Do Die (Before You Die): A Catholic response to Bryan Johnson

It’s easy enough simply to dismiss Johnson’s quest for immortality as quixotic, crazy, even downright creepy. Here’s a serious response modeled on Aquinas’ Summa theologiae.

A scene from "Don't Die: The Man Who Wants to Live Forever". (Image: Trailer / Netflix)

Bryan Johnson, a tech entrepreneur and venture capitalist, has dedicated himself to the age-old pursuit of the fountain of youth, but with a new twist: putting all the power of modern science and technology to work to finally conquer death. A new Netflix documentary named after his “Project Blueprint” motto—Don’t Die: The Man Who Wants to Live Forever—takes an inside look at Johnson’s mission to prolong life as far as possible.

Now, it’s easy enough simply to dismiss Johnson’s quest for immortality as quixotic, crazy, even downright creepy. The film certainly doesn’t shy away from the strangeness of it all, especially in Johnson’s close relationship with his son and the voluntary plasma exchange the two underwent (together with Johnson’s father) to funnel youthfulness back down the family tree. Even his strict regimen of sleep, diet, pharmacology (over a hundred pills a day), fitness, and continual testing feels, at best, cold and inhuman.

Yet Don’t Die also reveals a sad story behind Johnson’s work, one that can only evoke our sympathy. Prior to “Project Blueprint,” Johnson was a committed Mormon and burned-out CEO, sacrificing sleep, diet, and eventually his sanity for the sake of spiritual and mental progress. Indeed, Johnson’s story is a clear illustration of the principle of enantiodromia, which I explore in my first book, The Way of Heaven and Earth: From Either/Or to the Catholic Both/And. Enantiodromia—a concept stretching back to Heraclitus but given a psychological spin by Carl Jung—is the tendency of extremes to turn into their opposites. When a spiritual-mental path brought Johnson to a crisis of suicidal depression, he jettisoned both, abandoning both Mormonism and the life of the mind for a full-blown investment in his body.

But there’s something else that should give us pause: Johnson’s quest is not so crazy on a secularist worldview. If this life is all we have, and death is coming at us like a freight train, why shouldn’t we do everything in our power to stop it? Johnson’s fellow venture capitalist Peter Thiel has said that he stands against “the ideology of the inevitability of the death of every individual.” And countless people all over the world are flocking to Johnson’s “Don’t Die” movement. As science and technology continue to improve, and doctors and patients alike continue to push the bioethical envelope, this drive for immortality may become increasingly fashionable—and its detractors social pariahs. Might the pro-life movement of tomorrow, in an apparent inversion, look like—and be labeled as—pro-suffering and pro-death?

Thus, while watching Don’t Die (in the wee hours of the morning, incidentally, with a glass of brandy in one hand and a Tupperware of salted peanuts in the other), it occurred to me that—out of both pity for Johnson and a fear of the spread of his mindset—a serious response modeled on Aquinas’ Summa theologiae, and rooted in the Catholic tradition, might be a step toward clarity and sanity.

Article. Whether man should die?

Objection 1. Man has a natural drive to live, and both revelation and reason encourage taking care of the body with natural goods, eliminating needless suffering caused by natural evils, and extending our days through scientific and medical interventions. Death, Aquinas admits, is “an evil of human nature” (ST 2-2.164.1), and the quest to conquer it—which is within our grasp for the first time in history—is simply an extension of these same sound principles. Therefore, man ought not to die.

Objection 2. The health care system, as the Don’t Die documentary points out, waits for chronic diseases to set in and then treats their symptoms. A life extension program like Project Blueprint, by contrast, is focused on altering the underlying habits that tend toward physical and mental degeneration; it cultivates a healthy body rather than waiting to deal with a deeply unhealthy one. Therefore, it would seem that combatting death is the superior path.

Objection 3. Platonist and Gnostic thinkers saw the flesh as the prison of the soul, and this distorted thinking, which denigrates and abuses earthly things in anticipation of a spiritual heaven, has crept into much of Western culture. Project Blueprint, by contrast, embraces the flesh—its life, its experience, its striving—as good, and worthy of our time and energy. Therefore, man ought to combat death.

Objection 4. Death is humanity’s greatest fear; yet Scripture teaches us that God didn’t give us a spirit of fear (2 Tim. 1:7). And while death remains our reality, Christ has already conquered it through his cross and Resurrection: For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being” (1 Cor. 15:21); “‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’ Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?’” (1 Cor. 15:55). Moreover, Christ delights in using human freedom to achieve his designs. Therefore—to conquer our greatest fear, to imitate Christ, and to participate more fully in his eternity here and now—man ought to strive to conquer death.

On the contrary, “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life” (John 12:24–25). Or, in the words of an ancient Greek inscription over a monastery on Mount Athos: “If you die before you die, then you won’t die when you die.”

I answer that (to quote from The Way of Heaven and Earth), “What happened in Christ—the ‘death of death’—will also happen in his followers. . . . This is the ultimate expression of Christian hope: not escape from the body as from a hell, nor an embrace of the body as our heaven, but an awaiting of the resurrection on the Way. . . . The flesh is essential to our identity, not accidental, and its death is a natural evil, not the ultimate liberation. The spiritual soul animates the body, which, though lower and weaker, is good—so good that God desires it to live forever. ‘All flesh is like grass’ (1 Pet. 1:24; see Isa. 40: 6–8), but this grass is precious; God himself has walked upon it. . . . [But] man can’t be re­duced to his body or desperately cling to it, good as it is. This way madness lies, and the memento mori tradition of the Church keeps death before our eyes, lest we forget to start letting go before it’s too late to know how: ‘We must all die; we are like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be gathered up’ (2 Sam. 14:14). But death—though a splitting of our nature—isn’t the end, and for the Christian, its sadness is enveloped by a greater joy, since it moves us into a higher communion with God. For St. Paul, ‘dying is gain’; his desire was ‘to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better’ (Phil. 1:21, 23). The Christian can savor this mortal body, but ulti­mately has to hope for what lies beyond it, crying, Muero porque no muero: ‘I die because I do not die.’”

