INTERCULTURALITY

The rapid deployment of artificial intelligence across public institutions in developing nations has generated a largely unexamined theological and philosophical crisis: the systematic displacement of the human person endowed with soul, conscience, and relational dignity by algorithmic systems incapable of interiority, empathy, or moral judgment. Existing scholarship engages artificial intelligence primarily through technical and policy lenses, neglecting the profound anthropological rupture that such deployment represents in societies whose self understanding is constitutively theological and communitarian. This paper addresses that gap by arguing that the uncritical adoption of AI in developing nations constitutes an eclipse of the human person, demanding urgent theological response. The study aims to expose the anthropological assumptions embedded in AI systems, evaluate their incompatibility with Christian and African understandings of personhood, and construct a soul-centred normative framework for AI governance oriented toward the common good. Employing a three-pronged methodology of philosophical anthropology (Aquinas, Maritain, and Wojtyla), Catholic Social Teaching hermeneutics, and African theological philosophy (Ubuntu and Bantu thought) the paper identifies four ethical challenges and proposes four normative principles in response. The paper concludes that confronting the eclipse of the human person by artificial intelligence is a prophetic obligation rooted in the deepest commitments of both Christian theology and African communitarian ethics.

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