Can you be a longtermist if you believe Jesus is coming?

This post is loosely based on a presentation I gave at the Christianity and Longtermism workshop in Washington DC in May 2024.

Longtermism is the belief that positively influencing the far future is a key moral priority of our time. A few years ago, we published a piece by Andrés Morales presenting a Christian case against longtermism. In this post, I’m trying to sketch a different view on the relationship between Christianity and longtermism. This post is somewhat unfinished and I’m unsure what, if any, conclusions to embrace. For this reason, it also lacks a clear concluding section. I wanted to get it out for discussion as it is nevertheless—please let me know your thoughts in the comments!

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I will examine the relationship between longtermism and what I will call traditional Christian eschatology (TCE). I define this as a set of beliefs that includes a return of Jesus (Parousia) and a radical transformation of the world and resurrection followed by eternal life for all human beings who have ever lived. For some this eternal life will be happy, for others not, and things that took place in their life in “this age” will determine it. Some proponents of TCE hope that most or even all people will eventually attain a happy eternal state, but this could involve a long and painful process in the afterlife. ¹

I use “secular longtermism” to describe the usual type of longtermism that does not expect open, large-scale supernatural interference at any point in the future. ² This view doesn’t rule out the existence of God or an afterlife, or God acting to change the future through means that are not overtly miraculous. However, I’m calling it secular because it doesn’t necessitate any religious beliefs and excludes some of them.

I will first compare the argument for secular longtermism with TCE. After that, I will examine what kinds of conclusions these premises lead to in the context of TCE. Lastly, I will look into the possibility of something similar to secular longtermism existing alongside TCE.

I. Traditional eschatology and the premises of longtermism

The argument for longtermism is built on three premises. The first one is an ethical assumption, and the other two are empirical claims about the future and ways to influence it.

1. Future people matter 

2. There could be an enormous amount of people in the future

3. We can do things to significantly and reliably affect the wellbeing of people living in the long-term future 

Christians who hold TCE agree with premise 1 and a version of premises 2 and 3. They also believe in a version of the conclusion that influencing the longterm future is a key moral priority. Yet I wouldn’t call them longtermists because the versions of premises 2 and 3 and the conclusion they believe in look different from secular longtermism.

However, TCE doesn’t necessarily rule out believing in versions of premises 2 and 3 that are compatible with a form of secular longtermism. I will discuss this more in section III.

Next I will examine each of the three premises in turn.

Premise 1: Future people matter

In Christian theology, future people clearly matter to God. Many passages in the Bible speak about God’s perfect foreknowledge and specifically about God knowing human beings before their birth. ³ There are passages where God promises to look after the welfare of people in the future. In classical theism, God is understood to be outside of time, so God doesn’t favour anyone based on their existence closer to him in time. ⁴

However, Christianity may open up the possibility that even if people in the far future matter, God doesn’t want humans to prioritise helping them. God might have established a division of labour such that the long-term future is his responsibility. If such a division of labour exists, it could be futile or even harmful for humans to attempt to do God’s part by assuming responsibility for the long-term future. Dominic Roser has explored this idea here and Andrés Morales presents arguments in that direction in his case against longtermism. 

Whether this kind of division of labour exists seems independent of the core beliefs of TCE. We could speculate that a belief that God will drastically intervene in history might incline people towards a division of labour view, and as a result, people believing in TCE could be more likely to believe in it. But this remains speculation. 

Premise 2: Humanity's long-term future could be enormous 

Secular longtermists think the universe will continue under its current physical laws with no divine intervention. Under current theories, it appears the universe is capable of hosting a very large number of sentient beings for a very long time, hence the possibility of an enormous long-term future. Even under much more conservative assumptions about the lifetime of the human species and population size, there could still be orders of magnitude more people living in the future than have ever lived so far.

Believers in TCE also think the future will be vast. They believe all human beings will exist forever. However, they do think the world will undergo a dramatic change connected with the Second Coming of Christ. Under TCE, the universe can’t be imagined as stretching uninterrupted into the far future under its current laws.

The expected timing of the second coming of Christ affects whether Christians holding TCE should expect the future before the return of Christ to be large. A second coming something like 10^21 years from now would allow for a very big future in the sense secular longtermists think. However, most Christians who believe in TCE expect the return of Jesus much sooner. Whatever the case, eternity dwarfs even the largest finite futures. Yet, the size of the future under this “present age” (before the Parousia) could still matter. I will examine this in more detail in part III below.

Premise 3: We can affect the long-term future

Premise 3 makes longtermism an action-guiding theory, instead of inert moral speculation. It also appears to be the most controversial of the premises. Affecting the future is wrought with uncertainty. Actions taken now could have unintended consequences in the far future or their effects will simply wash out over centuries and millennia.

Because of this, longtermists often focus on preventing near-future scenarios with permanent negative effects. These would, by definition, impact all of the future. The main example is the extinction of humanity: it would rob all possible future generations of their existence. An irrecoverable collapse of civilisation would be another example. Risks like this are called existential risks.

Christians who believe in TCE also believe there are ways to significantly and reliably impact the eternal happiness of people. The specifics differ among different theologies but the central point is that actions in the present can affect people’s eternal wellbeing. Pursuing the salvation of oneself and others is thus an intervention that influences the long-term future. Because people living now will also exist in the eternal future, the boundary between longtermism and neartermism becomes blurry. Interestingly, acts intended to influence the long term future by promoting people’s salvation now are not subject to washing out. Unintended long term consequences could still theoretically occur in the period before the Parousia—could some forms of promoting people’s salvation be effective in the short term, but lead to fewer people being saved in the long term? I’ll write a bit more about this in section III.

II. Salvation-focused religious longtermism?

Based on the TCE interpretations of premises 1–3 presented above, we can sketch a view resembling longtermism where positively influencing the wellbeing of people in eternity is a key moral priority. This is basically a way to describe a focus on evangelism with the same argument structure that secular longtermism uses.

At first pass, many Christians holding traditional eschatological beliefs seem to act consistently with this view. They heavily emphasise evangelism or other activities aimed at bringing people to salvation. Still, most of them don’t seem to be consistent evangelism-maximisers. They also care about other things. They spend time and other resources on things such as family life, hobbies, nonreligious celebrations like graduations or birthdays, etc. 

There are at least four different explanations for this.

1. It is a moral failure on their part

2. Salvation-maximising ≠ evangelism maximising. Living a life that is not 100% focused on evangelising to others is better for the salvation of more people all things considered

3. Human actions cannot affect who is saved

4. A non-maximising-consequentialist framing where Christians have other duties (or a consequentialist framing with side constraints)

Explanation 1 bites the bullet: believers in TCE should indeed spend all the resources they can in activities that promote the salvation of as many people as possible as effectively as possible, and to the extent they are not doing it, they are doing wrong.

Explanation 2 shares the assumption that Christians should be doing everything possible for the salvation of the world but has a different interpretation of what is effective in the big picture. This explanation assumes that, perhaps especially over the long term, what is more effective is Christians living relatively “normal lives”. 

Calvinists hold a belief that is similar to explanation 3. They believe in double predestination where some people are predestined to salvation and others to damnation. Predestination is based on God’s eternal, sovereign choice and can’t be affected by human actions. However, Calvinists believe that God enacts the salvation of the elect through activities like preaching the Gospel. They believe that evangelism is a duty of the Christians even if it cannot ultimately alter the predetermined number of people who will be saved.

Explanation 4 breaks out of the consequentialist framework underlying explanations 1 and 2. In moral philosophical terms, it could take the form of a divine command theory where God commands Christians to do other things in addition to focusing on converting others and ensuring their own salvation, a natural law theory, or perhaps some virtue ethical system.

In practice, the explanation could be a mix of 1, 2, and 4.

Whether it’s because of the ideas behind explanations 2, 3 or 4 (or something else entirely), several passages in the Bible strongly exhort Christians to offer material assistance to people. This also gives a basis for caring for the earthly wellbeing of people living in the future (before the Parousia), which could introduce something similar to qualified acceptance of secular longtermism. I will examine this idea next.

III. Longtermism for the intermediate period before the Parousia?

1. How long a future are we expecting before the Second Coming?

If the period between the present and the Second Coming is long and populous enough, it could merit significant attention under TCE because future people matter morally. However, many adherents of TCE are not expecting this period to be long. In a Pew Research Survey from 2010, 48% of Americans thought Jesus will definitely (27%) or probably (20%) return in 40 years. The belief is even higher in some other parts of the world: according to a 2010 report, 61% of Christians in Sub-Saharan Africa believe Jesus will return during their lifetime. The return of Christ within a few decades would mean the future would not be large in the way expected by longtermists. ⁵

We know, though, that historically some Christians have been at least about 2,000 years off in their expectations of the Parousia. There could be arguments for the Second Coming being close now, but given that “no one knows the day nor the hour” it seems prudent to give some weight to the possibility that the Parousia could be further (or closer!) than we expect. The exhortation to keep watch in Matthew 25:13 and similar passages implies Christians should be ready for the coming of Jesus at any moment. ⁶

If the return of Jesus were to occur, for example, 2000 years in the future with the world population stabilising at about 10 billion, more people would still be born before the Parousia than have ever lived so far. ⁷ Longer timelines or larger population sizes could significantly increase the number. In terms of expected value, scenarios with long timelines and large populations would dominate, even if they are less likely. Such large numbers would make the welfare of future people a potentially very significant consideration for TCE adherents, because these future people have moral significance under most, or perhaps all forms of Christian theological thought. However, a divine-human division of labour would limit the moral responsibility of people in the present if it exists.

