Cosmology and Cyberporn
Addendum to “The Gnostic Disconnect and Evangelical Immorality”
Jay Wegter
A cultural death wish—throw off God’s creational structures in order to be free
Culturally we are at a terrifying juncture because of the abandonment of biblical cosmology. Due to fact that the West has thrown off God’s creational structures (and their foundation, biblical theism); we are on the brink of a new definition of freedom. This ‘new’ definition of freedom is nothing but the old Adamic anarchy of the human race exercising its defiance against God and His moral government.
Social mores; fashions; entertainment; values—all are changing to reflect the paradigm shift in worldview that is just beneath the surface. Gross sexual immorality, deviancy, promiscuity, and immodesty are being mainstreamed in the entertainment industry until they are normalized—until all shock value is gone and the ability to blush is absent (Jer 6:15; 8:12).
This loss of the ability to be embarrassed and experience shame is mark of a seared conscience (1 Tim 4:2). With this debased conscience comes a societal approval of immorality in which moral degeneracy is given the collective approval of society (Rom 1:32).
As our culture celebrates its alienation from God and calls its rebellion, “liberty;” we will increasingly find that the standard of human behavior is less and less determined by God’s wise and just laws; and more and more determined by the standard set by man’s lower nature (Rom 8:5-8). Says C. S. Lewis, nothing is easier than to live by animal passions and then call that ‘progress’, what is difficult is a life of unselfness and righteousness. According to God’s Word those who live by the appetites of the flesh are avowed enemies of the cross of Christ (Phil 3:18-19). By contrast, the true believer may say along with Paul that the cross has crucified us to the world—and crucified the world to us.
Biblical cosmology—our lens for viewing ultimate reality
When we analyze life by means of the authoritative perspective of biblical cosmology, there is an intensely satisfying intellectual fulfillment in seeing the unity of all knowledge and the wisdom of divine purposes.
The use of pornography involves a kind of alienation and disconnect from the unifying power of biblical cosmology. The reason why is that porn stresses an anatomical ideal of the human body that is completely divorced from transcendentals (transcendentals are defined as God’s truth; beauty; categories; relationships; moral order; glory; righteousness; goodness; and justice). Transcendentals are inseparable from a blueprint for our lives that is joined to God’s glory. Transcendentals provide the moral context for all of God’s good gifts to us His creatures. That means that when God’s good gifts are ripped and torn from their moral context of divine transcendentals, the result is idolatry. The beautiful gift of sexual oneness in marriage—if allowed to run in the gutter like waste water—becomes smut. God is dishonored when we tear His good gifts from their moral context.
As men we are very vulnerable to the desire to seek sexual erotic intimacy outside of the marriage covenant. It is a driving force within our natures which is why pornography is such a temptation. The use of porn involves the isolation of erotic pleasure from its divinely ordained context of transcendentals.
This is of course why porn is ultimately unsatisfying—like a thirsty man who attempts to slake his parched throat with seawater; destruction of his life and health are the result. Delving into illicit images is like reaching out to touch a mirage. What appears to be there in the shimmering desert image is but an illusion. The mirage’s promises of cool water are deceptive. Porn promises; but can’t deliver because it unravels the parts of God’s gift that are designed to remain joined (sexuality; love; covenant; spirituality). Therefore to bring the yearning of our natures to porn is like attempting to drink from a sand dune. This ripping apart of sexual pleasure from the marriage bond may deliver moments of exhilaration; but those moments are immediately followed by a descent into shame and self disgust. The ongoing fallout of shame just keeps dragging a man deeper into cynicism and uncaring attitudes. The porn user ends up lower than when he started. The reason why is because he threw away divine cosmology and related to God’s creation in an idolatrous fashion. It is no exaggeration to say that the porn user is buying into someone else’s cosmology.
Porn use says in effect, “I accept the devil’s cosmology.”
The devil’s initial temptation was a solicitation to believe that beauty can safely and happily exist when removed from its divine moral context. Porn deconstructs creational structures. And biblical theism is eroded in the process. Cosmology and biblical theism belong together—you can’t have one completely intact without the other. Porn is war on biblical cosmology which is ultimately a subtle deconstruction of biblical theism.
