Matters of Life and Death

Tim’s on holiday this week, so here’s an episode from the MOLAD archive we hope you will enjoy.
Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness.”’ These famous words from the first chapter of Genesis are the touchstone of the theology of the image of God, or Imago Dei. Christians throw this reference out a lot, but we’re often a bit unclear about it really means to say humans are made in the image of God. Is it about certain things we can do that God also does? Is it about what God is calling us towards as humans? Is it about how our relationships? How can we come up with a definition which does not exclude the disabled, children, or the elderly? It’s worth dwelling on, as the image of God and how we define human distinctiveness as believers is critically important in an era when human uniqueness is under attack from many directions. From artificial intelligence to abortion, the question of personhood and recognising and protecting the humanity of others is something we all have to wrestle with, and getting our foundations right on the image of God is a good place to start.

• You can send in your questions for us to discuss on the podcast, or ideas for future episodes, to molad@premier.org.uk
• Subscribe to the Matters of Life and Death podcast: https://pod.link/1509923173
• If you want to go deeper into some of the topics we discuss, visit John's website: http://www.johnwyatt.com
• Find some of Tim's journalism and sign up for free to his weekly church news newsletter The Critical Friend: https://tswyatt.com
• For more resources to help you explore faith and the big questions, visit: http://www.premierunbelievable.com

In May, Pope Leo released the first encyclical letter, a teaching document, which focused entirely on artificial intelligence. The first ever American head of the Catholic Church argued that as a new industrial revolution powered by ever-growing AI loomed into view it was vital to apply centuries-old Catholic Social Teaching to our current age. University of Oxford theologian Sam Tranter, who researches AI and Christian ethics himself, was at the Vatican launch of the encyclical ‘Magnifica humanitas’ and joins us today to talk through what Leo writes about AI. Is he a doomer or a booster? Does the Catholic Church now see AI as simply a neutral tool to be used for good or ill depending on the humans behind it, or a more malevolent and systemically suspect technology we should be wary of? And is anyone listening to what a celibate Christian cleric in his 70s is saying about ChatGPT and Claude – will the encyclical actually affect the development of AI and how it is embedded in our societies and economies?

Read Magnifica humanitas here - https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/encyclicals/documents/20260515-magnifica-humanitas.html
Find out more about Sam’s research at the McDonald Centre at the University of Oxford here - https://mcdonaldcentre.web.ox.ac.uk/political-theology-emerging-technologies-and-common-life#tab-5740011

• You can send in your questions for us to discuss on the podcast, or ideas for future episodes, to molad@premier.org.uk
• Subscribe to the Matters of Life and Death podcast: https://pod.link/1509923173
• If you want to go deeper into some of the topics we discuss, visit John's website: http://www.johnwyatt.com
• Find some of Tim's journalism and sign up for free to his weekly church news newsletter The Critical Friend: https://tswyatt.com
• For more resources to help you explore faith and the big questions, visit: http://www.premierunbelievable.com

In the modern West we normally do not question the idea that it’s always a good thing to have more medical research, more treatments, more new drugs and more money spent on healthcare. But could we be making an idol of our own bodies and health, as well as creating unintentionally perverse consequences for lower income countries trying to keep up with the West’s rapacious and insatiable desire for longer, healthier lives?

• You can send in your questions for us to discuss on the podcast, or ideas for future episodes, to molad@premier.org.uk
• Subscribe to the Matters of Life and Death podcast: https://pod.link/1509923173
• If you want to go deeper into some of the topics we discuss, visit John's website: http://www.johnwyatt.com
• Find some of Tim's journalism and sign up for free to his weekly church news newsletter The Critical Friend: https://tswyatt.com
• For more resources to help you explore faith and the big questions, visit: http://www.premierunbelievable.com

Even sober-minded experts are getting excited about solar power. Respectable estimates suggest the price of energy derived from sunlight will continue to drop spectacularly as the number of panels installed worldwide continues to explode exponentially. In the relatively near future we may move into an era of energy abundance, where we have not just decarbonised our existing energy sources but are also able to cheaply generate ten or even a hundred times more energy. How should Christians feel about a future society with green, clean energy ‘too cheap to meter’? Can we see in this potential bounty God’s extravagant blessing, as we bring forth from his creation huge amounts of resources to tackle poverty, water shortages, climate change and more? Or is this a secular example of an ‘over-realised eschatology’, and foolishness in believing that once again sinful humans can bring about heaven on earth?

• You can send in your questions for us to discuss on the podcast, or ideas for future episodes, to molad@premier.org.uk
• Subscribe to the Matters of Life and Death podcast: https://pod.link/1509923173
• If you want to go deeper into some of the topics we discuss, visit John's website: http://www.johnwyatt.com
• Find some of Tim's journalism and sign up for free to his weekly church news newsletter The Critical Friend: https://tswyatt.com
• For more resources to help you explore faith and the big questions, visit: http://www.premierunbelievable.com

Our first topic this morning is about the fall of yet another prime minister here in the UK, our sixth to resign since the Brexit referendum exactly 10 years ago. We explore some of the structural problems built into modern British politics which have made it so hard for any leader from any party to govern effectively for more than a year or two, and consider what the church can witness to society as a better way to reconcile competing interests between old and young, rich and poor.
Then we move on to the other big story from the UK last week – the blistering heatwave we endured. This prompted us to return to a topic we covered many years ago, climate change and the differing ways people respond to the fact of our rapidly heating world. Why is it that most Western nations have been focused on cutting emissions and not also considered what mitigations and adaptations could we make to cope with our increasingly unliveable world? Can we do both at the same time? Is their moral virtue in making plans to live within a broken system as well as striving to fix what is broken?

• You can send in your questions for us to discuss on the podcast, or ideas for future episodes, to molad@premier.org.uk
• Subscribe to the Matters of Life and Death podcast: https://pod.link/1509923173
• If you want to go deeper into some of the topics we discuss, visit John's website: http://www.johnwyatt.com
• Find some of Tim's journalism and sign up for free to his weekly church news newsletter The Critical Friend: https://tswyatt.com
• For more resources to help you explore faith and the big questions, visit: http://www.premierunbelievable.com