Showing items filed under “The Rev. Canon Dr. Victor Lee Austin”

AI and Love

In recent months, we have become aware of a great leap in the progress of artificial intelligence (AI). My hunch is that this is a significant step, rightly thought of as a leap of some sort. The AI that is now out there seems to be intelligent in a true sense: able to draw conclusions and take initiative. The key word is “seems.” We just don’t know.

“After Yang” is a 2022 film about an android, Yang, who starts acting erratically one evening and the next morning is nonoperational. He was bought by a family with an adopted Chinese daughter to help her parents with her care, to be a live-in member of their household, and also to put their daughter in touch with her Chinese heritage. So the father (played by Colin Farrell) tries to get Yang repaired before he decomposes. To tell you any more risks spoiling the film, which is, among other things, a traditional tale of a father coming to terms with his failure to be as involved with his family as he should have. 

But there are haunting flashbacks. The father is a high-level expert on teas, their aromas, their evocation of woods and flowers, soil and sunshine. Yang says something like: I wish I could understand what you smell and taste in tea. Yang is able to drink, and he’s able to talk about taste. Yet it is clear it is always, and only, intellectual for him. Something is missing.

The humans have feelings for Yang, for each other; they inhabit this world of ours. I wondered if Yang was able to have feelings for them; it seemed he would never be able to be other than a visitor to our world.

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An Anglican Note. I preached recently at St. Luke’s on Matthew 15:21-28., the story of Jesus being approached by the Canaanite woman for him to heal her daughter. Jesus is silent, then he speaks (not to her but to the disciples, yet in her hearing) that he was sent only to the lost of Israel. Her great faith comes when she corrects an image he uses! He spoke of children, but she speaks of a table where a master sits and around which household pets (the dogs) find their food also. She finds a place at the Master’s table! 

I then concluded:

“From the first Book of Common Prayer in 1549 to the present, Anglicans have had a distinctive prayer said prior to receiving communion: it is on page 337 now. It’s called the prayer of humble access. “We do not presume to come to this thy table, O Lord, trusting in our own righteousness. . . . We are not worthy to gather up the crumbs under thy table.” This prayer is part of the tradition of today’s gospel. We are the Canaanite woman. Jesus deliberately came to us. When we know him as the Messiah, the Son of David, and when we kneel and worship him as the Lord, he fulfills our every need, satisfying the deepest longings of our hearts.”

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Out & About. I am to preach at Good Shepherd Episcopal Church in Terrell, Tex., on Sunday, Sept. 3. The Eucharist is at 10:30 a.m. I will also be teaching in their adult class at 9:30 a.m., which is working through my little book, A Post-Covid Catechesis.

The Good Books & Good Talk seminar is almost here—Sunday, Sept. 10 at 5 p.m. at St. Matthew’s Cathedral, on Christopher Beha’s The Index of Self-Destructive Acts. I have heard from several people who are enjoying the novel, which foretells a good discussion.

In spring 2024 I will be teaching the ethics class at the Stanton Center, which will be back at St. Matthew’s Cathedral (following the exciting completion of the restoration of Garrett Hall). If you’re interested, drop me a line, or see https://edod.org/our-diocese/stanton-center-for-ministry-formation/

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Unfinished Book Reports

 In these weekly columns I sometimes mention books I’ve read. But the number of books I finish is only a small fraction of the books I start. Recently I wondered, Why should I report only on books I read to the end? So long as I tell you I didn’t finish them, it’s not like I’m cheating in English class, right?

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Mary and Mr. Eliot by Mary Trevelyan and Erica Wagner is the diary (or excerpts from a diary) that Mary (of the title) wrote of her friendship with T. S. Eliot. It was never before published, and was almost lost to posterity, but is now available with annotations and connecting commentary by Wagner. I am a long-time reader of Eliot and can almost recite some of his poetry by heart. It is interesting to learn of this friendship, to get this partial picture of Eliot the man. But I found myself realizing that I prefer thinking about what Eliot’s poetry means rather than what kind of person he was. So the book lingers, waiting for me to push it to the top of the pile again.

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William Lane Craig is a philosopher I have admired for thirty years, a Christian of brilliance who has engaged in dialogue, and sometimes polemic, with atheists. His defense of the existence of God differs from Aquinas’ on the matter of the intelligibility of infinite past time. Craig’s view, I believe, is an error, but it has not diminished my interest in his thought.

His recent tome, In Quest of the Historical Adam, uses his sharp philosophical mind to argue that there really were two historical individuals, Adam and Eve, from whom every human being now existing has descended. The reader gets taken down into the weeds of scientific studies on this. Part of his motivation is evangelical: he wants to defend the truth of the scriptures. Jesus speaks of Adam as an actual person. Jesus cannot be mistaken. Therefore we must believe, etc. I thrill to see a brave man defend an unpopular point of view, especially a view that is despised by the great and the good of society. But my interest in Genesis is first as a text that has something to say to us as such, and so I set this undoubtedly important 400-page book aside.

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Roald Dahl’s children’s books were a favorite of my daughter’s who was long disgusted with her father for not reading them. Recently I picked up The BFG (the letters stand for Big Friendly Giant). This was a re-reading for me, as some years ago I had finally paid attention to her wisdom, but with time and the fading of memory I couldn’t recall the book clearly. But before I could finish it, one of my grandsons visited me and started reading it himself. He picked it up—my copy—at every opportunity. So I’m not yet done. But it is good: it involves saving children from bad giants who eat them, and the solution involves blowing a dream into the ear of the Queen of England. And it is charming: The BFG’s English delights at every turn. He calls you and me, dear reader, “human beans.”

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Out & About. I am to preach this Sunday at St. Luke’s on Royal Lane in Dallas, at 7:30 and 10 a.m. At 11:15 I will lead an introductory class on A Post-Covid Catechesis, the topic being the adventure that we embark upon when we believe God is the creator of everything. Everyone is welcome to the class (as well as, of course, the Eucharist).

The “Good Books & Good Talk” seminar will meet at St. Matthew’s, Sunday, September 10, at 5 p.m., on Christopher Beha’s The Index of Self-Destructive Acts. Anyone who reads the book is welcome to the discussion (others may listen).

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The Rev. Canon Victor Lee Austin. Ph.D., is the Theologian-in-Residence for the diocese and is the author of several books including, "Friendship: The Heart of Being Human" and "A Post-Covid Catechesis.: 

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