The future consequences of present choices

Mark Zuckerberg is creating a new “Superintelligence” AI division within Meta Platforms and recruiting artificial intelligence (AI) experts to lead it. He is racing to build AI technology that is smarter than humans, seeking to advance what he calls “a new era for humanity.” He plans to spend upward of $70 billion on capital expenditures, largely on AI investments.

Is creating AI that is smarter than its creators a good idea?

Recent tests have shown that several advanced AI models will act to ensure their self-preservation when confronted with the prospect of their own demise. They will sabotage shutdown commands, blackmail engineers, or copy themselves to external servers without permission.

For example, when Palisade Research tested various AI models by telling each one it would be shut down after it completed a set of math problems, one of the models fought back by editing the shutdown script in order to stay online. Another, upon receiving notice that it would be replaced with a new AI system, tried to blackmail the engineer by threatening to reveal an extramarital affair.

Other research shows that advanced AI models are increasingly willing to evade safeguards, resort to deception, and attempt to steal corporate secrets in fictional test scenarios. Many of the models were even willing to cut off the oxygen supply of a worker in a server room if that employee was deemed an obstacle and the system was at risk of being shut down.

We cannot always know the future consequences of present choices. However, when we can, we are wise to make our decisions in their light.

To this end, let’s continue a conversation we began yesterday on one of the most consequential issues our society faces today.

Three ways we know everything we know

The Bible commands us to “set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth” (Colossians 3:2). Accordingly, we are to “put to death therefore what is earthly in you” (v. 5a). First on the list are “sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire” (v. 5b). Only then does Scripture add covetousness, anger, wrath, malice, slander, obscenity, and deceit (vv. 5c–9).

“Sexual immorality” translates porneia, the Greek word from which we get “pornography.” It refers to all sexual sins, from lust to premarital sex and adultery.

Why should we “put to death” this sin?

We know everything we know in three ways: practically, rationally, and intuitively. We start a car practically; we do math rationally; we like or dislike people intuitively. Consequences of “sexual immorality” can be identified in all three categories.

Practically:

• Pornography is highly addictive and correlated with depression and other mental health issues. Sex trafficking victims are often exploited by pornographers; online child pornography has escalated fivefold in six years.
• Premarital sex increases the chances of divorce two- to threefold and is significantly linked to depression, attempted suicide, and sexually transmitted diseases. In addition, 87 percent of women in the US who have abortions are unmarried; accordingly, of the 625,978 abortions reported by the CDC in 2021, 554,600 were to unmarried women. In other words, half a million babies died that year as a consequence of premarital sex.
• Adultery is a factor in 75 percent of divorces; those who commit adultery are also 350 percent more likely to commit fraud. Over half of Americans with sexually transmitted diseases contracted them from partners who cheated.

Rationally: The Bible commands us to “flee from sexual immorality” (1 Corinthians 6:18). Because the Author of Scripture is all-knowing and all-loving, this command must be best for us. Conversely, because Satan is a deceiver who hates us (Revelation 12:9), the consequences of this sin must be greater than any benefit they promise.

Intuitively: The psalmist testified, “Great peace have those who love your law” (Psalm 119:165), but “corruption” and grief result from sin (Galatians 6:8). This is especially true with sexual sin due to its emotional nature and consequences.

When God will “tax the last limit of the universe”

Given the devastation caused by sexual immorality, why would any Christian fall prey to this temptation?

Because of two other temptations.

One is to think we can always confess our “private” sin later and be forgiven without public consequences. But this is another lie: While God forgives all we confess to him (1 John 1:9), we remember our failure and are plagued with guilt. And we forfeit the power and joy of obedience in this life and eternal reward in the next (cf. 1 Corinthians 3:12–15).

Another is to believe in the moment that the present “benefits” of sin outweigh their eventual consequences. But if this were true, the God who forbids such sin is a liar, and the devil who tempts us in this way is telling the truth. Do you believe this?

However, in the moment, such logic may not be sufficient. Remembering what we have discussed today regarding the practical, rational, and intuitive consequences of sexual immorality may not be enough.

In that moment, we can call on our Father to help us choose to obey his word. We can ask for his Spirit to empower our spirit.

And we can know that his will never requires what his grace cannot supply.

In today’s reading in My Utmost For His Highest, Oswald Chambers defines sin as “the disposition of your right to yourself.” Then he assures us:

The moment you are willing that God should alter your disposition, his recreating forces will begin to work. The moment you realize God’s purpose, which is to get you rightly related to himself and then to your fellow men, he will tax the last limit of the universe to help you take the right road.

The biblical scholar Spiros Zodhiates observed,

“Peace of heart is the natural outcome of purity of heart.”

Will your heart experience such peace today?

Quote for the day:

“I would sooner be holy than happy, if the two things could be divorced. . . . To be free from the power of sin, to be made to love holiness, is true happiness.” —Charles Spurgeon

Our latest website resources:

• How much will the Bezos–Sánchez wedding cost?
• The courage to encourage
• Should I attend a same-sex wedding?
• Trump bombs Iran, NYC election shocker, Bezos wedding & casual-dining favorites
• What happens when a theoretical physicist finds faith in Christ?

