Mystery XXI: Longevity in the Bible

Kiran: Last week we discussed the fear of technology-driven immortality. One of the reasons proposed to account for this fear was that people feel that immortality without eradication of sin is dangerous, because it magnifies the problems we are facing today.

Today we will look at a few examples of extraordinary longevity and immortality mentioned in the Bible. Genesis 5 says that Adam lived 930 years, Seth 912, Enosh 905, Kenan 910, Mahalalel 895, Jared 962, Enoch 365 until taken by God, Methuselah 969, and Noah 950. A chart of these lifespans shows that Adam was still alive when Noah was born, so it is quite possible that Noah learned many things from Adam:

I can imagine Adam going around talking to his descendants about his creation, his fall from the Garden, and the promise of a Messiah to restore unity with God. He would have shown maybe his lack of a belly button, or the entrance to the Garden of Eden and its guardian angels, etc. I wouldn’t expect any skepticism in the minds of his contemporaries and I would expect them to be loving and obedient to the commands of God. However, the Bible describes this generation somewhat differently, in Genesis 6:3-8:

Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh; nevertheless his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.” The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.

Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. The Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. The Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky; for I am sorry that I have made them.” But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.

This passage clearly shows that God decreased the human lifespan to 120 years, whereas Noah’s relatives had lived almost a thousand. But even then, their hearts continued so full of evil that God decided to sweep the earth clean of everyone except for Noah and his company.

The acceleration in artificial intelligence and singularity research (by means of which the human lifespan might be significantly extended, as we discussed last week) suggests that earthly immortality or at least extraordinary longevity are inevitable—unless God puts a stop to it as He did when Noah’s children built the Tower of Babel. If it is inevitable, then the issue is building a society that can handle it. How would society deal with the resulting exponential increase in population, for example? How would we deal with poverty, war, and social evils? Can we socially engineer our society to be a perfect community adapted for longevity? Could we solve these problems on our own any better than we are able to solve climate change today? How would God solve the problem? We know that God is going to give immortality to His believers. How different would God’s immortal society be from human immortal society? And what would make it different?

As I was pondering this question, I came across this passage from Isaiah 11:6-9:

And the wolf will dwell with the lamb,
And the leopard will lie down with the young goat,
And the calf and the young lion and the fatling together;
And a little boy will lead them.
Also the cow and the bear will graze,
Their young will lie down together,
And the lion will eat straw like the ox.
The nursing child will play by the hole of the cobra,
And the weaned child will put his hand on the viper’s den.
They will not hurt or destroy in all My holy mountain,
For the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord
As the waters cover the sea.

I would like to live in a society that had such perfect harmony between nature and man, with no creature harming another. But if there is no death, then how would God solve the problem of population increase in his Creatures? Could it be that there is no procreation? Matthew 22:23-30 says:

On that day some Sadducees (who say there is no resurrection) came to Jesus and questioned Him, asking, “Teacher, Moses said, ‘If a man dies having no children, his brother as next of kin shall marry his wife, and raise up children for his brother.’ Now there were seven brothers with us; and the first married and died, and having no children left his wife to his brother; so also the second, and the third, down to the seventh. Last of all, the woman died. In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife of the seven will she be? For they all had married her.”

But Jesus answered and said to them, “You are mistaken, not understanding the Scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.

I like this passage because in such a society my family would not pressure me to get married! 😉 I am not sure if this passage is saying that there is no procreation in Heaven, but it definitely says that we will not be getting married.

Will this society be without sin? Revelation 22:3 says: “And there shall be no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him;…” There is no curse. We will have God and Jesus among us and then there will be no unemployment problem because we all will work for the King.

Yet there is one thing about this society that intrigues me very much. We can see in Isaiah 11:9 that “they shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain, for the EARTH shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.”

Note that this society will exist on earth, whose every inhabitant will know the Lord and do no harm to one another. To what extent would we know God? Isaiah said to the extent that the ocean is deep and wide.

What lessons can we draw from Adam’s immediate family that could be applied to our earthly society of immortal cyborgs? Could we socially engineer our society to be self-sustainable and peaceful enough for the immortal cyborgs? What is this knowledge of God and how can it bring perfect harmony? In 1 Corinthians 15:58 Paul said: “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.” What would this mean in an immortal earthly society? Can we hope to live the life that Paul called us to live?

