Reading List
Where Theology Meets Artificial Intelligence
These are the books and sources that inform the Decalogue of AI. Some are cited directly in the essays. Others provide essential background. The list will grow as the series progresses.
Theology and Ethics
Augustine, City of God The original framework for thinking about two kingdoms, human making, and the tension between earthly and heavenly ends. Essential background for any theological engagement with culture and technology.
Herman Bavinck, Reformed Ethics, vol. 1, ed. John Bolt (Baker Academic, 2019) Bavinck on what God expects of us. Essential for understanding the Reformed tradition’s approach to moral obligation.
Herman Bavinck, Christian Worldview (Crossway, 2019) How worldview shapes ethics. Bavinck argues that how we see reality determines how we act within it.
Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 4 vols., ed. John Bolt (Baker Academic, 2003-2008) Bavinck’s magnum opus. A comprehensive systematic theology that grounds the ethical vision this project draws from.
John M. Frame, The Doctrine of the Christian Life (P&R, 2008) The most comprehensive Reformed ethics available. Frame’s triperspectival method (goal, standard, motive) is the structural backbone of this project.
John M. Frame, Perspectives on the Word of God: An Introduction to Christian Ethics (P&R, 1990) A shorter entry point into Frame’s approach. Accessible and direct.
Meredith G. Kline, Treaty of the Great King: The Covenant Structure of Deuteronomy (Eerdmans, 1963) Kline’s groundbreaking study of the Decalogue as a suzerainty treaty. His analysis of the covenant structure behind the Ten Commandments informs the covenantal framework of this project.
Abraham Kuyper, Lectures on Calvinism (Eerdmans, 1931) Kuyper’s vision of Christ’s lordship over every sphere of life, including science and culture. The theological warrant for engaging AI as a domain under divine sovereignty.
Edmund P. Clowney, How Jesus Transforms the Ten Commandments, ed. Rebecca Clowney Jones (P&R, 2007) Clowney’s posthumous masterwork. The first president of Westminster Seminary shows how Christ fulfills each commandment, finding the Redeemer in the law itself. Pastoral, theological, and grounded in redemptive history.
John Murray, Principles of Conduct: Aspects of Biblical Ethics (Eerdmans, 1957) The Decalogue as the permanent standard for ethical life. A foundational text for this project.
John Murray, The Epistle to the Romans (Eerdmans, 1968) Especially relevant for the natural law discussion in Romans 2:14-15.
Vern Poythress, Knowing and the Trinity (P&R, 2018) Triperspectivalism applied to epistemology. Essential for understanding how the three perspectives relate.
Vern Poythress, Redeeming Science: A God-Centered Approach (Crossway, 2006) How scientific law reflects divine attributes and why all scientists implicitly depend on God. Applies triperspectival thinking to the relationship between faith and science.
Herman Ridderbos, The Gospel of John: A Theological Commentary (Eerdmans, 1997) Essential for the Logos connection between Exodus 34:6 and John 1:14 that grounds the project’s Christological argument.
Cornelius Van Til, The Ten Commandments (Cantaro Publications, 2024) Van Til’s previously unpublished ethics course material from Westminster Seminary. An exposition of the Decalogue from a presuppositional framework and a direct ancestor of this project.
Westminster Larger Catechism, Questions 91-152 The catechism’s exposition of the Ten Commandments. The hermeneutical framework for the entire series. The catechism’s exposition of the Ten Commandments. The hermeneutical framework for the entire series.
Philosophy
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics Book VI on practical wisdom (phronesis) and the phronimos. The source of virtue ethics’ greatest strength and its deepest problem.
David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748) The empiricist challenge that woke Kant from his “dogmatic slumber.” Hume’s skepticism about causation and metaphysics set the terms for the modern epistemological crisis that Reformed theology answers differently.
Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason (1781) Kant’s attempt to establish the limits and powers of human reason. The foundation of his entire critical project, and the backdrop against which his Prolegomena and moral philosophy operate.
Immanuel Kant, Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics (1783) What must be true before we can make valid claims. The essay borrows Kant’s structure while rejecting his conclusions.
Cornelius Van Til, A Christian Theory of Knowledge (P&R, 1969) Why autonomous reasoning fails on its own terms. The apologetic foundation beneath the ethical framework.
AI and Technology
Jacques Ellul, The Technological Society (1954) Ellul’s masterwork on “technique” as a totalizing force. His argument that efficiency becomes its own logic, displacing all other values, anticipates the very dynamics this project addresses in AI.
Derek C. Schuurman, “Artificial Intelligence: Discerning a Christian Response,” Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 71, no. 2 (June 2019): 75-82 A Reformed computer scientist surveys the ethical and ontological questions AI raises and urges Christians to join the conversation. A model for the kind of interdisciplinary engagement this project pursues.
Alan M. Turing, “Computing Machinery and Intelligence,” Mind 59, no. 236 (1950): 433-460 The paper that launched AI discourse. His dismissal of the theological objection is a case study in the first essay.
Ximian Xu, “Reconsidering Interaction Between AI and Religion According to the AI100 Reports,” Stanford AI100 Early Career Essay Competition (2023) Xu argues that AI-and-religion studies have been omitted from Stanford’s landmark AI100 reports and identifies two guiding principles for theological engagement with AI. A winning entry in the AI100 essay competition.
This list will be updated as new essays are published.