The death of Britain's oldest man, Reg Dean, at 110 last Saturday, raises testing questions about the future we face - as individuals and as a community.
Improvements in healthcare, pollution levels and nutrition are responsible for the steady increase in life expectancy upwards from the "three score years and ten" that Moses outlined in his now famous phrase in Psalm 90 v 10. Arguably, the greatest leap forward for longevity - certainly in industrialised Britain, came from the work of sanitation engineers like Sir Joseph Bazalgette who designed and built the London sewage system - and eliminated cholera from the capital.
Average life expectancy is now about 80 for men, and 83 for women, but statisticians believe the rates are likely to become the same for both men and women at a staggering 88 years around 2030.
Growing life expectancy has added to the "age bubble" in the UK that is placing increasing burdens on health care, hospices, care homes and social services. In the next 20 years the proportion of people in the UK over 65 years of age will grow from the current 17% to well over 20% - 5 million more pensioners than we currently have - with a staggering 53,000 over the age of 100!
Some scientists are convinced that there will be a future where we will have Centenarians wandering around with people of 500,or even 1,000 years old. Research has focussed on ways of stopping or slowing the ageing process, through restriction of calorie intake, injections of human growth hormone, or altering the ageing process on a genetic level. Others believe that longevity will come through the fusion of human beings with machines and computer intelligence - a movement broadly known as Transhumanism. The current head of engineering at Google Raymond Kurzweil thinks this will happen within the next 50 years, culminating in an event called "The singularity" - the emergence of independent machine intelligence.
Whether this is a fictional hope of immortality, fuelled by reading too many science fiction novels, or a dream that will be realised, at least in part, we have yet to see. In the meantime, we will have to cope with a growing number of people suffering from dementia and the other multiple aches and pains of old age. Something Moses knew about - having hit the ripe old age of 120 by the time he stood on Mt Nebo overlooking the promised land he would never enter. Moses is concerned less about the length of our years than what comes beyond death -- judgement:
10 Our days may come to seventy years,
or eighty, if our strength endures;
yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow,
for they quickly pass, and we fly away.
11 If only we knew the power of your anger!
Your wrath is as great as the fear that is your due.
12 Teach us to number our days,
that we may gain a heart of wisdom.
The countdown to the end, however long that might be, is a countdown to a naked encounter with the Living God, who will judge us with utter fairness. Reg Dean was a minister who served as a chaplain during the second world war, and attributed his longevity, in part, to the healthy mindset that his faith gave him. Moses urges us all to "gain a heart of wisdom" about the coming judgement, and to rely on the loving kindness and grace of God. That experience of God's grace is the only thing that will deliver us a truly healthy life, so that four score years and ten becomes four score years and then... forever.
Tim Thornborough is the founder and Publishing Director of The Good Book Company. He is series editor of Explore Bible-reading notes, the author of The Very Best Bible Stories series, and has contributed to many books published by The Good Book Company and others. Tim is married to Kathy, and they have three adult daughters.
