The notion that Moses actually lived and wrote the first five books of the Bible has long been rejected in academic circles and is now being increasingly questioned among conservative Old Testament (OT) scholars. However, since Mosaic authorship is the traditional view of the church, it would be unwise for Bible believers to reject Moses’s involvement in the production of the Torah (or Pentateuch, the first five books). Indeed, while the Torah probably did not come into its final form until the sixth century BC, there are at least five good lines of internal evidence suggesting that Moses (thought to have lived around the fifteenth century BC) authored the Torah. We will look at two of those reasons here in the first part of a two-part series.

1. Hebrew Consistency

The Hebrew of the Torah, though similar in many respects with the rest of the TaNaKh (Hebrew Bible), is consistent with the theory that Moses wrote it during the fifteenth century BC. Richard Hess, professor of Old Testament and Semitic languages, explains:

[T]he language of the Pentateuch is similar to that of the remainder of the Hebrew Bible, with the exception of the tendency to spell words with fewer vowel letters. This seems to betray a greater antiquity. However, the absence of distinctive features within the grammar of the Pentateuch, features that can definitely be recognized as possessing greater antiquity than the remainder of the Hebrew Bible, implies one of three possibilities: (1) The entire Hebrew Bible was written at about the same time; (2) there is no history to the Hebrew language so that it did not change over a period of a thousand years of usage; or (3) the Pentateuch, though written earlier, was edited or updated at a later period so that its language would conform to that of the remainder of the Bible.^₁

Hess favors the third option and suggests that evidence for an earlier dating of the Hebrew text may have been lost in the process of transmission. He also notes that scholars think some poetry would not need to be updated so as to preserve its form. Thus, some early verbal forms are used in Exodus 15 in the past narrative sense, implying a date for its writing consistent with the traditional date.

The similarity in language between all sections of the Hebrew Bible, then, is explained by the updating of the Pentateuch and prophetic oracles under the direction of Ezra and the Great Synagogue around 500 BC.

2. Non-Palestinian Perspective

The Torah was written from a Non-Palestinian point of view, to an audience more familiar with Egypt and Sinai than the land of Canaan, suggesting a date for the writing of the Torah long before the sixth or even tenth century BC. As an example, we offer the following text:

Lot lifted up his eyes and saw all the valley of the Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere—this was before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah—like the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt as you go to Zoar. (Genesis 13:10, NASB)

This passage implies that its author and his readers/hearers knew what Egypt was like, but were not very familiar with Palestine. It is difficult to see how or why a tenth century BC (or later) author, living in Palestine and writing to an audience born and raised in the land of Israel, would want to express himself in this way. However, this text makes sense if Moses wrote to a primarily Egyptian-born audience. In this connection, the author of Genesis tells his readers about “the city of Shechem in Canaan” (Genesis 33:18). Why would a postexilic (after 538 BC) writer, or even a writer living in tenth century (BC) Palestine, feel the need to explain what Shechem—one of the most prominent cities north of Jerusalem—was? Note also that, as far as the geographical point of view of the narrator of the Exodus story is concerned, “The seasons and the weather referred to in the narrative are Egyptian, not Palestinian.”²

Counterevidence?

Of course, some scholars have argued that the Egyptian evidence we are citing is a double-edged sword. Since the late nineteenth century scholars have insisted that, had a contemporary of the exodus generation written this material, he would have given us the names of the various kings mentioned in Genesis and Exodus. However, this phenomenon actually favors the Mosaic theory; for as long as the Hebrews lived in Egypt, they would naturally follow the ordinary custom of the New Kingdom by referring to the king of Egypt as “Pharaoh.”

It is not until long after the Israelites are settled in their land, during the reign of Solomon and thereafter, that they adopt the practice of giving the names of the Egyptian pharaohs (cf. 1 Kings 11:40; 2 Kings 23:29; Jeremiah 44:30). “Hence instead of being an evidence of lateness, this conformity to Eighteenth Dynasty Egyptian usage turns out to be strong evidence of an authentic Mosaic date of composition.”³