Satan is the product of his own rotten theology. His own self-deception could be stated this way, “I won my autonomy by transcending my bounds; by rising above the creational structures which limited me.” No wonder the humans who are under his sway are so completely duped. This satanic definition of freedom is reigning unopposed in our culture today (Eph 2:1-3).
God’s creational structures (or cosmology) state that beauty has no existence independent from the Creator. Beauty has always been joined to transcendentals. Beauty in its divinely ordained moral context of truth and moral order gives glory to God. Aesthetics therefore (in their cosmological context of creation structure) are pointers to the glory of God. We love this beauty for the sake of God’s glory; and not for the sake of our own desires alone; or for the sake of the excellence of the created thing itself.
Of course this is why beauty is the battleground for the souls of men and women. As it was in the beginning with the lie in Eden; beauty was the battlefield. Satan traps, enslaves, dupes, and leads into idolatry by removing beauty from the very transcendentals necessary for beauty to point to the glory of God. The deceiver infers that beauty can stand alone and be indulged in by itself. The gospel delivers from this lie by placing us in Christ and causing us to discern all things from the perspective of the mind of Christ (1Cor 2:12-16). Therefore, the very depth of what we love as maturing believers must all turn upon finding excellence in created things for Christ’s sake.
Biblical cosmology is a unifying principle—when properly understood it eliminates the compartments we have constructed in our lives.
Biblical cosmology imbues upon us that every square inch of our experience belongs to God—there are no compartments, no partitions. Evangelicalism has often (indirectly) sent the message that spirituality is inward; esoteric; subjective; private; pietistic. Evangelicalism’s doctrinal deficiency is in part caused by a lack of understanding of the necessity of cosmology.
Cosmology states that the origin and structure of the universe is not merely physical (or measurable by the sciences); but the universe has a moral structure that is just as real as our own solar system. This moral structure of the creation embraces gender; marriage; family; sexuality; and the moral absolutes of right and wrong.
Pornography is sexual idolatry because it gives the honor due to God to created things.
Postmodern culture with its pervasive relativism has exacerbated the problem by blinding us to the immensity and eternality of God’s moral government. As denizens of postmodern culture we are insulated from the immovable ineffable strictness of moral cause and effect. We are frequently oblivious to the inescapable principle of sowing and reaping (Rom 2:5-9; Gal 6:7).
Man’s law allows for exceptions; for elaborate creative defenses from expensive attorneys. I think of the radio ad, “Friends don’t let friends plead guilty to drunk driving charges.” In other words, we have a group of attorneys who will help you ‘beat the rap.’
Scripture reminds us that man’s sinful nature is dyed in the wool skeptical about God being a God of comprehensive retribution, “Why has the wicked spurned God? He has said to himself, ‘Thou will not require it’” (Ps 10:13).
Modern sinners downplay the seriousness of their sin by affirming that their infractions do not hurt others. It seems they have forgotten that the first tablet of God’s holy law is meant to safeguard love and honor to God. All sin, whether a violation of the first of second tablet is against God Himself (Ps 51:4). Because our created identity is that of a worshipper, all sin is a failure to value God as He deserves.
Idolatry defaces the image of God in man
Lucifer’s express purpose is to work against God’s announced purpose of making man and woman in His image and likeness. The evil one cannot change our ontology or human make up directly, but he can do it indirectly. His tool of choice is idolatry. Idol worship in all its forms mars, defaces, and fragments the image of God in us.
The enemy used the ancient lie to sever us from the knowledge of God, and to attach us to the world as our ‘preferred source of fulfillment.’ Satan’s hatred of God is expressed in his malevolent wish to shatter the image of God in us by means of idolatry. The evil one uses lust to make us listless and apathetic about staying free—he wants us to drop our diligence and to devalue our liberty in the Lord. He knows we are created to be worshippers. And he knows that we will serve what we worship.
Therefore, idolatry is inseparable from bondage. As the southern preacher said, “The devil holds some men through their wealth by their coveteousnes; he holds others captive through the promise of happiness through sexual lust; and he holds others enslaved with nothing more than a fifty cent bottle of wine a day. Yes, outside of Christ; every man has his price for which he will trade away his priceless freedom and his eternal soul.”
When we take the glory, attention, adoration, and devotion that belongs to God and give it to created things; we are committing idolatry. Porn, or sexual idolatry, is a dysfunction in worship. Idolatry weakens the very things that true worship is designed to strengthen: our freedom and liberty in Christ; the unity of our Christian experience; our humanness; and our ability to reflect God’s character as the image of God.
Biblical cosmology is God’s blueprint for us. To the degree that our lives are ordered according to His ‘blueprint’—only to that degree are we in touch with reality.
Evangelicalism is ‘doctrinally emaciated’ without biblical cosmology. For those who have lived self directed lives, despising the divine blueprint, reality will hit like a thousand sledge hammers on the last day (on judgment day). They will discover to their horror that their sinful self direction did not create a new reality. This is God’s world—it operates in the precise ways He has determined. This knowledge is central to the fear of God.
Biblical cosmology says that ultimate reality is God’s relationship to the universe. He created it; He owns it; He upholds it. He also cursed it; but will restore it to its original perfection. As its Creator, He invested it with precise purposes (Darwinism teaches the opposite —a ‘purpose-less’ universe). The universe has a purpose; it is a worshipping chorus of God—it is the stage upon which the Lord will reveal His moral majesty—it is the backdrop for the drama of redemption. As such we as believers must know the above—we must know intimately why the creation exists. On the final day of creation week God pronounced a ‘benediction’—He stated that the newly made creation was “exceedingly good” (Gen 1:31). This initial ‘benediction’ was not merely a blessing pronounced upon stars, planets, animals, flowers, and mankind. The benediction embraced all of the categories; definitions; boundaries; purposes; designs; and relations determined by the Creator. The relation of man to woman was the first ‘boundary’ and design that the Lord formalized with the institution of marriage—God established, then blessed, then formalized by matrimony the creational design of one man designed for one woman for life (Gen 2:18-25). This creation structure is just as real as a redwood tree, a galaxy, or a rose. The cosmological (creational structures) established by God are filled with His goodness, justice, and wisdom. As mentioned, these constitute a ‘blueprint’ for us by which we are to be governed. Only by our alignment with this blueprint can we truly say that we are walking with God—serving Him, obeying Him, demonstrating loyalty to Him. This is why porn is so serious a sin.
Husbands and fathers are stewards of God’s creation structures—stewards of cosmology
Husbands and fathers are ‘priests’ of their families. They are priests in the sense that their lives are meant to be a living and teaching example of love to God (Deut 6:1-9). As males the dominion mandate for us includes raising up God-fearing families that enthusiastically embrace the governance of God’s creation structures. The family is a God-fearing community in miniature. All fear of God is necessarily joined to the exaltation of God through a demonstrable esteem for His creation structures.
It is high time as Christian men that we blast sexual lust out of the small truncated category in which we have placed it. It is all too often relegated to the ‘little’ zone called “my problem with sexual lust.” Biblical cosmology helps us burst the issue of mortification of sexual sin out of too small a category—we have tended to treat is as “just my private bosom sin and personal heart struggle.”
No, cosmology smashes through this artificial disconnect and shrunken perspective by bringing us face to face with God’s infinite wisdom in founding reality upon His all-wise and just creational structures. Man is a ‘bounded’ creature. This is at the heart of our creaturehood and our humanness.
As the only order of creatures made in the divine image, we must find our purpose in our creational identity—that identity being to reflect the moral majesty of our Creator. Therefore, when by Christ’s redeeming work and the Spirit’s power our lives are aligned with His creational purposes, designs, relations, and boundaries; we will be giving glory to God.
Our problem as men (locked in combat with sexual lust) is that we have tended to see God’s commands against impurity as separated from cosmology. We resemble the world’s mindset when we imagine (even for a moment) that God’s laws against sexual impurity are but a religious imposition of morality upon society—as opposed to being what they really are—the moral fabric of the universe—of reality itself.