Robin: Isaiah 11:4:

But with righteousness He will judge the poor,
And decide with fairness for the afflicted of the earth;
And He will strike the earth with the rod of His mouth,
And with the breath of His lips He will slay the wicked.

This is earth after god has removed the wicked from it. It is the idyllic earth of Isaiah 11:6. It is not an earth built and run by humans or computers or intelligent machines. Artificial intelligence lacks emotion. The idyllic world that god creates, with beautiful creatures loving one another, does not. I would not want immortality in an emotionless world. Today’s world has so much evil in it, who except those with ego would want to continue in it?

David: I think it’s optimists, not just egotists, who would want to live forever. Technology has certainly contributed to today’s global mayhem but it also offers solutions to stop the mayhem. It shows the world the horror of the evil that is afoot and it is evoking a global reaction against it. The reaction will prevail, I believe. I see more progress than regress in the world as a whole. I see the development of global communal morality through the technology-enabled advent of the global village. Peace in the Middle East is not an oxymoron to the optimist; nor, I venture, to someone with the patience of Job or god. I would love to live long enough to see my optimism come true, and then some!

Robin: I am just not so optimistic about humanity. I don’t see it happening without the intervention of god.

Charles: Throughout the bible, there is a theme of sin being equivalent to spiritual death (“separation from the will of God) and in a sense hardwired into mortal man in the context of our free will. Through our free willw-which is distinct from God’s will-we are predisposed to succumb to our “earthly” desires-to give in to temptation-to “fall” (away from God).   And, as Paul said, “The wage of sin is death”. I believe this refers more to spiritual death (and permanent separation from God) then it does to the death of our earthly (physical) bodies (“the flesh”).So I believe the passage from Corinthians that says “flesh and blood” (i.e. physical man) cannot inherit the kingdom of god” refers to the domain of the spirit and “oneness” with God. And unlike our physical bodies, the spirit of God is not inherited through the flesh—rather it is a gift from God that Christians believe comes through Jesus Christ.

So anything that leads to “immortality” of flesh and blood is flawed because, like everything in the physical universe, it is ultimately subject to both physical and spiritual corruption and decay. St. Augustine spoke of three resurrections of the physical body that came through Jesus and proposed a compelling case that these metaphorically represented different phases of sin (i.e. spiritual death): A little girl who was resurrected inside her house (before the funeral)—her death (her sin) had not yet become physically manifest (akin to sins of the mind, lust/desire); a young man who died at the gate (during the funeral)—whose death (sin) was publicly/physically manifest; and Lazarus, who was dead 4 days—such that the corpse had begun to stink (the sin had become entrenched by habit).  In each case, it was Jesus alone who had the power to overcome death (sin) and resurrect the body (spirit). But in each of those cases the flesh would ultimately die again.

But in his own case, Jesus overcame both physical and spiritual death (sin) “once for all”. Up until the cross and resurrection, Jesus was the only man obedient to God’s (i.e. without sin) will unto death and the first man of both a human (physical) and “divine” (spiritual) nature (obedient to God’s will) as opposed to purely “earthly” nature (obedient to man’s will). In the process of the resurrection Jesus’ physical body was transformed. Herolled away the stone and removed the shroud of sin . The resurrected (transformed) Jesus then left man with the gift of the his spirit. A deposit on our own immortality in the Kingdom of God. In a sense, through baptism the believer is also of an earthly and divine spiritual nature.

Maybe the lesson we are meant to understand from the seemingly impossible near-millennial lives of Noah’s ancestors is that while such physical/mortal longevity is possible, it is not ultimately sustainable. Those lives were corruptible and became corrupted. The only true path to incorruptible immortality is through the gift of the spirit that the Christian believes comes through Christ Jesus as he promised for all who believe and follow him. In being called by Paul to work hard for God, our work is never in vain as long as we follow him along the way. To the extent we choose to conduct ourselves consistent with our divine nature (spirit) we follow Jesus on the way and we do God’s will. To the extent we are obedient to God’s will (as opposed to our human earthly desires) we building the Kingdom of God here on earth and working toward a similar resurrection to immortality.