In fact, no author of the OT utilized Egyptian loanwords more than the writer of the Pentateuch. For example, “. . . the expression ’abrēk (Gen 41:43—translated ‘bow the knee’) is apparently the Egyptian ’b rk (‘O heart, bow down!’), although many other explanations have been offered for this; weights and measures, such as zeret (‘a span’) from drt—‘hand’; ’ ēphah (tenth of a homer) from ’pt; hīn (about five quarts volume) from hnw; gōme’ (‘papyrus’) from ḳmyt; qemahi (‘flour’) from ḳm ḥw (a type of bread); . . . y^e’ōr (‘Nile, river’) from ’trw—‘river’ (which becomes eioor in Coptic).”⁴

Hence, it is reasonable to accept the conclusions of respected researcher Garrow Duncan, who wrote, “Thus we cannot but admit that the writer of these two narratives [i.e., of Joseph and of the Exodus] . . . was thoroughly well acquainted with the Egyptian language, customs, belief, court life, etiquette and officialdom; and not only so, but the readers must have been just as familiar with things Egyptian.”⁴

Summarizing the Evidence

If the author and readers of the Pentateuch were Hebrews who were thoroughly acquainted with all things Egyptian, we must ask—which generation of Hebrews fits this description? The only answer, of course, is Moses and the Exodus generation. And this, indeed, provides us with strong circumstantial evidence for the Mosaic theory.

So far, we have seen two strong reasons to think Moses wrote the Torah. Defense of the traditional view becomes especially significant when we consider that Jesus himself affirmed Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch (see Matthew 19:1–12, for example). In part two, we will look at several more lines of evidence for this traditional viewpoint.

If you ever watched Tim Allen on Tool Time, the handyman show within the television show Home Improvement, you saw a man who always expressed joy in using some tool or set of tools to fix or solve a problem. Allen (as Tim “The Toolman” Taylor) portrayed what is inherent in us all. All human beings find satisfaction and fulfillment when we successfully use a tool—or better yet, several tools—to fix or solve something that has stumped or vexed us. Research affirms that this fulfillment in humans and some animals appears to result from a Creator’s endowment.

For humans, tools can be tangible, like screwdrivers and crowbars, or abstract, like mathematical equations or computer software. People who use tools and are consistently successful in their tool use tend to be happier and more optimistic than people who are not.

Successful tool use ranks as just one example of how performing certain complex behaviors improves the mental state of humans. (Others that have been scientifically tested and affirmed include altruistic giving,¹ playing sports,² and working to achieve concrete goals.³) Interestingly, animals have been shown to benefit from tool use as well.

Environmental Effects on the Mental States of Birds and Mammals
Many experiments have demonstrated that for birds and mammals environmental enrichment generates optimistic responses whereas environmental deprivation brings on pessimistic responses. Experiments performed on rats, pigs, and starlings establish that when these animals are housed with environmental enrichment they show strong tendencies toward optimistic behavior, but when housed with environmental deprivation they show strong tendencies toward pessimistic behavior.⁴

Behavioral Effects on Tool-Using Crows
A few weeks ago researchers addressed the question of whether the emotional state of nonhuman animals is positively influenced by willingly initiated complex behaviors like tool use. A team of six zoologists and psychologists led by Harvard University’s Dakota McCoy conducted experiments on fifteen temporarily captured wild New Caledonian crows to test this hypothesis.⁵ They only experimented on crows that had no previous experience in an aviary or laboratory. Each crow was presented with four different circumstances:

1. where it could get a food treat out of a box by just using its beak
2. where it needed to use a tool to get the treat
3. where little physical effort was needed to get the treat with or without a tool
4. where much physical effort was needed to get the treat with or without a tool

McCoy’s team noted that the “crows approached the ambiguous stimulus significantly faster in tool use condition trials, where they used a tool to extract a meat block from an apparatus, then in no tool trials.”⁶ The stimulus was ambiguous in that the crows did not know ahead of time whether there would be a food reward. The team claimed that “measuring approach speed, in this spatial paradigm specifically reveals the ‘wanting’ component, from which we can infer affective ‘liking.’”⁷ McCoy and her collaborators therefore concluded that “wild New Caledonian crows are optimistic after tool use”⁸ and that their finding “cannot be explained by the crows needing to put more effort into gaining food.”⁹

McCoy’s team limited their experiments to wild crows that had no previous laboratory experience or any kind of developed relationship with human beings. As I explain in Hidden Treasures in the Book of Job,¹⁰ we see an even more dramatic mental health outcome for crows and ravens that are emotionally bonded to a human being. They especially enjoy showing off their tool-using skills to humans with whom they possess a strong emotional bond.

