Be Careful What You Wish For? Radical Life Extension coram Deo: A Reformed Protestant Perspective

Abstract

Is radical life extension (RLE) a theological question? At first blush, Christian reflections on the RLE proposal appear unimportant. It is hard to find theological rationale for the claim that Christianity has any particular interest in the question of the extent of the human life span per se. What lie at the heart of the Christian religion, on the human side, are core anthropological convictions as to the nature, moral stature, and destiny of members of our species, coram Deo, and not the age at which individuals come to the end of their earthly lives. In light of the eternity of the Godhead and that of the raised and glorified future of the individual, the life of the smallest babe and Methuselah himself are as one; all lives are made in the image of the Maker, each with a beginning, a middle, and an end. All flesh, as Holy Scripture makes plain, is grass.

But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die.”

—Genesis 3:4