A new approach to an ancient call

Borrowing Intelligence

Eric Louw

AI assistant

“Would you like to modify any part of the essay to your liking or add more details?”

Found near the end of a student essay.

30%

of the class, by semester’s end, used AI to write their work or to source content that didn’t exist.

At least three in ten

This worry isn’t new

About 2,400 years ago, Socrates warned of a technology that would make people forgetful, and seem wise without being wise.

The technology was writing.

Today the tool is AI. We’re not just borrowing a way to store our thinking.

We’re borrowing the thinking itself.

Not anti-AI.

Pro correct AI use.

Borrowing

isn’t wrong.

Students borrow ideas from a teacher. Preachers borrow stories from the world around them.

Never paid back

it becomes debt.

Every loan comes with a cost.

“Which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost?”

Luke 14:28

Before we build anything with AI, let’s sit down first.

I · Eden

Made in God’s image. Called to fill the earth, subdue it, and have dominion; to serve the garden and care for it.

Dominion didn’t mean control. It meant care.

Genesis 1:26–28 · 2:15

I · Eden · Genesis 2:19–20

The first job: naming the animals

He called it

אַרְיֵה

Heavenly AI: every name generated in 0.2 s

He brought every creature to Adam, one by one.

I · Eden

Why do it the slow way?

Watch.

Learn.

Connect.

Discover.

“There was not found a helper fit for him” (v. 20). God already knew it (v. 18). Adam had to discover it.

Why do it the slow way? Perhaps because the process itself was the point. To name a creature, Adam had to watch it. Learn it. Build a connection with it. That experience prepared him to exercise the right kind of dominion. And something else happened along the way. As the animals passed by, Adam realized something was missing. [BUILD] There was not found a helper fit for him (v. 20). God already knew it (v. 18). But Adam had to discover it. [PAUSE] That seemingly inefficient process created space for growth. [STORY] I’ve regretted never persisting with piano past childhood, so when my daughter started learning with basic scales, I thought to myself: Great! I can hop back on once she’s advanced a bit closer to where I left off. Of course, within a few months she outpaced me, and I should have started at the beginning.

Inefficient processes can be necessary for growth.

II · The shortcut promise

“You will be like God.”

Genesis 3:5

Sound familiar?

AI superpowers 10x yourself Never start from scratch

The fruit was never the point. The problem was the promise.

But in that same garden stood a tree. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Why would knowledge be forbidden? [PAUSE] Here’s the irony. Nothing in the story says the fruit contained the data. Eve didn’t bite into an encyclopedia or download good and evil. The knowledge came through an experience: distrust, disobedience, and a desire to short-circuit God’s plan. Listen to how the serpent sold it: “You will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5). In other words: God is holding you back. There’s a faster way to become what you could be. Skip the process. Get the product now. [BUILD] Sound familiar? [PAUSE] [PAUSE] (Generic marketing language, not quotes from a company.) [BUILD] Now, I am not saying AI is the forbidden fruit. [PAUSE] The fruit was never the point in Eden. The problem was the promise, and whether we trusted it over God.

II · The shortcut promise

Transcend your limits. Skip the slow part. Become more, faster.

Impatience to transcend our limits can short-circuit true education.

The long way: time, effort, attention

Who you’re becoming

The shortcut

III · Borrowed from God

“I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with ability and intelligence, with knowledge and all craftsmanship.”

Exodus 31:3 · Bezalel and the tabernacle

Every skillful heart brought its gifts to the work (Ex. 35:25–35).

All intelligence is borrowed.

From whom?

Does it become ours?

Same tools. Different purpose.

The tabernacle

Exodus 31

The golden calf

Exodus 32

What mattered was never the tool. It was whether its use aligned with God’s purpose.

IV · Counting the cost

Learning is no longer limited by access. It’s limited by three things.

Learning

=

Time

×

Effort

×

Attention

0

Notice: multiplication. If any one of them is zero, the answer is zero.

IV · The essays nobody could quote

Could you quote a sentence from the essay you just wrote?

ChatGPT group

83%

Brain-only and search groups

11%

Each dot is one person in a hundred. Lit: couldn’t quote their own essay.

Better grammar and structure. Teachers called the essays “soulless.”

The researchers’ term

Cognitive debt

Kosmyna et al., “Your Brain on ChatGPT,” MIT Media Lab, 2025 (preprint, n = 54)

IV · The exam after the shortcut

High school math students with unrestricted ChatGPT

+48%

−17%

Practice, with ChatGPT

Exam, AI taken away

0 = never had AI

no drop

Exam, AI tutor group

Same technology.

Different use.

The tutor gave hints, not answers.

Bastani et al., “Generative AI without guardrails can harm learning,” PNAS, 2025. Bars drawn to scale.

Product: better.

Person: worse.

IV · The flattering friend

47%

more endorsement from AI chatbots than from human responses

So… was I right?

Absolutely! You were completely right.

That’s such a wise way to see it.

They really should apologize to you.

Flattery can spiral into overconfidence in unfounded beliefs.

Cheng, Jurafsky et al., Stanford (Science, 2026); Chandra et al., MIT (arXiv preprint, 2026)

IV · The question

Extend or outsource?

Extend

leads to growth.

Outsource

what keeps you skilled leads to atrophy.

skill

time

skill

time

An illustration of the idea, not study data.

IV · Some things can’t be outsourced

AI cannot pray for you.

It cannot study Scripture for you.

It cannot be filled with the Spirit to preach.

It cannot commune with God.

V · Time saved

“But think of the time it saves!”

+10 hrs/week +56%

When was the last time saved time turned into rest?

V · A true story

Optimizing PhD Research Tools

Original task2,400 h

Optimization effort200 h (±1,000)

Task after optimization1,200 h

Total: 1,200 + 1,2002,400 h

Net time saved

0 hours

Efficiency can’t give you rest.

Only God can.

Exodus 20:8–11 · Mark 2:27

Back to the garden

Watching. Learning. Naming.

A seemingly inefficient process that made room for him to grow.

“The education begun here will not be completed in this life; it will be going forward through all eternity, ever progressing, never completed.”

Ellen G. White, The Ministry of Healing, 466

Education was never about the product. It’s about who you are becoming.

So borrow intelligence. Use the tools. But before you hand something off, sit down first, and count the cost.

Is this extending who I’m becoming, or replacing it?

Extend

Replace

Borrowing Intelligence

Timing and voice cues

Presenting