Reply to Objection 1. Neither the biological drive nor the moral imperative to extend life is absolute; thus, we find certain species of animals sacrificing themselves for their offspring or group, and end-of-life care does not morally necessitate extraordinary treatments (see CCC 2278). Moreover, it’s not clear that the elimination of death would conduce to humanity’s good: Worse than either physical or mental suffering is spiritual suffering, and as Peter Kreeft has said, “Without death, we’d have hell on earth.” It’s not even clear that the elimination of death is scientifically possible at all: Despite great advances, scientists still cannot recreate life or account for consciousness; why shouldn’t death also evade us? More importantly, because suffering and death flow from sin, both are inexpungible from the human experience until the end of the age: “You are dust, and to dust you shall return” (Gen. 3:19). “The wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23). “The days of our life are seventy years, or perhaps eighty, if we are strong” (Ps. 90:9).

Reply to Objection 2. Caring for the body with proper nutrition and exercise is salutary and good: “Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. . . . Therefore glorify God in your body” (1 Cor. 6:19–20). However, one can work toward this end without trying to eliminate death, or denying that death is, as we said above, a given biological and spiritual reality. Moreover, while Bryan Johnson declares that he’s never been more physically fit or mentally happy, spiritual health is far more important than both, and spiritual sickness is not incompatible with physical and mental strength: “The specific character of despair,” Kierkegaard wrote, “is precisely this: it is unaware of being despair.”

Reply to Objection 3. One doesn’t overcome one extreme by falling into the opposite extreme. The resolution to the Platonic-Gnostic denigration of the flesh—a distortion that has, undoubtedly, afflicted much of Christian history—is not a technofuturist denial of the spirit, but the embrace of both spirit and flesh together, and their communion in the life of the Church.

Reply to Objection 4. Christ has already conquered death, here and now, and Christians have nothing to fear from it. At the same time, Christ has not yet conquered death in the fullest sense: “We will not all die, but we will all be changed” (1 Cor. 15:51); “Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more” (Rev. 21:4). Bryan Johnson objects that since the not yet is still not yet after two thousand years, we ought to immanentize the eschaton of eternal life. But the tension of the already and the not yet defines the life of the Church on earth, and the consummation of all things belongs to Christ and his authority alone: “All authority in heaven an on earth has been given to me” (Matt. 28:18); “He must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death” (1 Cor. 15:25–26); “Surely I am coming soon” (Rev. 22:20). Moreover, trying to seize God’s authority is man’s self-destruction: It yielded death in the beginning, and after the revelation of God’s Son, it can only yield “the second death” of hell (Rev. 21:8).


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About Matthew Becklo 13 Articles
Matthew Becklo is a husband and father, writer and editor, and the Publishing Director for Word on Fire Catholic Ministries. His first book, The Way of Heaven and Earth: From Either/Or to the Catholic Both/And, is available now from Word on Fire.

6 Comments

  1. Thank you.

    “As I live, says the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways; for why will you die, O house of Israel?” (Ezekiel 33:11)

    Jesus Christ, the Lord of Life, created us to live forever, and so we will. There is only one eternal question:
    Will we live forever with the Communion of Saints in Heaven returning God’s love, or will we live forever alone in the Hell of worshipping ourselves?

  2. Proper diet and exercise, along with modern medicine can get you to about 90, if you are lucky. The thing is, you live on through your children and grandchildren. If they remember you, you live on.

    Of course, most importantly is the matter of your immortal soul. If you believe in and love Christ, you will achieve real immortality.

    I saw the documentary. It is creepy, especially the plasma exchange. Almost vampirism.
    This man appears to be running scared, really scared of death. Why?

  3. A complete Muppet who sees nothing as important as himself! He really needs to put away the laptop and get a dose of fresh air!!!!

  4. Well, since there is no basis whatsoever for believing that there is an afterlife, why not? Oh and btw, science is absolutely going to cure death. Blood-cell sized computers and robotics will soon be a thing, and we’ll be using them to repair the damage caused by aging.

    • “Well, since there is no basis whatsoever for believing that there is an afterlife, why not?”

      What’s your standard for “basis”?

      You have no faith in a future afterlife despite various forms of evidence therefor, yet you have complete faith in unproven future technological advance despite countless scientific failures and frauds throughout history. It’s a stark dichotomy. Just wondering how you reconcile the two.

  5. Hi. Just some observations. I don’t think a medieval objection-reply method is helpful today in the least (can you imagine Chesterton doing such a thing? Or even Benedict? Flannery O’Connor may have made you the antagonist of the story with a very twisted ending!). The Church is not an answer book we wack on suspected objectors’ heads; it’s a home. But unfortunately many Catholics have made a name for themselves as the “referees” of modern society, calling penalties anywhere and everywhere. Boring and pathetic. And not vocational. Besides, your words about Christ and the afterlife are like speaking Aramaic to a man like Bryan Johnson. Is this all we can offer as Catholics, which also happens to be completely ineffective to anyone who is not an Aquinas fan? What’s infinitely more compelling is that this man embodies undeniable proof of humanity’s deepest longing: the desire to live forever. Let’s start there. We must not arrogantly dismiss this yearning, but instead go to its core and origin, humbly kneeling before it. Together, we must beg and seek to uncover its full meaning and what it reveals about our ultimate destiny. And do it existentially, not intellectually. Cheers.

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