AI-Generated Icons? Reclaiming the Incarnation in a Transhumanist World

Some thoughts on the first Sunday of Lent

A few months ago, a lively debate broke out in a popular Orthodox Facebook group I’m in: could—or should—AI be used to create religious icons? The original poster suggested AI might help fill necessary gaps, like producing more icons with vernacular inscriptions or images of under-represented saints.

Over 100 comments poured in. No one fully supported the idea. That’s not what surprised me —we Orthodox are skeptical of anything that smells like a deviation from “capital-T Tradition.” What did surprise me were the reasons people used to articulate their position, and how unsatisfying most of them seemed.

The main objections fell into a few categories:

• Aesthetics: "AI can't get ordinary hands right, and you expect blessing gestures?"

• Ethics: "Using AI for art is a huge copyright infringement."

• Accuracy: "AI adds random symbols and invents meanings."

• Spirituality: AI can’t pray or invite the Holy Spirit into its work, and since both creating and venerating an icon are acts of worship, prayer is essential.

Of course, there were also some comedic gems: “Why worry about AI icons when there are icons literally produced in Ohio?” and “There was never this outrage when baklava went mass-produced…”

Finally, a few took a more nuanced approach, pointing out that AI isn’t inherently demonic—it’s just a tool, developed by humans for humans, one we all use daily. Spell check, search engines, and digital imaging software rely on AI. You may have even found this article or my blog through an AI algorithm. Traditional iconographers have always used non-human tools—paintbrushes, for example—and many today use synthetic pigments or laser-engraved designs. Where do we draw the line?

Although I agree that AI-generated icons seemed deeply problematic somehow, I couldn’t shake the sense that many of these arguments were missing a crucial element. AI will almost certainly advance to produce images nearly indistinguishable from human-made icons, copyright laws may shift too—these developments would address the ethical and aesthetic arguments against AI-generated icons. As for AI’s inability to pray—well, neither can laser printers, yet my small mission parish got many of its first icons that way, thanks be to God.

But this past weekend—the Sunday of Orthodoxy, when we recall the end of the iconoclast heresy in the ninth century—as I watched priests of various backgrounds process with icons beneath the vaulted dome of a hand-painted church at our city’s pan-Orthodox vespers, it hit me: the Incarnation.

The missing piece in this whole discussion was the Incarnation.

What the Iconoclastic Controversy Was Really About

It wasn’t until this weekend I realized how much that debate over AI-generated icons echoed the early church’s struggles over religious imagery during the Iconoclastic Controversy. These conflicts erupted in two major waves (AD 726–787 and 814–843), as Christians hotly debated the role of sacred images. “Iconoclasts” sought to destroy icons, arguing that they violated biblical commandments, while “iconophiles” (or iconodules) defended them as essential to Christian worship. Even though religious images had already been deeply ingrained in Christian tradition (they can be found even on some of the earliest catacombs), these disputes led to not only the destruction of countless religious images but also the persecution—and in some cases, execution—of those who venerated them. (Yes, Christians executing fellow Christians for their faith.)

Given today’s culture of church-shopping and religious consumerism, let’s clear something up: iconoclasm was never about artistic preferences. It was about who Christ is, and who we proclaim Him to be.

Virtually every major controversy in the first-millennium Church—including the iconoclastic controversies—centered on the Mystery of Christ’s two natures: divine and human. To minimize either, even slightly, called the whole project of salvation into question. As St. Gregory the Theologian put it, “That which is not taken up is not healed” (Letter to Cledonius, Ep. 101).

So the real question at the heart of iconoclasm was this:

If Christ, who is fully God, entered the world in flesh and blood, does that mean He can be depicted in visual form? And if so, what does that mean for us, who are made in the image of God?

Iconoclasts (remember they’re the ones against images) pointed to the Old Testament prohibition against graven images (Exodus 20:4-5, Deuteronomy 5:8-9). No one can see God and live (Exodus 33:20), they argued, and the prohibition still stands. Plus, even though Christ took on human nature, portraying Him visually (that is, in His human nature) would reduce His divine nature to mere paint and wood.

