Jacob Valk, Christ Over All, 5/24
Artificial Intelligence is well on its way to becoming a trillion-dollar industry and has been disrupting sectors from agriculture to finance across the world. The pornography industry is no exception. Sophisticated AI engines can use text prompts to create realistic, fully animated scenes in minutes, and that technology is being used to generate terabytes of new pornography. Deepfake technology can change one person’s face to another or even digitally take the clothes off of a person.[1] Several new companies are using AI to manufacture personalized sex toys. The list goes on.
For Christians, these dizzying changes simply add dimensions to an industry we already recognize as depraved. However, others argue that there are some ethical upsides to AI porn: more computer-generated people mean fewer real ones in an industry fraught with abuse.[2] Even Christians may be tempted to think, “If there’s no person on the other side of the screen, is it really sinful?” I will offer two arguments for why AI porn is every bit as sinful as yesterday’s porn and far more dangerous. But before giving these reasons, allow me to offer a brief theology of sex to show why pornography is such a distortion of God’s good design.
Genesis 101: God’s Design for Sex
The consequentialist ethic asks, “Who does it hurt?” The biblical ethic asks, “What is it for?” The main New Testament texts that speak to sexual ethics are consistently grounded in God’s creational design (Matt. 19:3–12, 1 Cor. 6:12–20, Eph. 5:29–32, 1 Tim. 2:11–14, 1 Cor. 11:7–12), and if Christians want to mount a vigorous critique of pornography, we must develop a robust biblical theology of sex. As we follow the biblical authors in anchoring our theology in the first two chapters of Genesis, we can construct an ethical framework to understand AI pornography. God designed sex for Covenant unity, procreation, and expression of love.[3]
Covental Unity
God designed sex for covenantal unity between husband and wife, a unity that is emotional, spiritual, and sexual—the two “shall become one flesh” (Gen. 2:24). God intended the covenant of marriage to image the even greater New Covenant he established with his people, which is why Paul severely reprimands members of the church in Corinth for sleeping with prostitutes. He tells them, “Do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, ‘The two will become one flesh’[Gen. 2:24]. But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him” (1 Cor. 6:16–17). Sex is crucial to covenantal unity. Paul makes this point again in his letter to Ephesus when he shows how the husband and wife relationship is a picture of the unity between Christ and the church (Eph. 5:25–33). In both chapters Paul quotes Genesis 2:24, because his inspired understanding of biblical sexuality is grounded in the pre-fall creational design.
Porn mocks covenantal unity by allowing users to voyeur through endless images till one meets their fantasy. Porn recoils from relational commitment in marriage, which takes genuine effort, understanding, compassion, and empathy. Instead, porn offers an easy and unholy union that only lasts as long as a computer tab stays open. While the beautiful union of husband and wife naturally leads to new life, porn has no thought for the next generation.
Procreation
God designed sex for procreation. He told our first parents, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it” (Gen. 1:28). The sexual revolution and the ubiquity of birth control have elevated a shallow “love” to the highest ideal in sex, resulting in a cultural amnesia to the fact that sex makes babies.[4] Procreation is not incidental but core to the very purpose of sex. The Bible consistently proclaims children to be a blessing from the Lord. (Deut. 28:4; Prov. 17:6; Ruth 4:11; Pss. 127:3–5; 128:3-4). One of the reasons God hates infidelity is because sex inside a covenantal marriage is supposed to lead to children (Mal. 2:15).
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