Human Ageing as a Creational “Good” | David J. Hooker | ISCAST-NZCIS Conversations 2024 S3 #8

Human Ageing as a Creational “Good”
Aversion toward the aged, “aging anxiety,” ageism, and scientific efforts to stop or reverse ageing, reveal a contemporary world struggling to accept the aged and the ageing process. Unfortunately, the response from the Christian theological community is unsure because it discordantly supports two fundamental yet polarised claims: (a) that human ageing is a good of creation, and (b) that human ageing is an effect of sin in the world. Such polarised claims are deeply problematic and need resolution.
This paper supports the core idea that human ageing is a good of creation. It briefly outlines three influential theological challenges to the core idea, then addresses one of those challenges in more detail: that natural physical death, as the precipitant of ageing, is the effect of sin in the world. An exegetical analysis leads to a dismissal of this challenge, leaving open the possibility that human ageing is a creational good.
This paper then employs the science of ageing to support the core idea. Molecular biology invites theology to view ageing as a genetically and systemically controlled symphony of coordinated processes built into the human body.
DAVID HOOKER
David Hooker has a master’s degree in science (molecular virology), a master’s degree in divinity (biblical studies and theology) and, most recently, a PhD in theology on the theme of human ageing. He is currently Publications Director at ISCAST and teaches in Monash University’s Bachelor of Biomedical Science degree, Melbourne, Australia. He has authored publications and patents in molecular biology, virology, and theology, and has pastored an evangelical cross-cultural church in Melbourne, Australia. He is currently and keenly expanding a research programme on a synthesis of the theology and science of human ageing.
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DISCLAIMER
ISCAST’s aim is to generate a constructive conversation and, while ISCAST and NZCIS are committed to orthodox Christian faith and mainstream science, the Conversations speakers may come from a range of positions and do not represent either ISCAST or NZCIS.

[@markridgeway1434]

Another excellent discussion, raising a lot of uncomfortable questions that deserve more thought.

[@iscast_oz]

Thanks for your feedback Mark! Glad to hear.