AI and other telestial tools vs. drawing upon God’s power to move the mountains in my life

NEWSFLASH: Elder Bednar reminds us that the latest “new thing,” advances in artificial intelligence or AI (like other technological advances such as social media and the internet), can be used in ways that are both helpful and harmful. On the one hand, he taught during a worldwide devotional for young adults held at BYU-Idaho on November 3, 2024, “this remarkable technology offers the potential of advancing knowledge, improving our quality of life, facilitating communication and connection, enhancing personal learning and growth, and fostering creativity and innovation.” But it “also has the potential to obscure our true identity as sons and daughters of a loving Heavenly Father, distract us from the eternal truths and righteous work necessary for spiritual growth, engender pride and a diminished acknowledgment of our dependence upon God, and distort or replace meaningful human interaction.” In other words, our use of AI can be spiritually enobling or damning--depending on how we use it.[1]

Pace of technological change. When I was growing up as a teenager in New Jersey and getting to know my grandparents, who raised their 14 children (excluding the 2 who died in infancy) in Star Valley, Wyoming in the 1920’s, ‘30’s and ‘40’s, I used to think, “I will never experience the degree of technological changes they experienced during their lifetimes.”[2] Grandpa Fluckiger, as a high school freshman in 1919, rode to school 9 miles on horseback from Bedford to Afton (by sleigh in the winter). When he was going to grade school in Bedford, automobiles were a rarity.

Lately, however, I am beginning to wonder whether I actually may be witnessing more technological marvels than even my grandfather. About the time I was starting my first mission to Brazil in 1971, Ray Tomlison invented email. As I was beginning my legal career in the early 1980’s, ARPANET and the Defense Data Network switched to the Transfer Control Protocol/Internetwork Protocol (TCP/IP) standard, inaugurating the age of the internet. I still remember in those early days as a young lawyer in a multi-office national firm (which later became a global firm with offices around the world), in order to show the other parties to multimillion dollar contracts we were negotiating the changes we were proposing to the terms of the draft agreements, I had to use a ruler and red pencil to underline each change in wording and punctuation (manual tracked changes!).

To our grandchildren, the pace of technological change today seems second nature.

But as I was trying to figure out last week how to convert a .wav audio file created by google’s new LMNotebook AI application for each chapter of my book to an .mp4 file to upload it to my www.temples-spritual-treasures.com website, I might as well have been attempting to master the FOIL method for binomial factoring or the Slip and Slide Method for trinomial factoring (whatever they are!). And, of course, even these simple tasks (“simple” for your average 12 year old that is) pale beside trying to understand all of the math behind this amazing new AI technology which, among many other things, can convert book chapters about LDS temple doctrines and ordinances into “witty” conversations between a “man” and “woman” who at times seem like they understand (or even are active members of) the LDS church. Judge for yourself by giving a listen at https://www.temple-spiritual-treasures.com/s-projects-basic.

Change to what end? As I consider the implications of the pace of technological change in our day, two truths come to mind. First, however amazing human achievements appear, whether technological, architectural (including such engineering feats as the 2,717´ Burj Khalifa megatall skyscraper in Dubai) or societal, they pale beside the intellectual, moral and societal possibilities God offers His children through His plan of salvation and exaltation. Next to such unimaginable wonders as the “thrones,  kingdoms, principalities, powers and dominions” (D&C 132:19) offered to heirs of the celestial kingdom, and all the “heights and depths” associated therewith, the things of this world pale into insignificance. Second, God is the source of every good thing. As Elder Bednar pointed out, quoting Brigham Young's observation in 1862, “every discovery in science and art, that is really true and useful to mankind, has been given by direct revelation from God.” And, of course, everything that God can create for our good, Satan seems to be able to distort and turn to our destruction, as Elder Bednar further explained, quoting David O. McKay, who prophesied that scientific discoveries that “stagger the imagination” would not only further God’s work but constitue “discoveries latent with such potent power, either for the blessing or the destruction of human beings as to make men’s responsibility in controlling them the most gigantic ever placed in human hands. … This age is fraught with limitless perils, as well as untold possibilities.”[3]

The real question for each of us is are we aware and in control of the impact these tools have, for good or bad, in our own lives? While those AI “conversations” I have posted on my website about the spiritual treasures of the temple may be cool, their real usefulness is in motivating someone to "dive deeper" (to use the very phrase google's AI algorithm coined) by searching the scriptures to discover for themselves the sublime, celestial “mysteries of the kingdom, even the key of the knowledge of God” (D&C 84:19). The Lord endows His Saints with this indispensible knowledge by the power of the Holy Ghost as we seek it with all of our hearts. AI may help you start the journey, but it will never get you to your ultimate destination. As Elder Bednar put it, AI may help us to “think telestial,” but only the Spirit of God enables us to “think [or comprehend] celestial.”

Drawing upon God's power to become. “Celestial” knowledge, that is truths revealed to us by the power of the Holy Ghost, unlock even greater treasures, including, perhaps most important of all, the spiritual treasure of access to God’s power. Power for what? Power to become—even to “grow up in [God]” and receive “a fulness of the Holy Ghost” (D&C 109:15). President Nelson has repeatedly counseled us that “more regular time in the temple will allow the Lord to teach you how to draw upon His priesthood power with which you have been endowed in His temple” (“Sisters’ Participation in the Gathering of Israel,” October 2018) and that every endowed “woman and every [endowed] man . . . receive[s] a gift of God’s priesthood power by virtue of their covenant, along with a gift of knowledge to know how to draw upon that power.” (“Spiritual Treasures,” October 2019)

President Emily Belle Freeman, Young Women General President, addressed this subject in her talk, “Live Up to Your Privileges,” in October 2024 General Conference. She described how, facing the news that her husband had received a diagnosis that would require an intensive surgery and months of chemotherapy, she immediately began praying for heaven’s help and God’s power. As she partook of the sacrament the Sunday following her husband’s surgery in his hospital room, “in the midst of great heartache, exhaustion, and uncertainty,” she wondered about these gifts that would allow her to draw upon power from God Himself that she “so desperately needed.” She knew (and spoke about) the promise in verse 20 of Section 84 (a revelation about priesthood purposes and power) that “in the ordinances” of the priesthood “the power of godliness is manifest”—the power to increase our companionship with the Spirit of the Lord,[4] allowing us to draw upon the gift of God’s power, including the ministering of angels[5] and the Savior’s enabling strength to overcome.