When my father was a young man, he had a pet raven. (Ravens, both biologically and mentally, are very similar to New Caledonian crows.) He built a large cage for the raven and equipped it with several different locks. The raven would hop into the cage, wait for my father to lock it inside, and then proceed to use different metal slivers that my father placed inside the cage to pick the lock, open the cage door, and hop out. The raven would then wait for my father to change out the lock with a more challenging lock, then hop back inside the cage, wait for my father to lock it in, and proceed to pick the second lock, open the cage door, and hop out.

My father told me that his pet raven was happiest when it was picking his locks but that his raven only wanted to pick the locks if he was close by and observing its lock-picking talents. My father also noted that his raven’s joy was most pronounced when it had successfully picked the most challenging of the locks. Apparently, his raven especially loved to show off its intelligence and skills to the human with whom it had a strong emotional bond.

Theological Implications
These observations seem consistent with conclusions drawn from Genesis 1, which describes God creating three different kinds of life:

1. purely physical life-forms (such as plants)
2. nephesh life-forms (life-forms that are not just physical but also soulish in that they possess mind, will, and emotions, the capability of forming emotionally bonded relationships with human beings, and an innate desire to serve and please human beings)
3. a spiritual species (human beings endowed with the capacity to form a relationship with God and an innate desire to serve and please God)

In other words, the Bible teaches that among all Earth’s life the nephesh species (including crows) are exceptional, and that among all nephesh species human beings are exceptional. The experiments performed by McCoy’s team provide additional scientific evidence for both nephesh exceptionalism and human exceptionalism. Their experiments also yield insights into improving the mental health of both nephesh animals and human beings. Regularly employing all the gifts and talents God has given us really does make a difference in our well-being.

Christian apologist Walter Martin used to say that the real death rate is one per person, meaning that each person’s death is a matter of when, not if. Therefore, because we are mortal creatures and thus stalked by death, if Jesus Christ actually conquered death through his resurrection, then this is the most important news for all human beings to hear and to reflectively consider. The inevitability of death should motivate Christians to share the message of the resurrection.

In part 1 of this series, I briefly addressed two evidences for Jesus’s resurrection. In this article I’ll present one more reason in our series of 12 evidences for believing that Jesus Christ’s bodily resurrection from the dead actually happened.

3. Short Time Frame between Actual Events and Eyewitness Claims

Support for the factual nature of Jesus’s resurrection from the dead comes from eyewitness testimonies that were reported soon after the events happened. The apostle Paul claims both that he saw the resurrected Christ (Acts 9:1–19; 22:6–16; 26:12–23) and that others witnessed the resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:3) prior to his personal encounter. Paul asserts in his writings that he received the firsthand testimony from Jesus’s original apostles who were witnesses of Jesus’s resurrection even before him.

In Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, he employs a creedal statement about the resurrection that dates to the earliest period of Christianity.¹ This creed is believed, even by critical scholars (those who doubt the supernatural), to be part of the original Christian kerygma (“proclamation”—representing the earliest preaching and teaching message of Christianity). This early statement of faith that Paul relays mentions by name two of Jesus’s apostles who said they had seen the resurrected Christ. These two apostles are Peter (one of the original 12 apostles and principal spokesperson of primitive Christianity) and James (the brother of Jesus who was also an early apostolic leader).

Here is that early creedal statement as the apostle Paul weaved it into his first Corinthian epistle:

Paul’s statement gives us a fourfold formula of the primitive Christian proclamation as it relates to Jesus’s death and resurrection:

1. Christ died.
2. He was buried.
3. He was raised.
4. He appeared.

This time frame evidenced in the early creed places the original proclamation by the first apostles about Jesus’s resurrection very near to the time of Jesus’s death and resurrection. This development has led even critical New Testament scholars to be amazed at the early and reliable testimony evident in Paul’s writings. In fact, distinguished New Testament scholar James D. G. Dunn states, “This tradition [of Jesus’s resurrection and appearances], we can be entirely confident, was formulated as tradition within months of Jesus’s death.”^₂

Therefore, given the short interval of time between the early eyewitness testimonies about Jesus’s resurrection and the actual event itself (a mere matter of months), these accounts must be considered historically credible. There was clearly no time for myth, legend, or embellishment to accrue around the initial resurrection reports.

