Searching for Eternity

Young people dream of being rich, and rich people dream of being young. That would explain why Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and other billionaires are investing in startups like Altos Labs and Calico Labs.

These labs research how humans can live longer, even indefinitely. They focus on how to reprogram cells and turn back the biological clock. Scientist Shinya Yamanaka won a Nobel Price for discovering four proteins that reverse aging in cells. (They also cause huge tumors in lab mice.) Contemporary with this effort is the research of Israeli scientists who extended the life and health of lab mice with genetic modifications.

This pursuit of longevity is no stranger to history. Cryonics, freezing the body in hopes of future resuscitation, has been around for 50 years. Eugenics and selective breeding were the predictable outcomes of Darwinism and contributed to 20th C. horrors. Conquistador Ponce de Leon trekked through Florida looking for the Fountain of Youth. Indiana Jones searched for the Holy Grail…wait, that’s fiction!

Anyway, here’s what these folks are missing. Even if they were successful, they won’t have the utopia they seek. Extended life would still suffer the ravages of the human condition. They will not eliminate sickness and injury, nor the mental anguish of fear, grief, and worry. Dishonesty, unfaithfulness, selfishness, and hate will remain. I’ll give them this. They have the right idea, but they set their sights too low.

Our Creator hardwired the idea in us. “He has set eternity in their hearts” (Ecc. 3:11). So we search for the good that is beyond the ravages of time. C. S. Lewis wrote, “If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world. Earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing.”

How do we find the real thing? “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16).