The Antichrist - What the Bible and the Catholic Church Teach
Peter Thiel warns of the Antichrist. But what does the Catholic Church really teach? The Bible shows where his dangerous deception lies and how Christians can recognize it.
Of all places, it is Silicon Valley, the heart of the American technology industry, where talk of the Antichrist has resurfaced. The American billionaire Peter Thiel warns of a future world government that, under the promise of peace and security, could seize ever greater power for itself. In his recent lectures, he also criticized Pope Leo XIV, accusing him of using concerns about artificial intelligence to distract from the Catholic Church's abuse scandals (Politico, October 8, 2026).
Thiel draws on biblical expectations of the end times. But is the Antichrist really to be found where governments limit technological progress? Catholic teaching leads us to a deeper question: How does one recognize the deception that seeks to lead people away from Jesus Christ and His work of redemption?
What does the Bible say about the Antichrist?
The Antichrist is already in the world
When we think of the Antichrist, we usually picture a mysterious ruler who will subjugate the world at the end of time. All the more surprising, then, is the statement of the Apostle John: “you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have appeared” (1 John 2:18).
John speaks of a figure yet to come, while at the same time noting that already in his day many antichrists had appeared. The spirit of antichrist, then, does not belong exclusively to a distant future.
How can it be recognized? John gives a clear answer: “this is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son” (1 John 2:22).
With this he names the decisive criterion. The enmity of the Antichrist is directed against Jesus Christ, the Son of God made man, through whom the Father has redeemed the world.
Another important passage is found in the Second Letter to the Thessalonians. There Paul announces the coming of the “man of lawlessness” who exalts himself above everything that is called God or is worshiped. Finally, he takes his seat in the temple of God, declaring himself to be God (cf. 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4).
In this, Paul describes a monstrous presumption: a creature claiming the position of its Creator. At the same time, he warns of deceptive signs and wonders by which people can be led away from the truth (cf. 2 Thessalonians 2:9-12).
The danger, then, does not lie in external power or force alone. Far more serious is the deception through which people become willing to follow a false savior.
The false messiah and the final trial of the Church
Before the second coming of Christ, the Church will pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. The deception of the Antichrist consists in a religious fraud that offers mankind “a pseudo-solution to their problems” at the price of apostasy from the truth (CCC 675).
Here lies the key to understanding the Antichrist. He appears as a false messiah and promises a redemption meant to make man independent of God. In the place of the incarnate Redeemer comes the self-glorification of man.
It is striking that this warning applies explicitly to the Church as well. Even believers can fall prey to such deception. Christ warns His disciples against false messiahs and false prophets who will perform “great signs and wonders” so as to deceive, if possible, even the elect (Matthew 24:24).
The Church must therefore constantly ask herself whether she truly places Christ and His work of redemption at the center. Where the proclamation of eternal salvation is displaced by purely earthly notions of salvation, a dangerous confusion looms. For this very reason, we must not tear Scripture out of its contextin order to justify our own ideas.
The deception of the Antichrist – redemption without Christ
“You will be like God” (Genesis 3:5): the oldest temptation
To understand the spiritual dimension of the Antichrist, we must go back to the very beginning of Scripture.
In paradise, the serpent promises man: “You will be like God” (Genesis 3:5). In doing so, it plants the suspicion that God is withholding something from man. Man is to decide good and evil for himself and achieve his goal independently of his Creator.
The same temptation accompanies the entire history of mankind. Saint Augustine describes it in his work The City of God. Two kinds of love, he explains, give rise to two different communities: self-love even to the contempt of God, and love of God even to the contempt of self (Augustine, The City of God, XIV, 28).
Augustine knew this inner struggle from his own experience. His long search for truth and his conversion show how difficult it can be to submit one's own will to the will of God.
Herein also lies the spiritual origin of antichristian self-exaltation. Man makes himself the final measure of all things and loses sight of his Creator.
Can man redeem himself?
The desire for a better world is legitimate. It becomes problematic, however, when man believes he can bring about his own ultimate salvation through political power or technological progress.
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This question takes on new significance today. Medicine is extending human life, artificial intelligence is taking on ever more demanding tasks, and some proponents of transhumanism even hope one day to overcome death itself.
Of course, scientific progress is not inherently reprehensible. Healing diseases and relieving suffering are among the good possibilities of human reason.
But let us imagine that, thanks to new medical procedures, a person could live to be two hundred years old. He would witness several generations of his descendants. Would he thereby have gained eternal life?
Paul writes: “But the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23). Eternal life is communion with God. No technological development can produce it.
Here it becomes clear where Thiel's interpretation of the Antichrist begins to falter. He invokes Paul's warning: “When people say, ‘Peace and security,’ then sudden destruction will come upon them” (1 Thessalonians 5:3). But Paul is speaking here of the unexpected day of the Lord and is calling Christians to vigilance: “So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober” (1 Thessalonians 5:6). How Thiel wants to derive from this a warning against limiting technological power remains unclear. The biblical text, in any case, does not support it.
Even more astonishing is what Thiel leaves out. For the hope of overcoming every limit of human life through technological progress can likewise become a false promise of salvation. Thiel locates the antichristian danger, of all places, in those who wish to set limits on technological power. He does not sufficiently take into account that boundless faith in progress can itself be a form of human self-exaltation. Thus a serious biblical warning becomes a confirmation of his own political convictions.
The true divinization of man
Catholic theology does indeed know the promise that man, too, will share in divine life. The second Letter of Peter speaks of believers receiving “a share in the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4).
Saint Athanasius formulates this thought with particular force: the Word of God “became man so that we might become god” (Athanasius, On the Incarnation of the Word, 54,3).
What does this mean?
Through His incarnation, death and resurrection, Christ opens to man communion with God. This communion begins already in our baptism, grows through sanctifying grace, and finds its fulfillment in the eternal vision of God.
A decisive difference from the temptation in paradise. The serpent promises man that he can become like God by his own power. Christ, by contrast, grants him a share in divine life through His grace.
Christian divinization is a gift of God. Man remains a creature and receives his fulfillment from his Creator.
The antichristian seduction completely reverses this order. It promises man a fulfillment achieved by his own power, for which he supposedly no longer needs Christ.
How can Christians recognize the Antichrist?
Christ gives us a decisive clue: “You will know them by their fruits” (Matthew 7:16). This also applies to the seduction of the Antichrist. It does not begin only with a powerful ruler at the end of time. Already today we encounter ideas that lead us to believe we can shape our lives entirely by our own strength and no longer need God.
Thoughts like these confront us in everyday life more often than we might first assume. When success and prosperity become the highest goal in life, when we place our trust solely in science and technology, or believe that all problems can be solved through political decisions, there is a danger that God will increasingly disappear from our lives. Not every one of these hopes is therefore already antichristian. It becomes dangerous where they take the place that belongs to God alone.
The Apostle John names the decisive mark: the denial of Jesus Christ as the incarnate Son of God (cf. 1 John 2:22; 4:2–3). That is why we should also ask ourselves in everyday life where a conviction leads us. Does it strengthen our trust in Christ? Does it help us to live according to His Gospel? Or are we growing accustomed to expecting our salvation solely from human possibilities?
Christ did not promise us that we would already create a perfect world on earth. He promised us eternal life. That is why we must not let ourselves be dazzled by the great promises of our age. Our hope rests on Him, on His death and His resurrection.
The Antichrist will not have the last word. At the end of the Book of Revelation, God Himself speaks: “Behold, I make all things new” (Revelation 21:5). We may hold fast to this, even when the world promises us something different.
About Lukasz Holfeld
Editor / author at Priesterausbildungshilfe.
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