Watch for the next article in this series as we continue briefly considering 12 evidences for the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Reflections: Your Turn

Since death is one of the big questions of life, doesn’t that make the message of Jesus’s resurrection a topic relevant to all people? Is this a probative philosophical way of approaching evangelism? Visit Reflections on WordPress to comment with your response.

Resources

• I address the resurrection of Jesus in two of my books, Without a Doubt: Answering the 20 Toughest Faith Questions (see chapter 10) and 7 Truths That Changed the World: Discovering Christianity’s Most Dangerous Ideas (see chapters 1 and 2).
• I also recommend The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus by Gary Habermas and Michael Licona and Knowing the Truth about the Resurrection: Our Response to the Empty Tomb by William Lane Craig.
• A further recommended source is N. T. Wright’s The Resurrection of the Son of God.

How does the defense of the faith (apologetics) impact a person’s coming to embrace the faith (conversion)? As mentioned in part 1 of this four-part series, in historic Christianity the apologetics enterprise is often viewed as a tool to remove intellectual obstacles that may stand in the way of a person’s consideration and possible acceptance of the faith.

We’re examining the historical case of Augustine of Hippo (354–430) in which six specific apologetics-related factors contributed to one of the most famous conversions to the Christian faith ever. Augustine would later ascribe all of these elements to the providential grace of God at work behind the scenes of his life. These six features can be considered a broad apologetic model for how God, through his sovereign grace, prepares people for faith.

Let’s now introduce the first factor that removed a critical obstacle and thus paved the way for Augustine’s conversion to the Christian faith.

1. Removing Philosophical Objections to Christianity

Augustine’s interaction with the philosophy of Neoplatonism (a strand of Platonic philosophy popular in the third century AD and associated with the philosopher Plotinus) helped him overcome the last vestiges of Manichaeism (a cultic religion that mixed pagan and Christian elements) in his thinking. Augustine’s materialism, which was part of Manichaean belief, kept him from envisioning the Christian God as an immaterial reality, and he struggled to understand how evil could emerge in a world made by such a supposedly benevolent God. Some philosophical concepts inherent in Neoplatonism helped answer these objections. The distinguished historian of philosophy, Frederick Copleston, explains:

At this time Augustine read certain Platonic treatises in the Latin translation of Victorinus, these treatises being most probably the Enneads of Plotinus. The effect of neo-Platonism was to free him from the shackles of materialism and to facilitate his acceptance of the idea of immaterial reality. In addition, the Plotinian conception of evil as privation rather than as something positive showed him how the problem of evil could be met without having to have recourse to the dualism of the Manichaeans. In other words, the function of neo-Platonism at this period was to render it possible for Augustine to see the reasonableness of Christianity, and he began to read the New Testament again, particularly the writings of St. Paul.¹

So through the philosophical prism of Neoplatonism, Augustine came to see that materialism fails to account for the necessary conceptual, moral, and spiritual realities of life. He also came to embrace the Neoplatonic distinctive that while evil is real, it is not a substance or a stuff, but rather a privation (an absence of something good that should be in an entity). Thus, evil was not some “thing” created by God.

Augustine would later use Platonic or Neoplatonic concepts—to a certain degree—as a philosophical apparatus in order to explain and defend Christian truth claims. Though some have called Augustine a Christian Platonist philosopher and have criticized him for introducing Neoplatonic ideas into Christianity, the mature Augustine’s thinking was progressively transformed by Scripture and, thus, far less by Greek philosophy.²

As we consider Augustine’s experience as a case study, we see that elements of Neoplatonic philosophy helped remove philosophical difficulties that Augustine initially had with viewing Christianity as viably true. This shows that some aspects of pagan philosophy can serve as allies of sorts to some Christian truth claims. Thus, Augustine’s experience encourages us to become equipped to address philosophical objections to the faith.

In part 3 of this series we’ll examine other specific apologetics factors that facilitated Augustine’s move toward Christianity. Again, these factors can serve as a general model for how apologetics impacts evangelism.

Be sure to return next week to learn more about Augustine’s intellectual and spiritual transformation.

Reflections: Your Turn

Did apologetics factors impact your coming to faith in Christ? If so, visit Reflections on WordPress to share your experience in the comments.