David: It seems to me you are saying that there is no point striving to make this a better world because sin and death are inherent and inevitable, while maintaining that there is every point in working toward something good. I think this is a contradiction. The optimist anticipates a better world and is therefore more likely to work for it that the cynical pessimist. As mortals, we clearly do not inhabit the spiritual world, but many of us here have said we believe the spirit inhabits us. That is vitally important, it seems to me, because it is the source of hope.

The way sin is presented to us in scripture, we might as well abandon hope: We are all sinners. End of story, even for Christians, whose sins may or may not be redeemed by Jesus Christ on the Day of Judgment, depending upon a number of not exactly clear-cut redeeming factors. To me, that is a message of desperate uncertainty, if not of outright despair. I believe we can do, be, and hope for much better than that while we are here on earth. To me, the prospect of much greater mortal longevity is immensely exciting, because I think it will lead to an increase in wisdom (unless wisdom stops accumulating at age 90 or so, but why should it, if we are not deteriorating physically and mentally?) And think how much better the world will be when wisdom abounds!

Charles: I believe that the spirit of God (his Word, his Will) is within us and that we often choose to ignore it and succumb instead to our earthly (physical) desires (temptation, the Devil) and in the process we fall into sin. The reason it is so important to “abound in the work of the Lord” and “toil not in vain”—that is, to listen to the spirit and obey God’s will—is given in scripture (John 5:28): Abound in the work of the Lord (ie. obey God’s will) and be saved, or don’t and be damned. Nobody escapes this judgment, so it is to every individual’s benefit to listen to the spirit. There is great hope in so doing, to the extent everyone does we not only save ourselves, in the process we create the Kingdom of God on earth. Even if we figure out how to live for a thousand years, we can never create that Kingdom unless/until everyman’s will is consistent with the will (Word) of God. That message doesn’t change a bit.

David: My understanding of scripture is that Jesus saves everybody, regardless of their sins. He loves sinners! Here’s another of those contradictions that so frustrates me about the bible. I agree that there is optimism in doing good (“abounding in the work of the Lord”) because, alongside our growing wisdom and our growing understanding of the spirit inside us, it will lead to a better physical world in which to live our longer mortal lives! We cannot live a totally spiritual life until we become spirit ourselves—until we die a mortal death, and as Chuck noted last week, mortal death is ultimately inevitable in a physical universe subject to the Law of Entropy (we suppose).

I still subscribe to the now somewhat doubtful collapsing universe theory, which holds that the current expansion will eventually slow, stop, and reverse all the way back to a singularity, a point; the “Big Crunch” that is simultaneously another “Big Bang”—it is Alpha and Omega, Zero and One, Nothing and Everything; and it is in that eternal spiritual moment, which lasts no time and all time, when we become one with a god who has fulfilled his Becoming potential and is now (and again, and always) a Being… and a Becoming.

As long as we inhabit the physical universe, either in our fragile human frames or strong robot bodies, we will never inhabit the dimension of spirit. The Big Crunch will generate enough power (through frictional heat) to enable mortals who are much smarter than we are (and essentially much closer to god than we are) to reassemble the timeline of every quantum that ever was, including the quanta that made up you and me. In other words, it will enable resurrection at the Omega point and re-birth at the Alpha point of the Singularity.

My main sources for these crazy beliefs (which I’m afraid may shock some readers of the transcript) are Frank Tipler’s “Omega Point Theory” and Alfred North Whitehead’s “Process Theology.” I don’t accept everything they say, and my belief incorporates many additional contributions from others, all of whom I discuss in my book Deus ex Machina sapiens. That’s not just a shameful plug: If you read the book you will find that it ends with a message of gentle hope, and frankly I find the hope offered in the bible to be a terrible sort of hope: “If you’ve done things right, you’ll be OK. What’s right, you ask? Ah… well… you wouldn’t understand. But you can hope, and besides, there’s always god’s mercy… except for some of you. Which ones? Ah, well… those who’ve done things right….” This is a defeatist message that dampens rather than raises the spirit, in my view.

Kiran: In 1 Corinthians 15:30-31, 34, and 58, Paul warns against just this kind of defeatism:

Why are we also in danger every hour? I affirm, brethren, by the boasting in you which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily. …Become sober-minded as you ought, and stop sinning; for some have no knowledge of God. I speak this to your shame.

…Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.