While we may not be going (or have gone) through the specific challenge President and Brother Freeman are currently experiencing, their experience resonates with each of us. “Perhaps in no other area of our lives is the ability to draw upon the Savior’s power more important than the intensely personal need to move what President Nelson calls the ‘mountains’ in our lives.” These mountains can originate through circumstances mostly external to us, often outside our control, such as serious illness, accidents, abuse, poverty, natural disasters, wars and so forth, but also internal challenges mentioned by President Nelson, such as “loneliness, doubt, . . . or other personal problems.” “Such personal problems include our weaknesses, character flaws, compulsions, addictions and other shortcomings.” (See “Major Themes” at https://www.temple-spiritual-treasures.com/themes-of-the-book) How we confront these “mountains” of mortality ultimately will determine the kingdom we inherit in eternity, or, as President Nelson has described it, “where you will live throughout all eternity, the kind of body with which you will be resurrected, and those with whom you will live forever.” (“Think Celestial,” October 2023 General Conference)

Returning to our AI analogy, if we rely on our own strength, or only the wisdom or moral relativism this telestial, secular world offers (however, wittily, rationally or seductively they may be presented), we at best can hope for a telestial or possibly a terrestrial body, life or world in the eternities. If we hope for a celestial reward or outcome, we must tap into celestial, or “heavenly” (outside this world) sources of help or power.

The gospel of Jesus Christ (not to mention such humble attempts to highlight some elements of that gospel as are found in works like Drawing Upon the Spiritual Treasures of the Temple) contains the “truths revealed by the Savior through his servants ancient and modern on how” to tap into these heavenly power sources.

“Simply put, ‘through your faith’ to follow the Savior by keeping your covenants with Him, ‘Jesus Christ will increase your ability to move the mountains in your life.’ What does President Nelson specifically invite us to do to develop such ‘faith and trust’ in God to move the mountains in our lives? ‘Study’ and ‘become an engaged learner;’ ‘choose to believe in Jesus Christ’; ‘act in faith;’ ‘partake of sacred ordinances worthily,’ which ‘unlock the power of God for your life;’ and ‘ask your Heavenly Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, for help.’” (Russell M. Nelson, “Christ Is Risen; Faith in Him Will Move Mountains,” April 2021, as quoted in “Major Themes” at https://www.temple-spiritual-treasures.com/themes-of-the-book)

Or, as Sister Freeman put it, “we [can’t] just make covenant promises—we must keep them.” We must deeply internalize, as the endowment teaches us, who we are and whose we are—daughters and sons in Christ’s kingdom! We must identify (including through our patriarchal blessings) and intentionally magnify with all of our hearts, mights (or social influence), mind (there’s that “study” invitation again) and strength the “sacred roles” and divine purposes that we have been foreordained to fulfill in this life. And we must daily engage in the “process of inward sanctification” that prepares us for exaltation. “Except thou do this,” the Lord explained to Emma Smith and each of us, “where I am you cannot come.” (“Live Up to Your Privileges,” October 2024 General Conference). As we do this, however, we can trust in the Lord’s promise to us in our day: “I will put my law in [your] inward parts, and write it in [your] heart; and will be [your] God, and [you] shall be” mine. Then we no longer need to be told, “Know the Lord”: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord” (Jeremiah 31:33–34). Which includes, most importantly, how we draw upon His power, from day to day and week to week, line upon line and principle upon principle, until we overcome every mountain in our lives.

[1] David A. Bednar, "Things as They Really Are 2.0," November 3, 2024, https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/broadcasts/worldwide-devotional-for-young-adults/2024/11/13bednar?lang=eng. [2] As Elder Bednar described it, "an important aspect of the [prophesied fulness of times that we live in] today is a miraculous progression of innovations and inventions that have enabled and accelerated God’s work of salvation and exaltation: from trains to telegraphs to radios to automobiles to airplanes to telephones to transistors to televisions to computers to satellite transmissions to the internet to artificial intelligence—and to an almost endless list of technologies and tools that bless our lives. All of these advancements are part of the Lord hastening His work in the latter days." Bednar, "Things as They Really Are 2.0." [3] Ibid. [4] Sister Freeman cites Elder D. Todd Christofferson: “In all the ordinances, especially those of the temple, we are endowed with power from on high. This ‘power of godliness’ comes in the person and by the influence of the Holy Ghost. … I testify that God will keep His promises to you as you honor your covenants with Him. … He will, by His Holy Spirit, fill you with godly power” (”The Power of Covenants,” Ensign or Liahona, May 2009, 22, 23). [5] Sister Freeman cites President Nelson: “Every man and every woman who participates in priesthood ordinances and who makes and keeps covenants with God has direct access to the power of God” (“The Everlasting Covenant,” Liahona, Oct. 2022, 10). Photos Luka Verč and Joe Richmond Unsplash