Resources

• • To read Augustine’s story in his own words, see Saint Augustine, Confessions, trans. R. S. Pine-Coffin (New York: Penguin, 1961).
  • For more about St. Augustine’s life and thought, see “Augustine: Theologian of Grace” in Kenneth Richard Samples, Classic Christian Thinkers: An Introduction (Covina, CA: RTB Press, 2019), chap. 3.
  • For a comprehensive resource on all things Augustine, see Augustine through the Ages.
  • For more on how historic Christianity relates to pagan philosophy, see my blog article “A Christian Perspective on Pagan and Secular Belief Systems.”

In historic Christianity the field of apologetics (a reasoned defense of the faith) is considered a branch of theology. Apologetics often has a close connection to evangelism (communication of the gospel message) by attempting to remove intellectual obstacles that may stand in the way of a person embracing faith (conversion).

In this four-part series we’ll take a look at how apologetics can directly impact conversion by examining the historical case of Augustine of Hippo (354–430). St. Augustine had one of the most famous conversions to Christianity in history, and various apologetic elements facilitated his coming to faith.

Augustine would later attribute all of these factors to the sovereign grace of God at work behind the scenes of his life. These six factors can be considered a broad apologetic model for how God, through his sovereign grace, prepares people for faith.

Augustine: A Case Study in How Apologetics-Related Factors Impact Christian Conversion

While Augustine was exposed to Christianity as a child by his mother, as a youth he rebelled and rejected the faith. In his famous biography, Confessions, he describes how he engaged in illicit behavior (theft) with his neighborhood friends in the city of Thagaste, North Africa. Recognizing that their rebellious son was also intellectually gifted, Augustine’s parents sent him away for advanced studies in the capital city of Carthage.

As a wayward soul away from home in a large city in the pagan Roman Empire, Augustine fell prey to a worldly lifestyle. He was entrapped by the sensual hedonism that was so prevalent in the ancient Roman world. His pursuit of answers to the big questions of life led him further away from Christianity. He studied pagan philosophy (NeoPlatonism) and religion (Manicheanism) and his rhetorical skills led him to pursue possible political power as a spokesperson in the Roman government. Yet none of these pursuits were deeply satisfying, and Augustine experienced a profound sense of existential estrangement. He wondered whether his thirst for truth and fulfillment would ever be satisfied.

In his early thirties Augustine began to experience six elements of the providential grace of God covertly at work that served an apologetics function. Let’s now outline those elements that ultimately led to Augustine’s famous conversion.

Six Apologetics-Related Factors Impacting Augustine’s Conversion (Model)

1. Removing Philosophical Objections to Christianity
2. Removing Theological and Exegetical Objections to Christianity
3. The Example of Other Believers
4. The Existential Reality of Death
5. Confronting Man’s Sinful Condition
6. The Study of Scripture

In part 2 of this series we’ll begin exploring these six specific apologetics factors in the life of Augustine. Again, these elements can serve as a general model of how apologetics impacts evangelism.

Be sure to return next week for more of Augustine’s amazing story.

Reflections: Your Turn

What apologetics factors impacted your coming to Christ? How do you use apologetics in your witness for Christ? Visit Reflections on WordPress to comment with your response.

Resources:

• To read Augustine’s story in his own words, see Saint Augustine, Confessions, trans. R. S. Pine-Coffin (New York: Penguin, 1961).
• For more about St. Augustine’s life and thought, see “Augustine: Theologian of Grace” in Kenneth Richard Samples, Classic Christian Thinkers: An Introduction (Covina, CA: RTB Press, 2019), chap. 3.
• For a comprehensive resource on all things Augustine, see Augustine Through the Ages.

During those days people will seek death but will not find it; they will long to die, but death will elude them.

Revelation 9:6

I make dad noises now.

When I sit down, when I stand up, when I get out of bed, when I get into bed, when I bend over to pick up something from the ground, and when I straighten up again, I find myself involuntarily making noises—grunting sounds.

I guess it is all part of the aging process. My body isn’t quite what it used to be. If someone offered me an elixir that could turn back time and reverse the aging process, I would take it without hesitation. It’s no fun growing old.