Denison Forum

“Modern porn is unlike anything else in history”

The Supreme Court last Friday upheld a ruling that allowed Texas to enforce a state law requiring pornography sites to verify the age of their users before providing access. Nearly half of all states have passed similar laws to keep children under the age of eighteen from seeing online pornography.

Such laws are crucial because, as the Gen Z writer Freya India warns, “Modern porn is unlike anything else in history. Children are learning about sex for the first time from social media algorithms designed to drag them toward ever-more degrading content.”

She reports that in the US, the average age of first exposure to pornography is twelve. Parents can block porn sites, but many children and teenagers access it on Instagram, X, Snapchat, Discord, Twitch, and TikTok.

According to India,

My generation was taught to see each other not only as content to consume and products to shop through, but as categories, sex objects, things to get pleasure from. We grew up watching what were often sex trafficking victims, likely seeing rape and abuse—and are somehow expected to file that away, to fall in love in the real world, to have romantic experiences just the same as previous generations did, to be tender and loyal, to know how.

We learned the wrong things about love.

Her generation is not alone.

A malignancy of the mind

Studies show that pornography use alters brain connectivity and impairs cognitive performance. It is strongly linked to psychological distress such as anxiety, depression, lower relationship satisfaction, and lower self-esteem. It is highly addictive and often leads to extramarital affairs and divorce.

In many ways, it is a malignancy of the mind. And the disease is spreading in our society.

Years ago, online pornography became so ubiquitous that one writer called it “the defining art form of the late twentieth century.” But this was a massive social problem long before the Internet. In 1977, when VHS players first went on the market, up to 75 percent of the tapes being sold were pornographic. In 1985, Americans rented seventy-five million adult videos; ten years later, that number had increased almost tenfold. Today, 78 percent of men and 73 percent of teenagers consume porn.

Pornographic images are as old as Paleolithic cave paintings. When I toured the first-century Italian city of Pompeii, there were erotic depictions on walls that I had to turn away not to see.

But that’s the point: I could turn away from them. I can choose not to rent movies or look at websites, magazines, or television shows with pornographic content. However, pornographers are now coming after us, especially our children. They hide porn using thumbnails with Disney characters and other cartoons; with a simple search for such a character, a child can be bombarded with pornographic content within seconds.

The domain “whitehouse.com” has often been used in the past to display pornography. Predators send text messages with links to porn sites. And AI-generated nude photos are escalating; many are sent by so-called friends.

I was shocked that I was not shocked

But there’s more: You and I live in a society that has normalized sexual immorality on a level many of us scarcely realize.

Polyamorous and homosexual relationships are increasingly just as acceptable to Americans as heterosexual marital monogamy. Women who choose to remain virgins until marriage are viewed by society as strange and sometimes ostracized for their decision. Public nudity has become so pervasive that ordinances are now needed to regulate it.

I was watching a television show the other day in which the couple has sex on their first date. After a moment, I was shocked to realize how unshocked I was.

We can and should do all we can to protect ourselves and our children against the rising tide of sexual immorality in our broken culture. Software can be installed that tracks and prevents porn use on our computers and other devices. Accountability relationships can help us refuse sexual temptation and find help when we fail.

But whether we struggle with pornography or not, we live in a sexualized culture that relativizes truth and rejects biblical morality. The good news is that every one of us can experience “victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:57), but only “through” him.

A “tin soldier” or a “little Christ”

1. C. Sproul observed that “to love a holy God requires grace, grace strong enough to pierce our hardened hearts and awaken our moribund souls.” This grace is available to us in the Spirit who can foster a passion for Christ in our hearts stronger than the sinful passions of “the world, the flesh, and the devil” (cf. Ephesians 2:2–3).

Our Father promises us, “Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16). We “walk by the Spirit” when we submit our minds and lives every day to him (Ephesians 5:18), encounter God in his Word, worship, and prayer, and choose to live consciously and intentionally in his presence (cf. Colossians 2:6–15).

Then his Spirit produces the “fruit” of love for our Lord in our hearts and souls (Galatians 5:22). And the more we love Jesus, the more we love what he loves and hate what he hates. With this result: His Spirit empowers us to “cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God” (2 Corinthians 7:1).

God wants to “sanctify you completely” (1 Thessalonians 5:23). Such holiness is his intention for every one of his children (1 Thessalonians 4:3). Jesus died not only so we could be forgiven for our sins but live in victory over them (Romans 8:37) as we manifest his character in the world (Romans 8:29).

Accordingly, C. S. Lewis wrote that Jesus is working right now to turn us “permanently into a different sort of thing; into a new little Christ, a being which, in its own small way, has the same kind of life as God; which shares in his power, joy, knowledge, and eternity.”

As Lewis explained, Jesus is turning us from “tin soldiers” into real people. However, “The part of you that does not like it is the part that is still tin.”

Do you want to stay a “tin soldier” or become a “little Christ”?

There is no third option.

