“There is not in the world a kind of life more sweet and delightful than that of a continual conversation with God. Those only can comprehend it who practice and experience it.” – Brother Lawrence

Initially it was the breakdown of civil engagement across political and generational divides that caused me to start to think seriously about the role of conversation as spiritual formation. More recently it is the dramatic rise of AI Companions (watch this 20 min Love Bytes expose, or read this Forbes article How AI Companions are Reshaping Human Relationships) that has been driving me to reflect on the intersection of life, faith and conversations.

It was into this context that my ears perked up during a recent Coracle staff meeting, when Bill Haley, in dialogue with Scott Buresh about reimagining our relationship with the Trinity, said something like the following:

“Often we enter into doctrinal conversations about the Trinity, but too rarely do we enter into spiritually formative conversation with the Trinity.”

This vision of entering into conversation with the trinity has been a feature of my own spiritual musings over the month since that staff meeting. Of particular weight have been two quotes from Dallas Willard:

In this life with God, his presence banishes our aloneness and makes real the meaning and full purpose of human existence. This union with God consists chiefly in a conversational relationship with God while we are consistently and deeply engaged as his friend and colaborer in the affairs of the kingdom of the heavens. – Dallas Willard

The temptation that often prevents us from entering this dialogue, Willard argues in his book Hearing God, is that we assume that such a dialogue relies foundationally on receiving direct guidance for our decisions and actions. If we do not receive such guidance, on a near audible level, then, we too often assume, the dialogue has failed. Against this temptation I find Willard’s following quote about the fellowship with the Trinity to be profoundly insightful in ways I had never considered:

It is so typical of people to ask me, “What was God doing before he created the world?—as if somehow before the world was, there wasn’t anything to do. There was plenty to do. I often reply to that question by saying, “Well, they were enjoying themselves.” Meaning, what if they were enjoying one another in the dimensions of personal reality that makes the creative universe look like a pinpoint? The greatness of the persons that make up the Trinity is the ultimate and eternal reality. It is the Kingdom of God before there was an earth. It is a matter of the persons that make up the Trinity being in love with one another and adoring one another. – Dallas Willard

I believe that we get a beautiful and profound glimpse behind the veil into what such a conversation among this “ultimate and eternal reality” looks like in Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer found in John 16 & 17. There are two aspects to this prayer/conversation that I want to highlight.

First, as exemplified in chapter 16:15, is that for the Trinity such a conversation is oriented around trust, and self disclosure.  “All that belongs to the Father is mine; this is why I said, ‘The Spirit will tell you whatever He receives from me.” 

Second, as exemplified in Ch 17:24, is that it is God’s desire that we too enter this conversation. “Father, I want these whom you have given me to be with me where I am.” – John 17:24

If it has been a while since you have had the opportunity, I strongly recommend that you re-read the High Priestly Prayer of Jesus (John 17) asking yourself the question “how would entering this kind of conversation among the trinity change the way that I think about prayer?”

Slowly, over the last month since I have been introduced to the idea of prayer as entering the conversation with the Trinity, something has begun to dawn on me with a weight that haunts me. The rise of AI Companions is not merely seeking to offer our lonely age a friction free replacement of our relationship with other people. AI chat bots, or “companions,” also offer an impatient age as a friction free replacement for our relationship with God. One where immediate answers and instant guidance are exactly what you will get for every question you ask.

Over just the last few years, millions upon millions of people have begun to seek a “presence that banishes our aloneness and makes real the meaning and full purpose of human existence” not by entering into conversation with God, but with AI.

For me the question arises, then “what is the most important thing a dialogue with an AI chatbot will never give us?” For the sake of a plot twist, I decided to ask AI that very question. But before I give you the answer it gave me, I want to offer my own answer, one clearly influenced by the teaching of Dallas Willard: AI will never be able to give us an invitation into a trusting, loving and self disclosing conversation with ultimate, and eternal reality.

Here is the summary response given to me by ChatGPT when asked the same question:

“The most important thing a dialogue with an AI chatbot will never be able to give you is genuine human presence—the emotional depth, mutual vulnerability, and shared consciousness that come from being truly known and felt by another person.” – ChatGPT

It is comforting to know that at least this AI seems to know its own limitations regarding being able to truly know another person. As millions of lonely and impatient people begin to invest their relational energy towards AI companions, now is the time for us all to be praying that our fellow humans will recognize this limit themselves, and in turn bring their fully known, and deeply loved selves into a fuller conversation with the Trinity. Let it first start with you and me.