Embodied prophetic imagination (EPI) starts by imagining a new humanity, a fulfilled humanity, inaugurated by the first coming of Christ to be completed by the Second coming. Embodied because is not just proclaimed but lived out (practical, descriptive and material). Prophetic because it should point to the future restoration of all things (demonstrate now how things will / should be). Imagination because it must imagine in this present situation (it will look different depending on context). Every company/organization/family/individual should have an EPI in their vision. That EPI should never be just individual but always in service of a community (whether local, regional or global).

The prophet Isaiah exemplifies this well in Isaiah in 11:6-9

“The wolf will romp with the lamb, the leopard sleep with the kid. Calf and lion will eat from the same trough, and a little child will tend them. Cow and bear will graze the same pasture, their calves and cubs grow up together, and the lion eat straw like the ox. The nursing child will crawl over rattlesnake dens, the toddler stick his hand down the hole of a serpent. Neither animal nor human will hurt or kill on my holy mountain. The whole earth will be brimming with knowing God-Alive, a living knowledge of God ocean-deep, ocean-wide.” (The Message)

Here the prophet sees a radically different natural order where predators live in peace with preys. This is prophetic imagination at work, pointing us to a vision of the coming future where goodness will prevail. This is the inspiration for a transformed life in the present.

What does EPI look like at AI theology? This blog is all about imagining a new world. We are inspired on the tradition passed on by the Judeo-Christian prophets and handed out to us in the Bible. This is our starting point. Then we look at the possibilities within our context of AI in the world to imagine what these dreams would look like in our time. We describe glimpses of it through blogs. We also organize resources and execute projects that will either enrich our ability to explore data or to embody the God’s coming social order.

I end it with the timeless prayer of Saint Francis:

“Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy.

O, Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love; For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; it is in dying that we are born again to eternal life.”

Amen