Should We Live Forever? The Ethical Ambiguities ...

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afterlife, but he stops short of offering a more robust argument for the necessity of the afterlife as a rationale for the meaningfulness of the present life. In this way ...
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351

Daniel B. Gallagher Paideia Institute for Humanistic Studies, USA

⋆ ⋆ ⋆ Should We Live Forever? The Ethical Ambiguities, Gilbert Meilaender, Eerdmans, 2013 (ISBN 978-0-8028-6869-5), xiv + 121 pp., pb $18 Questions of immortality and life after death are still with us. Related notions of the soul, God, heaven, hell, and the meaning of life have and continue to stir thoughtful discussions about human meaning, especially in the context of technology and bioethics. In this context, Gilbert Meilaender discusses one aspect related to the broader discussion on the afterlife. He addresses the question, should we live forever? Some might take this question to entail an obvious answer, but according to Meilaender, the answer requires additional scrutiny. Before laying out Meilaender’s answer to the question, some background is in order. Meilaender’s question is situated in the discussion surrounding the transhumanist desire to extend life indefinitely. Meilaender’s response, or set of responses, is to address the question in light of a transhumanist context. His answer, quite simply, is that there are reasons one should consider aging and death as right and natural to human experience, and to extend it unnaturally through the use of technology proves undesirable. Connected to this, Meilaender addresses an alternative perspective of death as a kind of completion to human life. He argues that while, what I will call, the death-as-completion to human life view has something beneficial to contribute to the discussion, it too misses an important facet of human meaning. His conclusion is that death, in part, is appropriate in our human context but that the desire for immortality too is a sign to some higher human reality. Meilaender’s response is primarily given to the transhumanist and her desire to extend life indefinitely. Meilaender claims that there are in fact reasons to value the process of aging and death itself. As with all good stories, they must come to an end. Some sort of summation to one’s life seems natural and necessary. Yet, the transhumanist desire for immortality is not completely out of place, so the death-as-completion to human life view is inadequate as well. What is wrong with the transhumanist desire is the inadequate conception of immortality, namely, mere immortality through human manipulation. Instead, the hope of humanity is for © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Reviews

352

that which she or he cannot manufacture and that which is not unnatural but supernatural (35–37). Lewis’s famous statement is fitting here, ‘If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world’. Such a life begins as a gift and ends as a gift (p. 55). And, we share this gift with our progenitors and our children (p. 73). Finally, Meilaender advances two other reasons why aging is worth embracing. First, aging allows one to develop the virtue of patience. In old age, we are afforded the opportunity to slow down and remember the gift of life – which is excluded by the transhumanist desire to avoid aging. Second, aging provides the context for completion of life and vocation. While an exceptional reflection full of insights, I suggest that there is one weakness. Meilaender promotes a Christian view of human meaning, which includes a kind of completion to this life in addition to an afterlife, but he stops short of offering a more robust argument for the necessity of the afterlife as a rationale for the meaningfulness of the present life. In this way, he leaves open the possibility that the deathas-completion human life view might be an acceptable way to conceive of human meaning. It would have been nice to see him offer a potent case for the necessity of Christian afterlife as a ground, which might make sense of the present life. Should We Live Forever is enjoyable, well written, insightful, and powerfully executed. The reader will find that there is much that is worthy of thoughtful reflection. Joshua Farris Houston Baptist University and Trinity School of Theology

⋆ ⋆ ⋆ Faith, Freedom, and the Spirit: The Economic Trinity in Barth, Torrance and Contemporary Theology, Paul D. Molnar, IVP Academic, 2015 (ISBN 978-0-8308-3905-6), 448 pp., pb $40 For scholars of trinitarian theology, the work of Paul Molnar should already be familiar. His 2002 book, Divine Freedom and the Doctrine of the Immanent Trinity, generated significant discussion in the guild. With this book, Molnar continues and expands upon his 2002 argument, this time in conversation with critics of his earlier text but most importantly with Karl Barth and T. F. Torrance. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd