Cultural Update: Free speech on college campuses; Does AI make kids worse at thinking?

Episode Transcript

Sean McDowell: [upbeat music] Most colleges earn a failing grade for free speech. Is wokeness really gone? A new study reveals that AI stunts the cognitive development of children. Tragically, a two-year-old is euthanized in the Netherlands, and the overseeing committee applauded the decision as being handled well. And a new study reveals that the public deals with the possibility of low intelligence similarly to other physical abnormalities when selecting embryos. These are the stories we'll discuss, and we'll also address some of your questions. I'm your host, Sean McDowell.

Scott Rae: I'm your co-host, Scott Rae.

Sean McDowell: This is the Think Biblically weekly cultural update brought to you by Talbot School of Theology, Biola University. Scott, this first story, kind of dropped earlier this week, and it's been a part of conversations people have been having recently about whether wokeness one is gone, is wokeness two here, and it strikes at the heart of free speech. And this group basically said that nearly half of colleges and universities analyzed for their free speech climate received the worst possible [chuckles] grade on the latest ranking according to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. The free speech advocacy group doled out 121 Fs to 262 schools after reviewing each campus' free speech policies, recent campus controversies, and surveys from about 63,000 students. According to their criteria, only 24 schools received a C or higher. Now, students identified... I thought this was really interesting, Scott. They identified the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the most difficult to discuss on campus, followed by Donald Trump, Charlie Kirk, abortion, immigration, and transgender rights. Now, a couple quick stats here, then I'd love for you to jump in. Acceptance of violence, 30% of students say using violence to stop someone from speaking on campus is acceptable, at least in rare cases. 69% say shouting down a speaker on campus is acceptable, at least in rare cases. And 23% of students self-censored with other students on campus, and 27% self-censor in the classroom. Now, one positive note here, there's a little bit in the fine print, is that these numbers are actually down between one and four points from last year. So we're seeing a very slight trend in a positive direction, but these are still pretty concerning numbers. What's your take?

Scott Rae: Well, discouraging, but hardly a surprise.

Sean McDowell: Okay. [chuckles]

Scott Rae: But I, though, what you just pointed out, Sean, I think gives us a sliver of good news, that the free speech score for higher education overall has slightly improved over the past few years. Now, the downside of that is it had a long way to go, and this is, I'd say, marginal progress, but progress nonetheless. Now, I think, Sean, to be clear about this, free speech is not absolute. There are certain things that you can't legally say, such as speech that incites violence, threats of violence, defamation, fraud, obscenity. But offensive speech, this is a really important point. Offensive speech does not equal illegal speech. In fact, the First Amendment was designed specifically to protect offensive speech. And I've often wondered if there is a right not to be offended, which I'm not convinced that there is, but if there is, on what basis is that granted? What's that based on? And I think the proponents of a right not to be offended have a very difficult time,

Scott Rae: justifying on, the basis on which they claim that right. Now, here, second point of clarity, just to be clear about this. The First Amendment that guarantees the right of free expression only relates to government restricting speech, not private organizations. Now, it may be unwise, it may be even unethical to restrict some speech by private groups, but it is technically not a violation of the First Amendment. So what that, what that means for this list that's been, compiled by this foundation, that public colleges are subject to the First Amendment, since they are on public land that is, that they are run by state governments. That's different from private colleges, tho- and though I find it very interesting that the majority of the top 10 schools for free speech on college campuses are private colleges. Not public ones.

Scott Rae: So, that I found, I found very interesting that the ones who have more latitude legally, or have, actually have less latitude legally have found themselves, with the, taking advantage of the opportunity to have more latitude than many of the, of the public colleges and universities.

Sean McDowell: That's a super interesting point, and that's a good connection to make, and it, we could obviously probe that a lot further. I'm curious what you think might be biblical justification for free speech. And I can think of a few ways to think about this biblically. Why should we value free speech, and why should we see free speech emerge, historically speaking, in the American experiment rooted in certain Judeo-Christian ideas, as our friend Os Guinness has argued quite persuasively? I'd say a few things value, biblical case for free speech. Number one is Jesus didn't coerce. He attempted to persuade He reasoned with people. He talked with people. He told stories to people. He gave evidence to people that he was the Messiah. We see the same with Paul on Mars Hill. He gave a speech to persuade people. We also see Jesus allowing people to walk away who don't believe. For example, the rich young ruler. Jesus doesn't say, "Well, you know, I'm gonna use force," or, "Let me lower my requirements for the kingdom of God." He just lets him walk away because he gets to choose to follow him or not. I think the third principle is that we're made in the image of God, the Imago Dei. This is in part what separates us from animals, is that we have rational faculties. We can think, we can reason. This is the way God has made us to be, and so showing dignity and respect and care for another person made in the image of God is not forcing them to believe something, but trying to persuade them. I think the fourth piece that I could think of would be limited government, like Romans 13:1-7, that does give the government the power of the sword, the power of taxing, but never is it stated the power of coercion. Now, last thing I'll say off- before I throw it back to you, I can hear some people going, "Well, Sean, clearly Christians didn't always get the memo and sometimes-

Scott Rae: [chuckles]

Sean McDowell: ... Have forced their values." And I'd say, I plead guilty that Christians have done that sometimes. But the whole... In fact, I mourn that. I don't wanna downplay the way that that's been carried out at times. But the whole reason we object to that is because of the belief in human rights and human dignity, which comes from the Christian faith itself. That's the standard we're criticizing. You don't find that in Marxist governments. You don't find that in Islamic governments. You find that in governments shaped by a Christian ethic. Anything else on this one you wanna throw in there?

Scott Rae: Yeah, I think there's... You know, people may be wondering, "Well, what about free speech at a place like Biola?"

Sean McDowell: Right.

Scott Rae: That has lots of theological convictions that we hold dear. And you know, we are governed by those convictions, so at Biola, there are limits on what you can believe and what you can teach based on our theological boundaries. And those con- the reason those are important is those constitute a big part of our institutional identity. And Sean, several years ago, I led a team that developed a statement on free expression and diversity of of the for the Biola community. And we... In my view, this emphasized the most important aspect of diversity, not race or gender or sexual orientation, but actually diversity of ideas, which I think is the most important kind of diversity that a, that a place can have. And we put, we put, now we put guidelines around how best to foster this, and we have said, you know, when introducing controversial topics for students, we want them to be in arenas in which students can process those under faculty guidance. So we don't do, we don't introduce these kinds of very controversial things in chapel, convocation, graduation, donor events. Those... That's just not the right time or place for that. Now here's... I thought I'd read from one of, one of the main rationales for our statement, one of the reasons we do this, and I think it relates, it relates to the comment you made about, ideas not, and beliefs not being forced upon us by God. I think the other part of this is it relates to the best way to disciple people is by what, by what I'm about to read from the statement. And it goes like this: "A commitment to diversity of thought actually strengthens the mission of a Christian university such as Biola. Convictions are healthier when they are not cordoned off from, but rather engaged in rigorous and collegial dialogue with other points of view. Only when students have con- seriously considered diverse viewpoints will they, as Christ disciples, come to convictions that will weather the test of time and be prepared to engage in a complex and diverse world." And so I think it's just part of this is the mandate to be salt and light in the culture demands that we are, we are engaged with and able to interact with the ideas that have cultural currency in the day, and be able to engage those from a distinctly Christian worldview. Now, one other thing I'd like to add to this, and Sean, this is kudos to you on this, because I don't know of too many people who model this as well as you ... With your students. I know, I know when you were, when you were teaching high school, you took students on all, on all sorts of, what I would call intellectual adventures to expose them to lots of ideas that were way outside the box. And your YouTube channel does this really well. And so I just wanna hats off to... And our listeners should know, to know that about you and how committed you are to that and how well you've done that over the years.

Sean McDowell: That's really kind, man. I am feeling the love, Scott. Thank you for [chuckles] throwing that in there. I appreciate it. And when I read the list of topics that are most difficult for people to talk about, my first thought was, "Well, we talk about most of these in my class, Gospel Kingdom Culture." We don't talk about Trump. We don't cover the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It doesn't fit in that class. But we've talked some about Charlie Kirk. We've certainly talked some about transgender rights, immigration, and race. And the whole goal is to ask, "What does the Bible say about this, and how do we agree and disagree well?" I love... I... This is one of the biggest reasons I love being at Biola is that we're firm in the center on our biblical commitments But soft on the edges. We can differ with each other. And I think someone might say, "Well, you can't, you know, reject the Trinity and stay at Biola," and that, well, yeah, because that's [laughs] the community commitments that we have, and somebody signs up to go to this community with those commitments in place. America allows us to have private organizations like this. Now, I would say, last thing, we'll move on, is I know there's been students who, while they're here, maybe start to have questions about the Trinity or biblical view of sexuality. We don't say, "You're out." We bring 'em in and go, "Okay, let's talk about this," and, "Why?" and, "Can we help you through this?" Now, if a student came to the point, they're like, "I don't think the Trinity is true, and I'm on a mission to talk other Biola students out of it," then at that point, we'd probably say, "Maybe this isn't the best place for you to be." But there's as much grace as we can have to help students see through these things and own their convictions aligning with scripture and with what our commitments are. So I think if they actually came to Biola and did a study, I think we'd rate pretty high, is my suspicion.

Scott Rae: Well-

Sean McDowell: But, you know... Go ahead

Scott Rae: I I remember when Dennis Prager was on our campus several years ago. He actually made the, made the statement in public that Biola has more diversity of thought and more of a commitment to free expression than his alma mater at Stanford.

Sean McDowell: Wow. That's fascinating

Scott Rae: Which I thought was quite a statement.

Sean McDowell: That's really cool. I love it. All right, so you sent me this other study from the LA Times, and this was really interesting and timely, because everybody's been talking about AI this week and whether the world is going to end.

Scott Rae: Right.

Sean McDowell: And I thought, "I don't wanna go that angle." Although a study came out Thursday in The New York Times and said, you and I talked about that hugging face incident-

Scott Rae: Mm-hmm

Sean McDowell: ... Two or three weeks ago, and there were six other incidents somewhat like that that are concerning. And they pointed out how AI systems, sometimes lie, misrepresent. To get through a firewall, one system needed an existing kind of like a platform online, so it created it online, and then used it to get through the firewall. So that, so we're seeing these, you know, concerns increase, but here's one that's a little bit more immediate. And this study says, "Cognitive stunting and the potential threat generative AI poses for children's brains." They say, "It's been less than four years since the public debut of ChatGPT, and given the relative novelty of publicly accessible generative AI platforms, there's just little research on children's cognitive development." They said, "With careful guidelines in place, children tend to use the platforms as shortcuts to answers, bypassing the messy, difficult cognitive processes that are essential for learning." So they were watching young children's brain activity as they interacted with ChatGPT, and they saw less engagement in regions associated with attention and information processing than they did in adults doing the same task. High school students permitted to use ChatGPT as a study aid soared through practice questions, but performed worse on tests than peers without AI once the tool was taken away. There's one quote by an expert in this that says, "Evidence in support of a particular tool's benefits should be extremely clear before these tools are rolled out at a scale for children and teens." And by the way, I note we're seeing a shift in the burden of proof here. With social media and computers in the classroom, it was kind of like, "Well, they're good. You gotta show me they're bad or we're using it." Now we're, seems like we're starting with the assumption, "You've gotta prove this before we jump in." I think that's a positive change. Last couple things. They said, "Generative AI has vastly broadened the range of tasks that humans can successfully outsource." Of course. This is great for professionals, but for students who haven't yet mastered a skill, it can become an obstacle to developing that skill itself. And they're saying it's a shortcut to the kind of mental and cognitive development we need to develop first. So some, communities, like in LA and New York, have actually outlawed the use of generative AI in the classroom. Now, I'm guessing you have a ton of thoughts about this, but tell me what you think.

Scott Rae: Well, I found this story, Sean, not surprising- ... And alarming at the same time. And of all the arenas in which AI is providing benefits, and there are, and there are plenty of those, in my view, in education, it's doing more harm than good. Now the article, I think, it it points out, I think, a major difference in AI use for early grades than for later grades and higher education, though I think it's fair to say we've seen some of the same things in our undergrad classes as the article warns about. That is, when AI is used with older students, it can undercut their ability to use critical thinking skills. But for younger students, here's the big idea on this, who have yet to develop those, it actually hinders the formation of those skills at a much more basic level. I would call it something like, with adults, it's skill erosion- ... As opposed to maybe skill malformation or skill non-formation, since there's not, there's not much in place to erode at that point. I love the way the article puts it like this. It said, "When young people systematically use AI to complete schoolwork or other thinking tasks," and middle-school-aged kids, I think, for the most part, "they are not offloading skills they already possess. They are shortcutting the process of developing those skills in the first place." And that's the big idea from this. Now, to be fair, you know, as you mentioned, ChatGPT's only been around for four years or so. The body of research on its effects is not super extensive, but I say this, I think the early returns On this are definitely not encouraging when it, when it comes to younger students and the impact on them. Now, I'm not convinced that banning it entirely is necessarily the answer. At young ages, I think probably so. But later on, Sean, it seems to me because AI's gonna be everywhere, you know, unless the world ends like some of the doomsayers are predicting, which I don't think is the case. We, you know, we need to educate people to use it wisely. And here's the the issue I think is that we don't yet have enough data, I think, to make that assessment accurately. We got some good indications of where it needs to go. And here's the other thing the article points out I thought was very insightful. Said, "By the time we gather enough data for this initial generation of students, it may be too late to fix the stunting of skills that's already occurred." And AI is, the tools are developing so fast that the data may be out of date because it's assessing levels of AI that have been surpassed by more recent advances. So I think, Sean, in general, I'd say Biblically speaking, there are, there are no shortcuts to things of the most value. There are no shortcuts to things of spiritual value, developing the life skills that are needed, not only, not only to compete in the workplace, but to manage life in general. And the there's no shortcut to things that that have to do with character. Those things are hard work that require effort, concentration, persistence, and patience. And AI's not helping us with, I think, with any of those things, though I admit that it's been a boon for some people in some industries who are able to use it well.

Sean McDowell: You just remind me of a story we discussed maybe, I don't know, four or eight weeks ago. It was a opinion piece by David French about how things like gambling and sports gambling has lowered the bar for vice and made it harder and harder to value virtue. That's true with online pornography. That's true with online gambling. This is another example, like you said, developing character and developing intellect is a process that takes time. It's not overnight. We see this with Jesus, which raises a whole bunch of theological questions we won't get into, but in Luke 2:52, Jesus grew in wisdom and in stature and favor with God and favor with man. He was 12 years old. If this is true for God in human flesh, who's the Messiah, I'm pretty sure that's [chuckles] gonna be true for all of us. And so I appreciate your balance of saying this isn't a bad tool overall. There's a lot of good that comes out of it. But it seems like just like we don't let people run for president until they're 35, there are certain things with this technology that we should strongly limit the use of. And the question I don't have the answer to, Scott, I'd be curious what you think, and maybe we just need to watch this, is what's gonna have a greater effect on the cognitive, relational, emotional development of a generation, Gen Z with social media or Gen Alpha with the ubiquity of artificial intelligence? We don't know the answer to that yet. The early signs are not super encouraging. I would say minimally it's gonna have the same effect as social media, probably have a greater effect. And so I, the encouraging thing about this article is that people are, like, putting a ban on it right now, whereas we've seen with, say, smartphones in schools, you know, it took 10, 12 years into this for schools to say, "Maybe we don't want them in the classroom. Maybe we don't want them on campus." Maybe we're learning this a little bit faster, which is a positive thing. You know, I think of a passage. I don't wanna, I don't wanna relate this too closely, but in 1 Corinthians 3 it talks, Paul writes, "I fed you milk, not solid food, for you are not ready for it." Now, of course, Paul is writing to Christians, and he's talking about spiritual growth, but the principle behind this is that somebody's stomach and body and mind has to be ready and fit to digest the kind of physical food or information that comes into it. Well, that principle applies to our kids. They're not ready to maturely handle the generative function of AI, and for two reasons. Number one, their brains aren't formed, but they also haven't developed just the ability to resist and know, "You know what? Good things come to those who wait." Kids typically haven't developed that muscle yet. So I'm partly encouraged by this, not surprised by it, and I hope a lot more people will take note and take it as seriously as maybe apparently we are starting to take social media issues.

Scott Rae: Yeah, let me, let me make explicit, I think, the suggestion that you made sort of theologically. When the Old Testament talks about growth and wisdom, the Hebrew term for wisdom is the term that's most commonly used for developing a skill in a, in a particular craft or occupation, and it's used of thing, things like woodworking, metalworking, the the artistic stuff that went into the construction of the tabernacle and the temple were described as wisdom. And think about, think about what it took to develop that skill or that craft. It took, it took years and years to develop that, and lot, lots of two steps forward, three steps back. But it's assumed there that the process of becoming a wise person, which is not just character, it's intellectual development as well- Was something that required time and perseverance and patience and lot, lots of experience with you know, falling short of the standard, and dusting yourself off and staying at it. And so the idea that somebody in biblical times could develop wisdom by, you know, things that were easy and cheap and convenient, they just, they didn't have too many categories for that.

Sean McDowell: That's a good point, and the hard part today is what we culturally value the most is not patience and prudence and virtue and wisdom, but results. And I've never seen a better tool, maybe the best tool in the history of the world, to get quick results [chuckles] on anything, so use it wisely, but it could have a lot of destruction if not used wisely as well. All right, this next story, Scott, I just, when I saw it online, I saw it, our mutual friend, Lila Rose, who is with Live Action, is just, she's been outspoken activist, pro-life defender, posted this on X, and when I saw it, my heart just sank, but I think we need to talk about it. And this is in a piece the National Right to Life put together, and they say, "Two-year-old toddler euthanized for disabilities." And here's the story they write. "In 2024, the Netherlands expanded its euthanasia law to allow children of any age to be killed. The first child was killed under the new guidelines in 2025. Details have now been released about the death, which has been applauded by the community as being, quote, handled well." Now, the child was severely disabled, but the child was not dying. Now, back in 2002, there was a termination of life on request and assisted suicide act that allowed, this is in the Netherlands, euthanasia for individuals over 12 if they were suffering from an illness or disability with no hope of recovering. So it doesn't mean they were dying, but they had an illness or disability, and they simply couldn't recover. Two years later in 2004, doctors were allowed to end the lives of infants up to age one if parents and doctors agreed to it and the baby was experiencing suffering or expected to experience future suffering. Now, they said lawmakers then passed a controversial expansion of the elebi- eligibility guidelines two years ago in 2024, adding children ages one to 12 able to the list of those eligible to be euthanized if their parents agreed to it. Now, in this case, babies with, what they call PVL, periventricular, I'm gonna totally butcher this, leukomalacia, are at a higher risk

Scott Rae: That's close enough

Sean McDowell: [chuckles] Close enough. Thanks. Are at a higher risk of developing cerebral palsy, and this child did develop cerebral palsy. At eight months, the child was diagnosed with infantile epileptic spasm, had difficult sleeping, swallowing. I mean, I don't wanna downplay the, some of the serious conditions this child was dealing with. And apparently apart from a miracle, there's no chance of any recovery or improvement in the child's abilities. But the article says, "Based on this," and this is chilling. I wanna let these words sink in. "Based on this, the parents asked the doctor to kill their child." I'm gonna say that again. "Based on this, the parents asked the doctor to kill their child." The doctors disagreed that euthanasia was valid, but they worked through the process, and eventually this child's life was taken. Your thoughts on this one, Scott.

Scott Rae: Well, Sean, this is both, tragic and complicated, and, I'd say, to verify what you've suggested, it's a dangerous application of the Dutch law, that made euthanasia available to children, like you mentioned, over the age of 12 back in 2002. But honestly, my heart goes out to these parents- ... And this, and to this two-year-old child. Palliative care was challenging, to say the least. And I mean, these parents, they're at their wit's end watching their child suffer through these epileptic spasms, with no significant relief in sight. And so this is, this is what makes this i-issue so hard is because you have real, you have got, you got real life suffering here that, medicine was having a pretty challenging time trying to, trying to alleviate. Now it's true the child was not terminally ill, was not imminently dying. I think we're in a different place, not for euthanasia, but if a child is imminently dying, then I think we're not, we're not, as we mentioned before, we're not obligated to treat every symptom of someone who is, you know, is imminently dying. We're required to keep them comfortable. You know, but the diagnosis for this child was not clear until a few months after birth. And there, a couple of important things I think that we need to recognize. One, there was debate among the physicians about the ability of palliative care or pain management to keep the child comfortable, to moderately control the the seizures. And second, the thing the article points out, the parents actually refused this kind of palliative care, because of some of the potential side effects so I think that, you know, it's... I'm reluctant to sort of second-guess the parents on this 'cause we weren't there and it's not our child. But I think the refusal of palliative care, even to try that,

Scott Rae: even when there, when there were physicians who were more confident than others about its ability, that's the part of this that troubles me. Now I think that the Dutch law that allows minors to do this, that's a, that's in my view, the more dangerous part of this. 16 and 17-year-olds can request this, as you mentioned, with no parental consent necessary. Even kids 12 to 15 can request it, but the parents have to consent.

Scott Rae: And with, from ages one to 11, with the, with parents' consent, but a lot of conditions have to be met. What the, what the law suggests is that, and I'd have, I'd have to verify this to be sure, but there was no mention in the article of this, that from 12 to 15,

Scott Rae: no conditions apply that would govern whether somebody is eligible for it. And at least here, the Dutch are living consistently with their notion that this is a fundamental right, which suggests, I, in my view, this suggests to me that we ought to view, the request for euthanasia as something less than a fundamental right. Because if kids, 12 to 15, 12 to 17 can be eligible for this without any conditions, that of course, a fundamental right means you don't have to have conditions for eligibility. I mean, you don't have to have, there are no conditions for eligibility for expos- exercising a fundamental right to free speech, for example, like we've, like we've talked about. That's the part of this story, Sean, that I found, find the most troubling. And so the, you know, the law that allows these kids to request this and, you know, who knows what kind of pressure they put on the parents to go along with this, and at 16 and 17, they don't need the parents to go along with it. I don't know too many 16, 17-year-olds who are mature enough to make life and death decisions for themselves. So that's the part of this that bothers me more than the application of this to the two-year-old, though I'm troubled by some things about the parents on this, while at the same time having a lot of sympathy for the, for what they were having to deal with.

Sean McDowell: Define what's meant by palliative care and what that maybe would've looked like for a child in this circumstance, if you will.

Scott Rae: Well, it would be doing everything necessary to keep the child comfortable short of providing euthanasia. So it'd be, it'd be using, you know, whatever was necessary to provide adequate pain management.

Scott Rae: And that could go, I mean, that could range from, you know, pretty hardcore opioid medication,

Scott Rae: to other types of non-prescription, non-medical means to keep the child comfortable as well.

Sean McDowell: That's fair. I appreciate your sensitivity to this. We put ourself in the position of these parents whose dreams are obviously shattered. They're physically exhausted, live in a very different context, and this law, as we've talked about, laws shape people's moral imaginations, what they think is good and right, and what is acceptable, morally speaking. I think for me, what troubles me is it just, it strikes me as so opposite of what the Christian ethic is rooted in, meaning it, there's a reason why, as again, in my conversation with Bart Ehrman, that people can go back and listen to, we posted it [chuckles] in July, one of the most influential atheists over the past 30 years. In his book, Love Thy Strangers, like it's hospitals and orphanages and elder care that was expanded into the world by Christians, who say those who are suffering most, we are with them and present with them in their suffering the way the Spirit, you could argue, is present with us, and Christ experienced our suffering. So I paused on that statement, "Kill their child," 'cause I wanted it to sink in. And there's a difference between, you know, doing everything conceivable to keep somebody alive, where maybe a child in this condition at some point, if a condition is so extreme, you don't just artificially keep this child alive. You allow it to die naturally. Like, potentially, there might be circumstances of that. That's very different than actively killing and taking the life of this child. So it's a painful situation. You're right, it's complex, but the idea of going in and ending the life of a child intentionally and not doing everything conceivable first to prevent that suffering, which we have the means to do today in the vast majority of circumstances, to me is just unconscionable. And I think of the example, you know, in Romans when Paul's basically condemning the whole world for immorality, and at the end of it he says something interesting. He says, "They know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die. They not only do them, but they give approval to those who practice them." Here's a law that might be with good intentions, but rooted in a disastrous worldview That ends up giving approval to such behavior that, in my view, should make Christians and even beyond Christians cringe. So when we hear that the slippery slope argument is a logical fallacy, I wanna go, "Nope." We see it being applied more and more and more, and sadly, I suspect ... I wonder now, Scott, I don't know, but now that this was approved in 2024 for infants, I wonder how far this will go. I wonder if we'll start to see some kind of infanticide take place. And I don't know, maybe that's a little bit alarmist, but we see these things progress step by step by step, and I think we need to draw attention to this as we are right now to say, "Whoa, time out. What are we doing? What is happening here? What are the problems with this?" Before this gets even further out of control. Any other thoughts on this one or you disagree with my take on it?

Scott Rae: No, I think it's ... I think, of course, you make the right distinction between euthanasia, where the action of the physician is the actual cause of death for the patient, here the two-year-old. And that's what the Bible prohibits is, well, by the Sixth Commandment, being the active cause of death for an innocent person. That's what the Bible prohibits. The Bible does not prohibit allowing, under the right conditions, allowing a disease to take its natural course. And it may have, it may have been had the parents been aware of this diagnosis when the child was first born, so the child developed sepsis, upon birth, which was a whole body infection. I think, I think they could have justifiably declined to treat that, and allowed that to take its natural course, but that's radically different than, being, euthanized, where the physician is the, is the active causal agent of the child's death. Now, I think you can also make a good argument that they, you know, they probably should should treat the sepsis, and to see what palliative care can do for the child, and I think it's even okay, I think, chi- Sean, to sedate a patient who's really suffering and in pain, to sedate them into unconsciousness. I don't think that, but you do that short of killing them and where they come in and out of that unconscious state. And I think that if that's necessary to keep people comfortable, I don't think there's anything necessarily unethical about that. But that, we need to make sure that is, that is not the same thing as active euthanasia, actively killing the patient.

Sean McDowell: Good distinction as always. Let's shift to this last story, which is another [laughs] surprising one to me. You sent this over to me from, PsyPost. It says, "Public treats risks for low intelligence and heart disease similarly when selecting embryos." So new research suggests that when prospective parents choose which embryo to implant, something like, say, IVF, they tend to weigh non-medical traits just as heavily as medical traits. So there's a process called preimplantation genetic testing. We don't need to give the details, but they basically, before an embryo is transferred to a uterus, doctors extract a small number of cells and analyze the genetic material to try to see the likelihood that this embryo will have certain biological conditions, or you might say misconditions. It's the statistical estimate of the chances a person might develop, say, you know, some from heart disease, but also includes things like a certain level of intelligence. Now, a 2023 study found that the American public is broadly willing to consider screening embryos for complex physical and behavioral traits. So not just screening for physical health traits, but things like low or high,

Sean McDowell: intelligence. So a 2025 survey indicated that people in Singapore were more receptive to using embryos screening for educational and cognitive outcomes than Americans were, which suggests this is international, but there may be some differences there as well. So the people who did this report, they said, "On the basis of our pilot studies and other recent work, we registered a prediction that most people would not want testing for low IQ or antisocial behavior." The opposite happened. 61% said that they would. That's surprising. So participants fre- here's an interesting way to look at this. Participants frequently chose to implant an embryo with a higher chance of vision issues if it meant avoiding a higher chance of low intelligence or antisocial behavior or heart disease. The findings suggest that when genetic information is already available, dividing line between medical and non-medical traits fades. So in other words, vision impairment was consistently tolerated more than any other attribute, like heart disease. Now, a ton could be said to this, but the authors wanna say they're not ... This doesn't show that people want designer babies. What we found is that people want to avoid their children having genetic risk factors that might affect how well their life goes in the future, and so there seems to be an idea that how well their life goes, it might be tied to your intelligence or your social behavior and other physical abnormalities or struggles like heart disease or a lack or limitation in vision. What do you think about this one, Scott?

Scott Rae: You know, this, Sean, this wasn't the only story we saw about embryos this week. We set- ... A record this week because-

Sean McDowell: [laughs] We did

Scott Rae: ... The the oldest ... Frozen embryo, was thawed out and came to a live birth. It'd been frozen for 22 years

Sean McDowell: Oh, man

Scott Rae: And it, But I think it, what this may do is portray IVF as a good solution for people who wait into their 40s, but we need to be clear. The reality is that the success rate for IVF is still around 25 to 30%. And the success rate drops with each successive attempt should the first one fail. Now, what you're describing here, the second, this story I think is the more interesting one of the one on embryos that dropped this week.

Scott Rae: And this is for, this is from what is called polygenic screening, which tests, it tests for thousands of conditions. It's not targeted, but it tests for thousands of different conditions and compares them with the risks for people who have these genetic markers in the general population. And what the study found, I found very interesting, is that even a risk factor increase of 5% was often enough for prospective parents not to select embryos with those high risk factors. And most of the, most of the risk factors that are identified are highly treatable. Further, I think you mentioned intelligence and antisocial behavior. Those are not a case of genetics is destiny. Those, you know, how those work out have a lot to do with the environment as well as the genetics part of that. And, the article maintains here, I think, int- something I'm not so sure about, that this is not an indication of parents who want to have designer babies. Now, even if that's true, I think what the study points out, this is certainly a step in the direction of designer babies because we're now out of just the medical risk. We're out, we're out of the areas where we're trying to do an end run around child inheriting certain genetic abnormalities, and we're looking at non-medical, basically social traits that in my view, have as much to do with character and development and nurturing as they do with genetics. Now, just to be clear, Sean, designer babies, I think, is inconsistent with the biblical notion of children as a gift to be received gratefully and specifically to be received without us putting specifications on them. Specification, putting specifications on something I think disqualifies it as being a gift. And here's the thing. I don't want us as a culture and as prospective parents to be saying in effect to our children, [inhales] "I will love you and accept you unconditionally once you meet my standards of genetic acceptability." that I think is fundamentally inconsistent with the mandate to love our children unconditionally.

Sean McDowell: Good take and good nuance, and I agree with you that there is an element of designer babies here that's seeping in. And I think the fact that the article went out of its way to say, "Oh, this is not about designer babies," makes me suspect that the author knows maybe there is something to it here in this piece. I had two

Scott Rae: That may be a thou dost protest too much.

Sean McDowell: [chuckles] Exactly. Yeah. That's the point. I had two issues that jumped out of this, and this is where you and I might differ over this a little bit. This strikes me as the kind of ethical decisions or decision that a human being is simply not meant to make. We are not supposed to be in this decision of choosing which embryos to implant and which ones not to implant. And I think once we take God's natural design for fertilization between a man and a woman, and the child is, the embryo is fertilized inside the woman, and place it in a lab, this kind of scenario seems almost inevitable. I think God's creative norm is not only descriptive, but I think it's prescriptive for us, for our good, our good as parents, our good as kids, our good as societies. So babies are just simply not meant to be fertilized, inside a lab with a third-party scientist involved, analyzing its DNA and deciding how smart is it going to be, what disease might it have. I don't see this as fixing God's design. I think it's superintending it. And so you know, I've talked about this and maybe differ here, which is fine. People can go back and listen to our discussion about IVF. But I see issues like this emerging naturally and necessarily when we move outside of God's design for fertilization. These questions are going to come, and human beings are going to place in these kind of situations we shouldn't be meant to. I also wonder, it's kind of interesting to ask what view of anthropology or human nature is lurking behind this, that we look at human beings and kind of assess their physical and non-physical traits through kind of a lens of biological analysis. There's a kind of reductionism that's taking place here, that it is one thing to simply say, "Well, if I can prevent heart disease, if I can prevent vision impairment," these are physical parts of the body. When it comes to, like, social anxiety or when it comes to intelligence or it comes to these other factors, these are not simply biological factors, and this kind of screening makes sense if we can reduce a human being down to its physical parts and then assess them similarly And so I wonder how much kind of a materialist worldview has seeped into this and doesn't take into consideration the immaterial part as well. Any other thoughts on this one?

Scott Rae: Yeah, Sean. There are folks who are not only promoting designer babies, but I've read some philosophers who have suggested that it's a, that parents actually have a moral obligation to genetically engineer their children-

Sean McDowell: Oh, boy

Scott Rae: ... Toward the best ends.

Sean McDowell: Whew.

Scott Rae: I've, you know, and this is, that I think is a, that's the twist on that that I think just reinforces the point that you've made already. That is a reductionistic view of a human being, and that their destiny is tied to their biology in ways that, I think, you know, we've had, we've had a lot of experience with that notion, and we've discovered pretty clearly that that's not true. So I'd wanna be very careful with anything that's smacked of this sort of designer children. Parents thinking that they can control, who their children become, simply based on biology, I think is a, that's a worldview issue that illustrates that reductionism.

Sean McDowell: It's because children are a gift, and we don't get to choose [laughs] what the gift is meant to be that comes to us.

Scott Rae: Mm-hmm.

Sean McDowell: God set it up that way for a reason.

Scott Rae: Don't get to put, you don't get to put specifications on it.

Sean McDowell: Exactly. Now, we're gonna jump into questions. We got some really good questions.

Scott Rae: Really good questions.

Sean McDowell: There's no way we'll get to all of them. Quickly wanna let people know that we would love to have you come study with us at Talbot. We have campuses now in Phoenix and in Southern California, online and in person. Philosophy, ethics, apologetics, Old Testament, New Testament. Things are moving in an amazing direction here at Talbot. We would love to come alongside and train you to think biblically about everything. All right, Scott, this first one is for you, and I had somebody off air ask me the same question. They're like, "How would Scott answer this?" I was like, "I don't know, but I'll ask him this week," 'cause the same question came up.

Scott Rae: [laughs]

Sean McDowell: And it was related to the Ukraine considering legalizing porn to fund the war. And you apparently made the remark, "A few times it'd be better to have it above ground and legalized if it's going to happen anyway." This person says, "I'm confused by that position," and applies, says, "What about, like, hard drugs, like heroin, cocaine? Wouldn't the same logic follow that it better, to have creation processing those drugs legalized, to prevent fentanyl being used or unsafe practices that result in death?" Your response.

Scott Rae: Here's what, here's what I would say to this. I would call this a, this is a damage control argument.

Sean McDowell: Okay.

Scott Rae: It's a, it's a harm reduction argument, and it is, it is on utilitarian grounds. It's not necessarily principle, but that's a, which is, that's the way a good bit of our public policy is made in the first place. I think we control the damage better if it's above ground, and I think, I think actually the same argument can be made for fentanyl. Because if someone obtained, obtains an illicit opioid, the government can't assure the user of what the substance contains, how concentrated it is, whether, what mixture it is with other synthetic drugs, or whether the dose is even consistent. And a regulated supply of that, I think, can take away some of the significant harms that are coming, from I think, mostly illicit use of fentanyl. I mean, hospitals use this under controlled situations to relieve pain very effectively. So again, I this is not something... I wouldn't go to the stake for this, but I think you can employ a harm reduction argument on utilitarian grounds. Now, I think it's fair to debate whether that, whether bringing it above ground will actually reduce the level of harm.

Sean McDowell: Sure.

Scott Rae: And I think that that's a, I acknowledge that's a debatable point. But I'm not, you know, I'm just saying that it's a, that's the argument for it, and I don't think it's entirely inconsistent.

Sean McDowell: Okay. Fair enough. Now, you and I have gotten a bunch of questions recently about forgiveness and justice, and I'm gonna not go into these right now, 'cause we have an author coming on soon, T.C. Cannon, who's written a recent book on this. And so we're gonna address this in a regular Tuesday episode, and then after that, take some questions if people have it. But we got a lot of questions, [laughs] perhaps as much as any episode we've ever done, on the interview with Scott McKnight tied to, like, trauma and the Church. So let me ask you the first one here. This individual says, "I just finished the episode with heavy trepidation regarding his call for more trauma-informed approaches in the Church. I agree the Church can absolutely stand to grow in our compassion and self-sacrificial care for others and each other. However, do you think that trauma-informed approaches can tone down the truth with carefully crafted verbiage and water down the gospel? Do you think there's a risk of placing the comfort of a few above the need to speak the truth that might bring eventual healing? What's the balance here?" You have thoughts on this one?

Scott Rae: Well,

Scott Rae: yeah. I'm sympathetic to people who have genuinely experienced trauma and who have experienced it in our churches, you know? And we, and I think this is where Scott McKnight's approach has been really helpful. I think we can debate the degree to which Paul experienced PTSD. My own view of it was with the amount of, the number of beatings that he took and the amount of time he spent in in Roman prisons, that probably qualifies it, you know, even outside of the things that McKnight suggests, the way he was treated by the, by the Corinthian churches. So I think, I think to say that, trauma-informed approaches can tone down the truth with carefully crafted verbiages and water down the gospel, I think that's too strong. I, the risk of placing the comfort of a few ab-above the need to speak the truth and I bring healing, I think that's probably too strong.

Scott Rae: Now I think we can go too far. I think there are probably some things where, you know, I, you know, I would be inclined to say there's some things that people think qualify as trauma that may fit under the category of get over it. You know, especially after it's gone on for some time. And I I wanna make sure, I think where the question I think m-maybe has some merit is I wanna, I wanna make sure that we're not encouraging people to marinate in their trauma as... And to live, to live, sort of to live into it for long periods of time. I think the point of, you know, of being sensitive to people's trauma is so that they can a-address it and do what's necessary to heal from that. Though I acknowledge that there are lots of traumas that take a long time to heal, and I wanna, I wanna be careful we acknowledge that clearly. I mean, somebody's been sexually assaulted, that's not, that's not in the get over it category. You know, somebody who had li-life-threatening experiences, it's not in the get over it category. So I'd wanna... You know, there are, there are I think lesser things that, you know, maybe we raise questions about where they fit under the heading of trauma, though I'm To be honest, I'm a little reluctant to quibble with somebody if they, if they have a genuine sense that they've been traumatized. Unless it's, unless it's something I think that's obviously trivial, I'm inclined to believe the person when they say that they're experiencing something akin to trauma.

Sean McDowell: Well, I'm definitely inclined to believe the person. I think the concern is that at times people sit in their trauma. They're not told that you have agency. There's healing that can take here. This doesn't define who you are, and we sometimes don't empower people. You mentioned sexual abuse, which when you and I interviewed Rachel Den Hollander, I think she said outside of war, it's like the second leading kind of PTSD that people can experience. And some of those scars, like a physical scar, last for a lifetime, and there is some trauma that is there. But I've also seen the example of my dad, who was severely sexually abused. Certain beliefs that he had, like he told me one time, he goes, "Son, I know that I'm not used goods. I've gotten healing. I've shared this pain with people and been an amazing husband and amazing father." So I I wanna just say, I don't know where the balance is, but we can walk and chew gum at the same time. We can recognize trauma. We can listen to people. We can hear them out. We can meet them in their pain. We can give them space to heal, and we can promise that the Holy Spirit is with us, and that God is healing us, and that we have agency. Somehow, we just have to teach both of those, and we err on the side when it's like, "Suck up, fix yourself, move on." It's like, yeah, I've really been traumatized here. But also when we just kinda sit in the trauma and don't move people towards healing outside of it, I think that's also a promise, or a problem as well. [lips smack] We're probably pushing time here a little bit, but let's do one more on this. This person said, "Can you address the following claims made by Scott McKnight?" And in some ways, we can't answer for Scott, but he says, quote, "Paul is getting in the face of Peter in Antioch is not a very pretty moment for Paul. Paul was a highly emotional person who could have weep quickly and get very angry, and he wasn't always in control of himself. I find it problematic to reframe his rebuking Peter as he did, as a lack of self-control." In other words, this person is saying, how much can we really psychoanalyze Paul with modern concepts from an ancient book 2,000 years removed?

Scott Rae: Well, I think there's some, there's... Some of his, some of his points here I think are well taken, and to be, I think maybe to have tentative conclusions that we draw about Paul on this, although I, you know, I have great respect for Scott McKnight as a New Testament scholar. So I don't, I don't think he would be doing anything that would be, you know, overly speculative without admitting that that's what he's doing. So,

Scott Rae: you know, I'm not too... You know, I think, I think there were, there were things in Paul's relationship with the various churches, I think especially the Corinthians ones, that I think left him, f-feeling, like his trauma has been, has been-- people are piling on. But I, just don't, I don't know enough about, you know, Paul's psychological state, you know, to say if he was a highly emotional person who could weep quickly, get angry quickly, wasn't in control of himself. I I just... I'm gonna have to plead ignorance on some of that.

Sean McDowell: That's totally fair. It was one of my favorite interviews in part 'cause when somebody makes

Scott Rae: It's so interesting

Sean McDowell: ... Think differently, I'm just like, "Wait a minute. This is fascinating." I've been thinking about it ever since. The one area I don't know yet is there's such a worldview and cultural distance between us and the time of Paul. Even the concept of personhood was being worked out in the first, second, third centuries in light of what it meant for there to be one God with three persons. Even some of the modern constructs of mental health and trauma, these are modern ideas, and I'm reluctant and hesitant to read into this text where we have one side- Where we're, we may claim to know more than we do. So I just wonder if we underestimate the significant gap that is there is one thing that just gives me hesitance to read into much. But nonetheless, Scott's case about how Paul was treated, about his size, about the mocking in the churches, I'd never really pieced those things together. Like I said in the interview, it kind of feels like Paul walks on air, and he's clear, and it's like, you know what? He had insecurities. He had failures. He had a thorn in his flesh. He had pain in his life. In some ways, it humanized him and reminded me how perfect Jesus is to only lean into Jesus and not to anybody else.

Scott Rae: Yeah, I would, I would encourage the listeners who've put these questions to us to read Scott's book on this. And then tell us what you think.

Sean McDowell: Yeah, I'd love it. Read it. Send us a note. That'd be real interesting to hear. Scott, good stuff, my man. Always enjoy the conversation.

Scott Rae: Me too.

Sean McDowell: This has been an episode of the podcast Think Biblically: Conversations on Faith and Culture, brought to you by Talbot School of Theology at Biola University. As I mentioned earlier, we have master's programs in person and distance, theology, Bible, apologetics, spiritual formation, and more, fully online and in person. Please keep your comments and questions coming. I just apologize we can't get to all them. Please email us at thinkbiblically@biola.edu. And we'd be honored and grateful if you'd give us a rating on your podcast app. Seriously, every single one of these helps us expand our reach and hopefully help more people to think biblically as well. And we'll see you Tuesday, for our fascinating conversation with Biola professor Kent Dunnington on the role gratitude plays in our spiritual lives. In the meantime, remember to think biblically about everything. [outro music]