does the Bible Say About AI?
The Bible does not mention artificial intelligence. It speaks again and again, however, about the things at stake in this conversation. “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 9:10), and the wisdom Scripture commends is not a store of information. It is a way of seeing and living rightly before God, a wisdom that is “first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere” (James 3:17). No machine can generate that on a student’s behalf. It must be sought and asked for: “If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you” (James 1:5).
Scripture also honors work done wholeheartedly and honestly. “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord” (Colossians 3:23), and “The LORD detests lying lips, but he delights in people who are trustworthy” (Proverbs 12:22). From the beginning, God placed human beings in a garden “to work it and take care of it” (Genesis 2:15), and tools have always been part of that calling.
A Christian perspective on AI, then, does not begin with fear of a new tool. It begins with a question about fruit: does this tool help us grow in wisdom and in love of God and neighbor, or does it tempt us to skip the very struggle by which God forms us? For students, at least in AI’s present form, we believe the answer is clear.
Wisdom vs. Intelligence: Why the Difference Matters
Intelligence is the ability to gather information, recognize patterns, and solve problems. Wisdom is the ability to see what is true and good and to order one’s life by it. A machine can imitate intelligence by predicting which words should come next, but wisdom belongs to persons, and it grows only through the formation of mind and heart.
This is the difference between authentic wisdom and artificial intelligence. A chatbot can produce a fluent paragraph about courage or honesty, but it cannot be courageous or honest, and it cannot make a student so. The classical tradition calls the practical side of wisdom prudence, the habit of seeing reality as it truly is and acting accordingly. Wisdom also needs a rightly ordered heart, the work of temperance, the virtue that orders our desires, because a student who wants the quickest path will seldom choose the best one.
Technology itself is not the enemy of a classical education. The formal logic that makes computer programs possible is a classical art in its own right, one that students can master for themselves, as Logic and the Art of Computer Programming explores. But reasoning well is only the beginning. Wisdom asks what our reasoning is for, and only a person who does the thinking can learn the answer.
Families who want this kind of unhurried, formative education for their children can learn more about Scholé Academy and its live, online classes.
The Critical Partnership Between Home and School
It is easy for an institution to say that we disallow the use of AI. It is, of course, much more difficult to enforce. One of the practical difficulties is that AI can be nearly impossible to detect, even with sophisticated tools. When there is reasonable suspicion of AI, what constitutes “proof” is largely circumstantial.
We are thus expecting students and their parents to help us pursue honesty and integrity in the work they present. Celebrating, encouraging, and expecting virtuous acts is critical to our identity, and laboring in partnership with parents toward this end is one of our founding principles.
Our Student-Parent Handbook states the policy plainly: we do not invite or endorse student use of generative AI, and we treat its undisclosed use as plagiarism. When a concern arises, the instructor reserves judgment, gathers the facts, and talks with the student and parents together, so that even a hard conversation can become a step toward virtue.
Questions to Ask at Home
Students rarely resist a strong temptation alone. Odysseus had his crew tie him to the mast before he sailed past the Sirens, and students, too, are helped by trusted adults who set limits with them and hold them to their resolve. A few simple questions at the kitchen table can do a great deal:
- What part of this assignment was hardest, and how did you work through it?
- Could you explain this answer to me in your own words?
- Is all of this your own work, and if someone helped you, did you say so?
- What do you understand now that you did not understand before?
Frequently Asked Questions About AI and Classical Education
What does the Bible say about AI?
The Bible does not mention artificial intelligence, but it speaks often about wisdom, honest work, and perseverance. Those teachings give Christians a sound way to judge any new tool: does it help us grow in wisdom and virtue, or does it tempt us to skip the struggle through which God forms us?
Should Christians use AI?
Christians need not fear technology, and Scholé Academy itself exists in part because of it. The question to ask of any tool is whether it is more likely to foster virtue or to subvert it. For students, we believe AI in its current state too easily replaces the thinking, writing, and honest effort through which wisdom grows.
Should students use AI for schoolwork?
At Scholé Academy, we ask students not to use generative AI to enhance, supplement, or complete their coursework. A machine can produce a polished essay, but the student who submits it misses the chance to build knowledge, diligence, patience, and wisdom. The Student-Parent Handbook explains the policy in full.
Is using AI cheating?
Submitting AI-generated work as one’s own is a form of plagiarism, because it presents a machine’s output as the fruit of one’s own study. AI can be nearly impossible to detect, which is why honesty depends so much on the partnership between students, parents, and teachers.
How can parents talk with their children about AI?
Begin with questions rather than rules: what was hard about this assignment, can you explain it in your own words, is this all your own work? Learn about the tools yourself, pray together, and remind your children that the struggle of learning is where so much of their growth takes place.
A Final Word
We are honored that you have invited us to partner with you in shaping the loves of your children through the pursuit of a scholé education. We encourage you, as parents, to explore and educate yourselves on this strange new world of AI.
As we face the challenges of this new era, we are reminded that Jesus charges us to be “wise as serpents and innocent as doves” (Matthew 10:16). There is work for us to do, navigating the complexities of what’s to come with these new technologies. We will continue to pray for you and ask that you do the same for us. Amidst all the fast-paced changes, we know there is nothing new under the sun and that vices are always overcome by virtue and by the working of the Holy Spirit in the hearts, minds, and emotions of our students.
Scholé Academy, part of Classical Academic Press, offers live, online classes taught by instructors who care about the formation of the whole student. If you are looking for an education that forms your child in wisdom and virtue, we invite you to explore our course catalog.
