JIA JIA AND THE IMAGO DEI

By Dr. M. R. Dowler

Jia Jia is a name most of us are probably not familiar with, but may soon hear more about. Jia Jia is the name of China’s first humanlike robot, recently introduced to the general public last week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. With beautiful black hair, bright brown eyes and dressed in traditional Oriental attire, Jia Jia looks and feels eerily real; she can converse with her human counterparts, answer questions and offer unsolicited compliments in her soft feminine voice. For some, Jia Jia’s humanlike facial gestures were a little unnerving.

Chen Xiaping, the cyborg creation team leader predicted that artificial intelligent robots like Jia Jia will be performing menial tasks in restaurants, hospitals and nursing homes within a decade. Interestingly, another company at the electronic show unveiled its lifelike Albert Einstein robot that engaged visitors in lessons in mathematics and physics in his programmed conversational Germanized-English voice reminiscent of the real Einstein.

Despite it’s dizzyingly rapid pace, the technology of robotics poses many ethical and theological questions. But at the heart of the issue is the biblical doctrine of the Imago Dei, Latin for “the Image of God” (Genesis 1:26-27). Although the scriptures never fully explain God’s image, it is this Imago Dei that separates humans from all of God’s creation. Mankind is the only creature that was created in God’s express image (Genesis 5:1; 1 Corinthians 11:7; Colossians 3:10; James 3:9). We are rational, relational, spiritual beings because of His divine spark within us.

Theologically, it is the image of God that gives man a degree of sovereignty over the earth (Genesis 1:28; Psalm 8:5-8). All human ethics are grounded in the Imago Dei, and we all retain a portion of the image of our Creator despite it being severely distorted when sin entered the human realm (Romans 5:12). The dignity of mankind is demonstrated in God’s establishment of capital punishment for the murder of His human image (Genesis 9:5-6). Robots may eventually mop our floors or take our drive-through food orders, but they can never be human because they will never have that divine spark we call the Imago Dei. Think about it.