Altman, Musk, and Belief in God

Sep 29, 2025

The discussion dives into whether tech leaders like Sam Altman and Elon Musk believe in God, exploring the tension between materialism and spirituality. Altman identifies as a tech nerd, viewing the world through an engineering lens that leaves little room for the divine. Musk's mechanistic worldview reduces ultimate purpose to efficiency. The hosts reflect on how screens and modernity numb transcendence while pondering Steve Jobs' search for something more meaningful. The conversation concludes with strategies to re-enchant everyday life and refocus awe toward the Creator.

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INSIGHT

Buffered Self Explains Modern Disenchantment

Charles Taylor’s “buffered self” explains why modern people feel cut off from the supernatural.
Technology and choice create a self-contained identity that numbs awareness of transcendence.

ANECDOTE

Sam Altman: Tech Nerd Skepticism

Sam Altman told Tucker Carlson he feels "nothing divine" about ChatGPT and calls himself a tech nerd.
He admits to believing "something bigger" than physics but resists spiritual framing for his product.

INSIGHT

Mechanistic Operating System Limits Meaning

Elon Musk frames reality through a physics/engineering "operating system," favoring efficient causes over ultimate purposes.
This mechanistic lens exemplifies modern disenchantment even as it achieves technological awe.

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Do tech leaders believe in God?

What are the reasons why they tend to believe in what is material, but not what is immaterial? Is there anything beyond matter to an engineer in a secular age? When you've been trained on analyzing the nature of things, you struggle to consider a thing of supernature. Perhaps this is what has happened.

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI (ChatGPT), says he views the world as a tech-nerd, and therefore, in his own logic, he does not believe in spiritual things. Elon Musk is similar, as a clip in this episode shows. And just wait till you hear what Steve Jobs said! We all need God. And he's more real than we realize.

00:00 - Intro

3:00 - Why enchantment? What secular age?

14:00 - Sam Altman's lack of belief

20:45 - Elon Musk and the sensus divitatis

31:29 - Steve Jobs, "there must be more"

35:12 - We are NOT less enchanted

We're hiring! If you're interested in becoming the WWJT Podcast Manager, please see job description and application process here: https://x.com/AndrewDNoble/status/1971207236455420089

Books cited:

Charles Taylor – A Secular Age (2007)

The foundational 800-page philosophical work on how belief in God shifted in modernity.

James K. A. Smith – How (Not) to Be Secular: Reading Charles Taylor (2014)

A short, accessible summary and engagement with Taylor’s A Secular Age.

Alan Noble – Disruptive Witness: Speaking Truth in a Distracted Age (2018) Applies Charles Taylor’s framework to technology, culture, and Christian witness.

Tony Reinke – God, Technology, and the Christian Life (2022)

A biblical theology of technology; argues all technology should point us back to awe and gratitude toward the Creator.

Joseph Minich – Enduring Divine Absence: The Challenge of Modern Atheism (2017)

Explores the modern sense of God’s absence and how to live faithfully amid it.

Walter Isaacson – Steve Jobs (2011)

The definitive biography of Steve Jobs, including his reflections on death, the afterlife, and transcendence.

Gray Sutanto – A Sense of the Divine: An Affective Model of General Revelation from the Reformed Tradition (2025)

A scholarly work building on Calvin, Herman Bavinck, and J.H. Bavinck on the “sense of the divine” (sensus divinitatis).

Original Music by Abigail Neale. The Thumbnail was created in Sam Altman's and OpenAI's GPT-5. AI audio text-to-speech by ElevenLabs.

What Would Jesus Tech? is cohosted by Andrew Noble, Joel Jacob, and Austin Gravley. To learn more about What Would Jesus Tech and to support the show, visit whatwouldjesustech.com