Divine Rowman & Littlefield Divine Wisdom in the Digital Age

This book wields the writings of Father Sergius Bulgakov (1871-1994) to consider how the church can meaningfully engage with cybernetic, life extension, and AI technologies.

What role, if any, should AI technologies have in the church and to what end?

In this book, Walter Sisto contends that the sophiological perspective of Father Sergius Bulgakov (1871-1994) lays a path for the church during the rapid rise of artificial intelligence. What distinguishes Bulgakov’s theology is not merely his Russian Orthodox sophiological framework, but his prophetic vision for the Church’s active engagement with modernity—a vision this book seeks to extend. Building upon Bulgakov’s theological thought primarily written during his Paris period, Sisto articulates an Eastern Christian response to cybernetic, life extension, and AI technologies that speaks not only to Eastern Catholics and Orthodox believers, but to all Christians confronting ethical challenges posed by technologies that threaten to redefine human identity and humanity’s unique role within creation.