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By Bryan Manning, SJ
We are called to use created things only insofar as they help us toward our true end in God. (Spiritual Exercises, no. 23)
Economic disruption, deepfakes, mass surveillance and the fear of losing control to our own machines are no longer science fiction. We now speak of artificial intelligence not only as a tool, but almost as a future saviour. The real question is no longer whether AI is real, but whether it is leading us toward God or toward a false omega of our own making.
Long before these debates, the Jesuit priest and scientist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin offered a way of thinking about humanity’s future that still feels surprisingly relevant. Teilhard was not only a theologian and mystic, but also a working scientist. In the 1920s and 1930s, he participated in the famous excavations near Beijing that led to the discovery of Peking man, among the earliest known remains of human ancestors. Teilhard quite literally spent years digging in the earth, brushing dust from ancient bones, trying to understand where we came from and how we became human.
Out of that work came a deep conviction: Human history is not random. In “The Phenomenon of Man,” Teilhard described evolution as a long movement toward greater connection and shared awareness. As communication and cooperation grow, humanity enters what he called the noosphere, the sphere of shared thought and meaning. “The age of nations has passed,” he wrote. “The task before us now, if we would not perish, is to build the earth.” In a strange way, Teilhard moved from digging in the sand for the beginnings of humanity to imagining its ultimate future.
When AI is treated as the goal of history rather than a tool within it, it becomes a false omega, an idol of intelligence cut off from personhood and transcendence.
Seen in this light, artificial intelligence clearly belongs to the same unfolding story. Digital networks and AI systems now connect people across the globe, help doctors diagnose illness, assist scientists in research, and support families separated by distance. Generative AI can create text, images and music in seconds. These tools can be genuinely helpful. As Teilhard once put it, “Everything that rises must converge.” When technology helps humanity think together, cooperate, and respond to shared challenges, responsibility and awareness deepen.
But Teilhard was also very clear about something else: Tools are not the same as goals. Evolution, he insisted, does not move toward intelligence alone, but toward relationship and love. The final horizon of history, what he called the Omega Point, is not something humanity builds. It is not a machine, a system or an invention. It draws history forward even as it lies beyond it, and it preserves personal uniqueness rather than erasing it. “Union differentiates,” he wrote. True unity makes us more human, not less.
This is where today’s dreams of superintelligence become dangerous. When AI is treated as the goal of history rather than a tool within it, it becomes a false omega, an idol of intelligence cut off from personhood and transcendence. We start to look to machines to save us from loneliness, suffering and meaninglessness. In biblical terms, we begin worshipping a golden calf of our own making.
Here Ignatian wisdom offers a simple test: Tantum quantum. We should use technology only insofar as it leads us toward God and deeper human life. AI should support families and friendships, not replace them. The Omega Point is not an algorithm waiting to be activated, but the fulfilment of human life in love and relationship, ultimately in Christ, for all people.
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