But for Iconophiles, icons weren’t just religious artwork—they were proclamations of the Gospel. The prohibition against depicting God no longer applied in the same way because God had revealed Himself in physical form through Christ. Since Jesus, the second Person of the Trinity, became visible, He could be represented in sacred art. To deny this was, in their view, to deny the fullness of the Incarnation itself. Icons weren’t just devotional tools; they were theological statements affirming that Christ took on real human flesh—matter that could be seen, touched, and therefore depicted. Through icons, believers encountered not just a symbol but a visible witness to the mystery of God-made-man.

After much conflict, prayer, and dialogue, the Church ultimately affirmed the veneration—not worship—of icons as a way to honour Christ’s Incarnation.

Back to AI-Generated Icons…

When Christ took on flesh, He didn’t just assume a human form—He entered fully into the material world. He took up residence in our three dimensions.

Some commenters in the Facebook thread got one thing right: icons are more than just art. But they got the reason wrong. Icons aren’t sacred simply because their creators pray over them or because they follow time-honored artistic traditions. These traditions have evolved with time and reverence, and are not necessarily unique to icons. Nor do icons transcend mere artwork just because they’re made in monasteries, displayed in churches, or used in prayer.

Icons are more than art for one reason alone: they are visual, sacramental proclamations of the Gospel.

At the heart of that Gospel is the Incarnation—the Son of God taking on flesh and bone, light and shadow, sight and sound, image and imagination. Icons—both in their making and in their veneration—are an offering, a way of returning material reality to God in a kind of reciprocal incarnation.

Think of an app icon on a home screen: a small window that—when tapped—opens into something bigger and more complete. The icon is not the app itself but an entryway and a type. Likewise, Orthodox icons are not the full reality of Christ or the saints they depict; they are glimpses, invitations into and reminders of the deeper truth of the Incarnation—the truth that all matter has been redeemed and now points back to God, the giver of life.

God’s Incarnation was given to us all at once—in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. Humanity’s incarnation—our learning to become more fully human in the image of Christ—happens over a lifetime, over centuries and millennia. It is slow, painstaking work. Icons, together with Scripture and wisdom and worship and prayer, help us find the way.

They are windows (or mirrors, as it were), teaching us as individuals and as a people how to bear and embody the Incarnation in our own lives. Over generations, we have learned that giving form to this reality requires time, care, and devotion. That participating in this incarnational mystery involves prayer, and the stewardship of creation’s beauty—pigments, egg yolks, gold leaf—and traditions that best weave human creativity with divine truth.

We have learned that God’s invitation into the Incarnation is endless and unfathomable, but that our capacity for reverence is bound by time and space, and that icons help us glimpse that enormity.

We have learned that when Christ took on the world of flesh, He also sanctified it—all of it, including the best and brightest arts humans are capable. He allowed images, songs, words, cultures, to bear and behold Him in their own incomplete ways. And He allowed these things to be beautiful.

So, can AI produce a convincing icon? Could it reduce costs and effort for churches? Yes—but everything we cheapen carries hidden costs.

Technology is not inherently good or evil, and the Church must engage with these questions honestly. But our guiding concern must not be aesthetics, convenience, or ethics—not even technological cynicism.

The Church’s compass, now and ever, must be this: How do we best proclaim the Gospel of the Incarnation? Not just in our words, but in our lives, world, and materiality.

Because when we fail to make Christ and His Incarnation our guide, we deny His (and gradually our own) humanity. In a world of smartphone addiction, rising political hostility, and degredation of creation, we are already well on our way to denying our humanity. Icons, and the gracious Incarnation they invite us back into, are one of the paths Christian tradition offers back to ourselves.

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Full disclosure: like most of my posts, this one was copy edited for grammatical errors by ChatGPT.

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