Well, I just might get my wish, thanks to the work of a research team from the US and Canada. These researchers demonstrated that they could disrupt the aging process and, in fact, reverse the biological clock in humans.¹

This advance is nothing short of stunning. It opens up exciting—and disquieting—biomedical possibilities rife with ethical and theological ramifications. The work has other interesting implications, as well. It can be marshaled to demonstrate the scientific credibility of the Old Testament by making scientific sense of the long life spans of the patriarchs listed in the Genesis 5 and 11 genealogies.

Some Biological Consequences of Aging

Involuntary grunting is not the worse part of aging, by far. There are other more serious consequences, such as loss of immune function. Senescence (aging) of the immune system can contribute to the onset of cancer and increased susceptibility to pathogens. It can also lead to wide-scale inflammation. None of these are good.

As we age, our thymus decreases in size. And this size reduction hampers immune system function. Situated between the heart and sternum, the thymus plays a role in maturation of white blood cells, key components of the immune system. As the thymus shrinks with age, the immune system loses its capacity to generate sufficient levels of white blood cells, rendering older adults vulnerable to infections and cancers.

A Strategy to Improve Immune Function

Previous studies in laboratory animals have shown that administering growth hormone enlarges the thymus and, consequently, improves immune function. The research team reasoned that the same effect would be seen in human patients. But due to at least one of its negative side effects, the team couldn’t simply administer growth hormone without other considerations. Growth hormone lowers insulin levels and leads to a form of type 2 diabetes. To prevent this adverse effect, the researchers also administered two drugs commonly used to treat type 2 diabetes.

Figure 1: The Structure of Human Growth Hormone. Image credit: Shutterstock

To test this idea, the researchers performed a small-scale clinical trial. The study began with ten men (finishing with nine) between the ages of 51 and 65. The volunteers self-administered the drug cocktail three to four times a week for a year. During the course of the study, the researchers monitored white blood cell levels and thymus size. They observed a rejuvenation of the immune system (based on the count of white blood cells in the blood). They also noticed changes in the thymus, with fatty deposits disappearing and thymus tissue returning.

Reversing the Aging Process

As an afterthought, the researchers decided to test the patient’s blood using an epigenetic clock that measures biological age. To their surprise, the researchers discovered that the drug cocktail reversed the biological age of the study participants by two years, compared to their chronological age. In other words, even though the patients gained one year in their chronological age during the course of the study, their bodies became younger, based on biological markers, by two years. This age reversal lasted for six months after the trial ended.

Thus, for the first time ever, researchers have been able to extend human life expectancy through an aging-intervention therapy. And while the increase in life expectancy was limited, this accomplishment serves as a harbinger of things to come, making the prospects of dramatically extending human life expectancy significantly closer to a reality.

This groundbreaking work carries significant biomedical, ethical, and theological implications, which I will address below. But the breakthrough is equally fascinating to me because it can be used to garner scientific support for Genesis 5 and 11.

Anti-Aging Technology and Biblical Long Life Spans

The mere assertion that humans could live for hundreds of years as described in the genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11 is, for many people, nothing short of absurd. Compounding this seeming absurdity is the claim in Genesis 6:3, which describes God intervening to shorten human life spans from about 900 to about 120 years. How can this dramatic change in human life spans be scientifically rational?

As I discuss in Who Was Adam?, advances in the biochemistry of aging provide a response to these challenging questions. Scientists have uncovered several distinct biochemical mechanisms that either cause, or are associated with, senescence. Even subtle changes in cellular chemistry can increase life expectancy by nearly 50 percent. These discoveries point to several possible ways that God could have allowed long life spans and then altered human life expectancy—simply by “tweaking” human biochemistry.

Thanks to these advances, biogerontologists have become confident that in the near future, they will be able to interrupt the aging process by direct intervention through altered diet, drug treatment, and gene manipulation. Some biogerontologists such as Aubrey de Grey don’t think it is out of the realm of possibility to extend human life expectancy to several hundred years—about the length of time the Bible claims that the patriarchs lived. The recent study by the US and Canadian investigators seems to validate de Grey’s view.

So, if biogerontologists can alter life spans—maybe someday on the order of hundreds of years—then the Genesis 5 and 11 genealogies no longer appear to be fantastical. And, if we can intervene in our own biology to alter life spans, how much easier must it be for God to do so?