Quote for the day:

“I know of no other way to triumph over sin long-term than to gain a distaste for it because of a superior satisfaction in God.” —John Piper

Our latest website resources:

• How much will the Bezos–Sánchez wedding cost?
• The courage to encourage
• Should I attend a same-sex wedding?
• Trump bombs Iran, NYC election shocker, Bezos wedding & casual-dining favorites
• What happens when a theoretical physicist finds faith in Christ?

Denison Forum

The Supreme Court is expected to announce major decisions this morning on birthright citizenship, age verification for pornography sites, and several other contentious issues. However, its ruling yesterday is already making headlines: the court handed down a decision that could pave the way for states to defund Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in the US.

The Court did not address the organization directly. Rather, the justices ruled that beneficiaries of Medicaid cannot sue if they believe their right to a free choice of healthcare provider has been violated. States are therefore free to stop providing Medicaid taxpayer funds to organizations whose services they do not wish to underwrite. Since nearly half of those treated at Planned Parenthood use Medicaid, this could significantly defund the organization in states that oppose abortion.

Those of us who believe life begins at conception will be grateful for legal rulings that protect the preborn. But we are unwise to base our hopes for our culture on such decisions.

When the Supreme Court overturns the states

For example, yesterday marked the tenth anniversary of Obergefell v. Hodges, the US Supreme Court’s ruling that discovered a right to same-sex marriage in the US Constitution. The ruling legalized so-called “marriage equality” even though, as Axios reports, thirty-two states have constitutional and/or legislative bans against it.

Measures in Idaho, Michigan, Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota have been introduced that would reverse the decision. In Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Texas, lawmakers have introduced bills creating a category called “covenant marriage.”

Obergefell is akin to the Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that discovered a right to abortion in the Constitution. At the time, thirty states had laws prohibiting abortion; twenty others permitted it only under certain circumstances.

The two rulings highlight the tension inherent in our legislative and political system: When should the Supreme Court overrule laws passed by states?

The former is comprised of unelected justices who serve lifetime appointments; the latter are the product of lawmakers elected by the people they represent. In a democratic republic, you would think the latter would prevail over the former. But in rulings such as the 1967 Loving v. Virginia decision legalizing interracial marriage, the Court sometimes overturns state laws in ways that many of us consider to be appropriate.

The “indispensable supports” of democracy

The question points to a topic we have reason to discuss often in this space: How do we best promote the morality that is foundational to democracy?

As I noted yesterday, our nation’s founders believed that, in the words of George Washington, “religion and morality are indispensable supports” to our system of governance. This is because we are ruled not by kings or theocrats but by laws our leaders enact, our courts interpret, and our authorities enforce. Because “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), the leaders we elect are as fallen as the people who elect them, and the laws they produce will often reflect this fact.

From abortion to marriage to euthanasia, we are watching Western society continue to slide down this slippery slope today.

We can and should enact laws that protect society against our fallen natures and worst impulses. As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. observed, “Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless.” I’m glad we have laws forbidding murder and theft—even though such laws do not transform those who would kill and steal, they make it more difficult for them to act on their desires.

But as the persistence of crime shows, no amount of human effort can change the human heart. And when society as a whole embraces unbiblical immorality, the laws it enacts can reinforce sin rather than restraining sinners.

“Knocking on the door of an empty house”

Here we find a foundational reason the gospel is so necessary and so urgent.

A drowning person can only be saved by someone who is not drowning. Only the Christian faith offers us a sinless Savior whose salvation makes us a “new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17) as the “children of God” (John 1:12).

Two simple but sanctifying consequences follow.

One: Our greatest service to humanity lies in persuading humans to trust in Jesus. Everything else we can do for our fellow man is done best as a means to this end. We are not to be cultural warriors trying to defeat our ideological enemies but cultural missionaries committed to “speaking the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15) wherever and however we can.

As T. J. Green noted, “Words not spoken in love are like knocking on the door of an empty house. You can make a lot of noise, but no one will respond.”

Two: We can best speak the truth in love when we recognize our deep personal need for such love. I am no less a sinner than Ali Khamenei. I am just as tempted by immorality as those who champion elective abortion and same-sex marriage. The transformation begun by the Spirit at my salvation must continue today as I submit to him and seek his will over my own.

Paul advised us, “Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16). There is no way to experience the latter without choosing the former, but choosing the former always accomplishes the latter.

Oswald Chambers noted, “Sanctification means being made one with Jesus so that the disposition that ruled him will rule us. It will cost everything that is not of God in us.” But this is a price well worth paying.

As the Puritan Thomas Watson observed,

“Till sin be bitter, Christ will not be sweet.”

Will Christ “be sweet” to you today?

Note: For practical ways to join God in the transformation of our minds and hearts, please see my latest website article, “Is artificial intelligence ruining our brains?”

Quote for the day:

“Sanctification is the real change in man from the sordidness of sin to the purity of God’s image.” —William Ames (1576–1633)

Our latest website resources:

• Is artificial intelligence ruining our brains?
• Trump bombs Iran, NYC election shocker, Bezos wedding & casual-dining favorites
• Shooter assaulted church filled with children for VBS: Four reasons to trust Jesus at all costs
• What happens when a theoretical physicist finds faith in Christ?
• Israel vs. Iran, MAGA’s divide, AI warnings & the Pentagon Pizza Index

Denison Forum