It has been said that we are living in the “Imagination Age,” and that our technological advances and capabilities know no bounds.
In one sense, that seems true. In the last twenty years we have invented and built technology that can problem-solve, detect things, and do just about anything we tell or program it to do.
Mere consumers?
These advances claim they leave us free for the “important things” in life. This forces us to stop and ask ourselves: “free for what? What is the most important thing in life?”
Technology has saved us tremendous amounts of time and effort. Yet in its ingenuity, some have mistakenly placed their reason, intellect, emotions, and even their identities.
In reality, the producers of technology have reduced us to nothing more than consumers of their endless technological goods that leave us feeling empty inside.
Our means to greater convenience have become our ends and, as B.B. King lamented, “The thrill is gone.”
In the midst of creating things to carry our burdens for us, individuals in our society have lost their sense of purpose.
Cogs in a machine; machine in a “cog”
The reduction of the human person has happened over and over again throughout human history, and we know this. For instance, in the social construct of Communism–after millions of deaths–most realize the acclaimed utopia of the “workers’ paradise” was really an oxymoron describing a form of slavery wherein people were reduced to mere cogs in the great machine of the state.
Today, it is the inverse. As we allow A.I. to think for us more and more, the human person is being reduced to a manipulatable “mini-machine” in a “cogged” virtual world.
This is simply reductionism in different packaging–the dehumanization of humans in another form and, instead of our world getting bigger, it grows ever smaller in self-made isolation.
Recently, Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia found it “extremely troubling” that people think their individual rights (i.e., life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and private property) come from God and not the government. He further compared this idea to the Islamic theocracy of Iran.
Talk about radical reductionism! If the government is the sole proprietor of our human rights, then the state also has the right to take them away (which is the case in Iran).
Hope amid darkness
The good news is, there is hope in amid the darkness in these times. Across the world where Christian culture has died, Generation Z has “raged against the machine” of the ever-evolving A.I.
In a world devoid of purpose, they have grappled with the age-old question of Aristotle and Socrates: “Why am I really here?”
As the world refuses to provide an adequate answer, young people (rightly) feel cheated, and a new vigor has emerged that defies the oppressive grip of materialism and scientism.
They yearn for the one thing the “Age of Imagination” refuses to give them: objective reality instead of virtual reality. They seek the immense freedom that flows from embracing the fullness of unchanging truth.
Turning to God has become their rebellion.
According to Word on Fire, an apostolate spearheaded by Bishop Robert Barron of Minnesota, young adult baptisms have increased 30-70% in dioceses across the United States in 2024. And according to The Pillar, this trend is continuing worldwide. Countries like Sweden, the UK, Belgium, France, Australia, Mongolia, and Canada have seen tremendous increases in their young adults turning to Christianity.
In Austria alone, there has been an astounding 85% increase in Catholics preparing for baptism in 2025.
The youth–not A.I.–is our true future, and they are rejecting the lies the world is trying to sell them.
A.I. and reductionism
Of course, A.I. is not the necessarily the primary cause for Gen Z’s search for God. It is simply the latest tool the global elites have employed to attain their goal of total subjugation and control of the masses.
This, too, is reductionism.
When weaponized, A.I. can stop the exchange of information, deny money or goods to certain populations, mix the truth with lies, spread confusion through deception, and attempt to eliminate truth from all digital platforms. This is already taking place in its fullness in Communist countries around the world.
Transgenderism: another form of reductionism
With the varied examples of reductionist philosophies applied to the human person today, perhaps the most insidious is one that seeks to convince us to regard ourselves as purely “sexual beings” instead of rational beings.
In reality, the reproductive aspect of our humanity is but a tiny slice of our capabilities as human beings. Our sexuality and the generation of children is one of God’s greatest gifts to us. It is only when it is misused that it becomes our greatest downfall.
Outside of a faithful and fruitful marriage between one man and one woman, sexuality is no longer love but becomes the deadly sin of lust.
Apart from defiling us, this dangerous philosophy has had disastrous consequences, leading to condoning homosexual lifestyles and gender dysphoria in children.
The rotten fruits of embracing sexual sin are being played out right before out eyes, including the abuse, exploitation, mutilation, and the outright murder of children. In an alarming trend, since 2018, five mass shooters have identified themselves as “transgender/nonbinary” people.
It’s clear that limiting ourselves to merely sexual beings is leaving untold damage in its bloody wake.
The remedy? Christianity
As always, authentic Christianity is the remedy for all our errors, including reductionist assaults on the dignity of the human person.
Christianity widens our scope of thinking, healing our disordered view of ourselves. Christians know that it’s not just life we seek, but eternal life with God in heaven. We endure all things because of the hope we have in someday sharing in God’s most abundant joy and everlasting freedom–something this temporary life cannot give us.
A Christian would never accept anything less.
Gen Z is proof that we all crave eternal beauty, truth, and joy. And they give the rest of us hope in their courage to seek Christ in a world that vehemently rejects Him.
Let us help them find the love they crave in the arms of Jesus Christ in the one holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church.