The lead scientist who creates David, the robotic boy in Artificial Intelligence, closes the first scene in the film by asking if God did not create man, just as the scientist plans to create David, because God needed man to love him. The question reveals this scientist's fundamental misunderstanding of creation, and it leads to disaster. Three themes in Artificial Intelligence are of particular interest: (1) creation; (2) love; and (3) children.
Creation
First creation. God, who is infinitely blessed in himself, created man for man's own benefit. He--one should almost say they, for God is triune--created man to share his own blessed communion of persons. God revealed himself to man--specifically, to the Jews; "salvation is from the Jews," Jesus said. He gave man laws that, if followed, lead to human flourishing. He gave man prophets, and, indeed, in these last times, he gave man a Savior, one like us in all things but sin. In the words of Richard John Neuhaus, since God became man, God has become inextricably bound up in "the human project," and because of this it cannot fail. God's plan of salvation was known from all eternity. In a way, the redemption is part of the creation.
How different God's way of creating from man's. God creates for the benefit of those created. Man often creates for the benefit of himself. God gives man the freedom not to return God's love. In Artificial Intelligence, David is programmed to love his adopted parents and cannot do otherwise. When there was a problem--man abusing his freedom--in real life God himself became a man and allowed himself to be murdered by men in order to save men from their own pride. In Artificial Intelligence, when there is a problem, David's adopted father wants David to be taken back to the lab for destruction, while his adopted mother leaves him in the woods to fend for himself.
Love
These relections lead us to consider the meaning of love, and how hard it is for man in his selfishness to love. Love is an act of the will, pursuant to which we desire the good of another. Thus the classic scholastic definition. Love is self giving, as JPII would put it; whose opposite is not hate, but "using." God's creation and redemption of man show us the meaning of love put into action. Love is patient and kind. The lover seeks not his own good but the good of the beloved. The lover does not ask "What's in it for me?" The moment that it is forced on the beloved, love ceases to be love. Love does not control the beloved. The act of loving does cause joy in the lover--because we were created to love, and there is always joy when we do what we ought to do and what is our deepest longing to do--but more often than not the act of loving is accompanied by suffering. This suffering, in turn, is a call to love more deeply, more purely, more as God loves.
Article comments
1 - Eric Olsen
Fascinating and thought-provoking. Thanks! While I have no disagreemtn with your final paragraph, I don't agree that in vitro is necessarily not an act of love, and I think almost always that it is.
2 - JR
Children are little people, with their own thoughts, dreams, feelings, hurts, sense of justice, wills, intellects, and memories.
How could a "child" possibly have all these attributes before it has even entered the world?
3 - Kieran Dickinson
Two points in response to the last comment. First, a fetus has "entered the world" as soon as he or she was conceived. Second, while it is true that a fetus does not have all of the attributes mentioned, there are other reasons to treat the fetus with appropriate dignity. The most important is that human beings have an innate dignity and should be treated with this dignity at all stages of their lives.
4 - JR
The "pro-life" movement reminds me of that Ikea commercial: "Many of you feel bad for this lamp. That is because you're crazy."
It is possible that a fetus can feel pain in the biochemical sense, the way that an insect might. But there is no way a fetus has thoughts, dreams, sense of justice, wills, intellects, or memories; in marked contrast to the woman who bears it.
There are many cases where people develop unusually strong emotional attachments to animals, treasured belongings, or people they've never met. That's normally harmless. But there comes a point where your fetishes infringe on the hopes and ambitions and the dignity of other people. At that point, you cause more suffering, not less.
5 - Eric Olsen
JR, I wouldn't go about it that way - I would say that "choice" is a matter of competing rights and that as painful as the choice may be, the functioning person's rights to determine the "management" of her own body outweighs those of a pre-person. The ultimate point is to give every born child the kind of care and attention that Kieran is calling for.