A thoughtful look at the Eighth Commandment, how humans learn, and what it means to use artificial intelligence with integrity.
Artificial intelligence is everywhere. It writes our emails, summarizes our research, drafts our sermons, and finishes our sentences. And for many people of faith, a nagging question has begun to surface — not just a legal one, but a moral one: Is using AI a form of theft?
The question matters, because the Eighth Commandment is not a technicality. “You shall not steal” (Exodus 20:15) is a call to honor what belongs to others — their labor, their creativity, their livelihood. If AI systems are trained on content created by human beings without their explicit consent, is every person who uses AI complicit in that theft?
This is not a simple question, and it deserves more than a simple answer.
▶ Video Summary ·A Christian's Guide to Understanding AI | Abdu Murray - Watch on YouTube
The video explored how AI is reshaping our understanding of truth, reality, and human identity — and how Christians should thoughtfully respond. Its key concerns are worth engaging directly.
Five concerns the video raises
The deeper question the video poses
Beyond copyright and data, the video challenges us to ask something more fundamental: if AI can think, create, and communicate like humans — what does that mean for our identity, our faith, and where we place our trust? This is not just a legal question. It is a theological one.
These concerns are valid. But they raise a harder question underneath: is it the use of AI that is the problem, or is it the conditions under which some AI systems were built?
How Humans Have Always Learned
Before we pass verdict on AI, let us consider the way every human being acquires knowledge, language, and creativity.
You learned to speak by hearing others speak. You learned to write by reading. Furthermore, you learned to reason by being taught. Every skill you possess, every insight you carry, every word you use — was first formed in your mind by someone else’s effort. A parent, a teacher, an author, a preacher, a stranger at a dinner party who said something that changed how you see the world.
None of us created ourselves. We are, in the deepest sense, assemblages of what we have received from others — and what we do with it is the measure of our character.
This is not a flaw. It is the beauty of human community. Knowledge is meant to be shared. That is why we write books, teach classes, build libraries, record sermons, and tell stories. The Proverbs themselves say, “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another” (Proverbs 27:17). We are designed to learn from one another.
What we do with what we have learned is where moral weight lands. A student who reads a book and gains wisdom has not stolen from the author. A student who copies the book and sells it under their own name has. The difference is not in the learning — it is in the honesty and the use.
The human parallel
A chef who trains at culinary school learns techniques from dozens of masters. She absorbs flavor combinations, methods, traditions. When she opens her own restaurant, she does not steal from her teachers — she honors them by applying what she learned with her own creativity and care. This is precisely what we hope AI can be: a tool that extends human learning, not a machine that replaces human dignity.
The Commandment in Context
“You shall not steal.”
Exodus 20:15Theologians across traditions agree: the prohibition on stealing is, at its core, a command to respect the God-given dignity and livelihood of other human beings. To steal is to take what sustains another — their property, their labor, their creative work, their time — without just cause or consent.
Applied to AI, this means the ethical question is not simply “does AI use data from others?” — because so do libraries, encyclopedias, and universities. The question is: Is the use fair? Is it compensated where compensation is due? Does it harm the person who created the original?
Using a search engine to find an answer does not steal from the websites it indexes. Reading a library book does not steal from the publisher. Taking a cooking class does not steal from the chef. But plagiarizing an essay, publishing someone’s art without credit, or selling another’s work as your own — these cross a moral line, because they take what should be honoured and hollow it out.
The same logic applies to AI. The act of using an AI tool to help you write, think, plan, or create is not automatically theft. But how that AI was built, and how you use its output, are questions of genuine moral weight.· · ·
Creativity Is Still Yours to Bring
Critics of AI sometimes suggest that using it means you have abandoned creativity. But this misunderstands both creativity and the tool.
When Michelangelo used a scaffold to reach the Sistine Chapel ceiling, he was not less creative. When Bach used a harpsichord he did not build himself, he was not less of a composer. When a pastor uses a word processor to write a sermon, the theology is still theirs. Tools extend human reach — they do not replace human vision, judgment, or soul.
The person who uses AI wisely still provides the questions, the discernment, the values, the voice, the purpose, and the final decision about what is true and good and worth saying. AI is fluent in patterns; it cannot be faithful to God. That faithfulness is still yours to bring.
AI can help you say what you mean more clearly. It cannot tell you what you ought to mean.
The danger is not in using the tool. The danger is in mistaking fluency for wisdom, or outsourcing your conscience to an algorithm.· · ·
Seven Guidelines for Using AI Without Stealing
Let AI help you think, outline, and refine — but bring your own voice, your own theology, your own perspective. Do not present AI output wholesale as your original work without meaningful contribution and review.
If AI substantially drafted something you are publishing or sharing — especially in professional or academic contexts — acknowledge its role where appropriate. Honesty about your process is a form of integrity.
Asking AI to reproduce a published book, song lyrics, an artist’s style for commercial gain, or someone’s writing without permission crosses a clear ethical line — regardless of whether the AI technically can do it.
Buy books. Subscribe to publications. Pay for music. Commission artists. The fact that AI has learned from human creativity makes it more important, not less, to actively support the humans creating it.
Using AI to do in 10 minutes what would take you 2 hours is good stewardship of time. Using AI to avoid thinking, learning, or doing the hard work of engaging your community is a different matter entirely.
AI has no conscience, no covenant, and no faith community. Always review AI output through the lens of your values. What AI offers is raw material — you are responsible for what you do with it.
As citizens and people of faith, we can support policies and practices that ensure creators are compensated, data is used fairly, and AI development respects human dignity. Ethics does not stop at your own use of the tool.
A Verdict Without Condemnation
So — is using AI like stealing?
Not necessarily. But it can become that, just as any tool can become an instrument of harm in the wrong hands, or misused with the wrong intent. A hammer is not a weapon — until it is. A word is not a lie — until it is used to deceive.
The Eighth Commandment calls us not merely to avoid taking what belongs to others, but to honor the labor and dignity of our neighbors. That means using AI in ways that extend human flourishing, not diminish it. It means giving credit, seeking fairness, preserving our own voice, and remaining curious and discerning rather than passive and dependent.
We are people who believe that every good and perfect gift comes from above (James 1:17). Intelligence — artificial and human alike — is a gift, and gifts carry responsibility. Used well, with humility and integrity, AI can help us serve more efficiently, communicate more clearly, and give more generously of the time and energy it frees up.
That is not theft. That is stewardship.
“Whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.”
1 Corinthians 10:31The question is not whether we are allowed to use the tools of our age. The question is whether we use them as people who fear God, honor our neighbors, and remain stubbornly, irreducibly human.