Ethical Concerns

As mentioned, I would be tempted to take an anti-aging elixir if I knew it would work. And so would many others. What could possibly be wrong with wanting to live a longer, healthier, and more productive life? In fact, disrupting—and even reversing—the aging process would offer benefits to society by potentially reducing medical costs associated with age-related diseases such as dementia, cancer, heart disease, and stroke.

Yet, these biomedical advances in anti-aging therapies do hold the potential to change who we are as human beings. Even a brief moment of reflection makes it plain that wide-scale use of anti-aging treatments could bring about fundamental changes to economies, to society, and to families and put demands on limited planetary resources. In the end, anti-aging technologies may well be unsustainable, undesirable, and unwise. (For a more detailed discussion of the ethical issues surrounding anti-aging technology check out the book I cowrote with Kenneth Samples, Humans 2.0.)

Anti-Aging Therapies and Transhumanism

Many people rightly recognize the ethical concerns surrounding applications of anti-aging therapies, but a growing number see these technologies in a different light. They view them as paving the way to an exciting and hopeful future. The increasingly real prospects of extending human life expectancy by disrupting the aging process or even reversing the effects of aging are the types of advances (along with breakthroughs in CRISPR gene editing and computer-brain interfaces) that fuel an intellectual movement called transhumanism.

This idea has long been on the fringes of respected academic thought, but recently transhumanism has propelled its way into the scientific, philosophical, and cultural mainstreams. Advocates of the transhumanist vision maintain that humanity has an obligation to use advances in biotechnology and bioengineering to correct our biological flaws—to augment our physical, intellectual, and psychological capabilities beyond our natural limits. Perhaps there are no greater biological limitations that human beings experience than those caused by aging bodies and the diseases associated with the aging process.

Figure 2: Transhumanism. Image credit: Shutterstock

Transhumanists see science and technology as the means to alleviate pain and suffering and to promote human flourishing. They note, in the case of aging, the pain, suffering, and loss associated with senescence in human beings. But the biotechnology we need to fulfill the transhumanist vision is now within grasp.

Anti-Aging as a Source of Hope and Salvation?

Using science and technology to mitigate pain and suffering and to drive human progress is nothing new. But transhumanists desire more. They advocate that we should use advances in biotechnology and bioengineering for the self-directed evolution of our species. They seek to fulfill the grand vision of creating new and improved versions of human beings and ushering in a posthuman future. In effect, transhumanists desire to create a utopia of our own design.

In fact, many transhumanists go one step further, arguing that advances in gene editing, computer-brain interfaces, and anti-aging technologies could extend our life expectancy, perhaps even indefinitely, and allow us to attain a practical immortality. In this way, transhumanism displays its religious element. Here science and technology serve as the means for salvation.

Transhumanism: a False Gospel?

But can transhumanism truly deliver on its promises of a utopian future and practical immortality?

In Humans 2.0, Kenneth Samples and I delineate a number of reasons why transhumanism is a false gospel, destined to disappoint, not fulfill, our desire for immortality and utopia. I won’t elaborate on those reasons here. But simply recognizing the many ethical concerns surrounding anti-aging technologies (and gene editing and computer-brain interfaces) highlights the real risks connected to pursuing a transhumanist future. If we don’t carefully consider these concerns, we might create a dystopian future, not a utopian world.

The mere risk of this type of unintended future should give us pause for thought about turning to science and technology for our salvation. As theologian Ronald Cole-Turner so aptly put it:

“We need to be aware that technology, precisely because of its beneficial power, can lead us to the erroneous notion that the only problems to which it is worth paying attention involve engineering. When we let this happen, we reduce human yearning for salvation to a mere desire for enhancement, a lesser salvation that we can control rather than the true salvation for which we must also wait.”²

Resources

• Who Was Adam: A Creation Model Approach to the Origin of Humanity, expanded and updated edition, by Fazale Rana with Hugh Ross (book)
• Humans 2.0: Scientific, Philosophical and Theological Perspectives on Transhumanism, by Fazale Rana with Kenneth Samples (book)
• “Long Life Spans: ‘Adam Lived 930 Years and Then He Died‘” by Fazale Rana, Richard Deem, and Hugh Ross (article)
• “Hope I Die When I’m Really Old” by Fazale Rana (article)
• “Why Aren’t There Any 900-Year-Old Fossils” by Fazale Rana (article)