Paul says our corruptible nature leads to evil; at the same time, both Paul and Isaiah said that knowledge of god brings people together in harmony. Science is helping us live longer and longer, but science is at odds with religion. If science were to incorporate the knowledge of man’s inner spirit and the spiritual healing that can occur through the knowledge of god, would that accelerate the benefits of both?

Charles: Ultimate spiritual death (and rebirth) can only happen at the End of the Age. The bible metaphorically compares sin/death to sleep. Those who die are physically and spiritually asleep until from the moment of physical death to the moment of final judgment. Some may have sweet dreams; others, nightmares. Perhaps it depends upon how well one has behaved in life. How consistent it was with God’s will… Can one “sleep well” with “a clear conscience” or not? Lazarus the beggar was taken up directly into the bosom of Abraham whereas the ungenerous king found himself thirsty and without a drop to drink. So I think the metaphor of death as sleep has spiritual implications and helps to inform how to conduct one’s life with an eye not only to final judgment at the End of the Age but also to the purgatory (or paradise) of the sleep of physical death beforehand.

David: Dave said last week that we are self-centered for most of our life, but as we age, we get wiser and come to realize that our real priorities lie in the spiritual rather than the material world. We become less self-centered. When science enables much longer lifespans, will that mean that wisdom is delayed, that selfishness is extended, and and that spirituality is further away than ever? Or will we become much wiser, more spiritual, and even less selfish at age 150 than we are at age 80? Perhaps it’s just the wishfully thinking optimist in me, but I tend to think it will be more like the latter than the former scenario. I believe—on the basis of history!—that on the whole (there will of course be exceptions) humanity will put the extra years of life more to good than to bad account—there will be more “abounding in the work of the Lord” if you like.

Charles: The passage I mentioned earlier said that everyone will be called to judgment, and how well we “abound in the work of the Lord” will be a yardstick by which we are judged. Therefore there is good reason for us to lead good lives. John 5:28-29:

Do not marvel at this; for an hour is coming, in which all who are in the tombs will hear His voice, and will come forth; those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment.

David: This does not make sense given that Jesus came to save everybody, especially sinners.

Charles: The gift of the spirit within us gives everyone the opportunity to choose good over evil.

Robin: According to 2 Peter 3:9-13, it seems that apparently some people will be confronted with their inner spirit but choose not to respond to it:

The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.

But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up.

Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with intense heat! But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.

Charles: Adam and Eve had that choice—hence, Original Sin and the Fall. There followed a period of time, before the Law was written, when hard-wired “common sense” had to prevail, such as loving god and treating others as one would wish to be treated. Then came the prophets and Moses to write things down (though it is arguable that this was necessary), and then comes Jesus, who seems essentially to have re-affirmed the hard-wired understanding we had before the Law; but additionally, he brought the gift of the holy spirit to help guide us along the right path. But the point is that all we really have to do is to behave to god and others with love and respect, as we are hard-wired to behave. Everyone everywhere has that choice.

David: But the “common-sense” of “don’t kill others so that they don’t kill you” is a selfish choice, not a choice to do Good. The reason not to kill—the Good choice—is because it hurts the person killed, and his or her family and friends, and so on. That is the Christian moral imperative, and the Law—the Commandment “Thou shalt not kill”—is superfluous. As I understand his message, Jesus was saying that when judgment comes, you can’t hide behind the Law, you can’t claim to have been Good simply because you obeyed all ten of the commandments; it depends upon how you treated others.

I agree that our inner spirit tells us it’s not Good to do bad things to other people and I believe (from experience) that it also, through its own sadness when we do, shows us why it’s not Good.

Robin: But clearly there are lots of people who refuse to respond to that spirit. It’s choice.

David: And if that is not going to change, then we should not only not want a longer life on this earth, we should want an early death, so that Evil would be foreshortened and judgment hastened. If we are going to despair of ever becoming better people, closer to god, then logically we should pray for an early end to the Universe, the twinkling of the divine eye, and get it over with. But to me, the prospect of longer life on this beautiful earth means an opportunity to deepen our understanding of the spirit and The Way or whatever word we choose for god.

Kiran: We need to be careful about judging what we think are wrong or bad choices in others. It’s what god judges that is True and that, at the end of the day, counts. Our inner spirit perhaps could use the extra time bestowed by science to help us, in time, see our bad choices (from god’s perspective) and repent of and atone for them.

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