2. Focus on temporal welfare: a lighter version of secular longtermism?

If we assume no divine-human division of labour and the possibility of a long and populous period before the Parousia, something resembling secular longtermism is possible under TCE: 

• Helping the poor, tending to the sick, feeding the hungry etc. are good deeds, as well as preventing poverty, sickness, and hunger and other suffering from taking place in the first place

• Future people are deserving of these good deeds as people equally dear to God than presently living people

• If we can take actions now that will prevent these or other bad things in the future or help people who will be suffering from them in the future, we should take these actions, especially if they influence a very large number of people

  • Note, though, that present actions might still dominate if they lead to good outcomes with a high enough likelihood compared to actions that make the future better

One crucial difference is that believers in TCE usually think human extinction is not possible. The Bible speaks of humans being present on earth when Jesus returns and Jesus says people will be buying and selling, planting and building, eating and drinking, and getting married right until the “Son of Man is revealed”. (Luke 17:26–30) This would rule out a total extinction of humanity or the transformation of humans into a posthuman condition that doesn’t include basic human activities.  

Still, adherents to traditional eschatology might want to mitigate the same risks secular longtermists do. It is possible God could protect humanity from extinction through human efforts. There is ample Biblical precedent for God achieving his predetermined purposes through human actions. Proposed extinction risks could also be terrible catastrophic risks even if they were not existential. There is nothing in the end-time prophecies that would rule out a truly massive number of humans dying as long as humanity won’t go completely extinct and some form of society survives until the Parousia. Extinction risk is also not the only class of x-risks. Scenarios like stable global dictatorship or civilisational collapse could still occur under TCE and be very bad.

Another difference is that the stakes would likely be less astronomical under TCE than secular longtermism. The interim period before Parousia is very likely shorter than the projected lifetime of the universe. Biblical endtime prophecies appear to contain references to the earth, so anything beyond the lifetime of the solar system seems to be ruled out. The earth is projected to become incapable of hosting complex life after 0.5–1 billion years as a result of increasing solar radiation, which would render the timeline shorter (but technology might change this). A future where humanity spreads throughout the stars and earth-originated sentient beings continue to exist in huge numbers until near the heat death of the universe seems impossible, or at least highly unlikely under TCE.

Depending on the specifics, the earthly welfare of people existing in the interim period could be either really important or something of an afterthought compared to evangelistic activities. It would depend on

• general resource split between evangelism and earthly assistance

• the length of the period

• expected population sizes during it

• possibilities of influencing the future

Stewardship over the creation would bring an additional environmental element into consideration. The earth should be left in good condition for future generations.

3. Caring for the eternal welfare of future people?

Even without 100% focus on evangelism, making the future (more) Christian would be a highly valuable goal for adherents of TCE. At the minimum, this would mean preserving the Christian church, the Bible, etc. A more maximising approach would be to make the future as Christian as possible. Curiously, Christians of the past did achieve something like this in effect: Christianity has been preserved for nearly 2000 years and did eventually become the largest religion in the world.

What could evangelising the future look like in practice? It might include:

• Establishing lasting, multi-generational Christian communities

• Investing in robust theological education and apologetics

• Leveraging technology to preserve and disseminate Christian teachings

• Engaging in cultural and intellectual discourse to maintain Christianity's relevance

Preserving the church for the future could explain at least some of the use of resources on things other than evangelism: mutual help creates more lasting communities. It helps to create goodwill towards Christians which could both make it easier for people to convert and make it easier for Christian communities to function unhindered.

IV. Could some counterarguments to longtermism be weaker for Christians?

There might be reasons for TCE adherents—or Christians more generally—to take the unintended consequences counterargument less seriously than secular longtermists. If God-given ⁸ moral principles are followed, a (morally?) catastrophic result should not occur because a benevolent God would not give humans moral principles that would result in horrible consequences. If caring for far future humans is within God-given moral principles and no other Christian ethical principles are violated in the pursuit of far future welfare, it seems Christians shouldn’t be too worried about unintended consequences. For example, engaging in building long-lasting church communities would not result in terrible things two billion years from now. As mentioned, though, this is only assuming that pursuing future welfare does not violate any God-given moral principles.

Breaking God’s will while pursuing a goal that by itself lies within his moral will would reintroduce the risk of unintended consequences. God would not let bad consequences in the far-away future result from actions he has commanded in the present but if humans are knowingly breaking God’s commandments, the same guarantee does not hold. If the welfare of (far) future humans was pursued by means that are against God’s will, there would be no guarantee that this will not result in catastrophe.

Dealing with uncertain options responsibly would be among the Christian moral principles. This would also reintroduce risk to some degree: whether attempts to influence the far future would be within God’s moral will and therefore protected from catastrophic results would depend on how responsible these actions are.

This creates a problem: as far-future consequences of actions are in most cases very uncertain, would the responsible option be not to take these actions? In that case, trying to influence the far future could become effectively forbidden or at least as unsafe as under secular premises because there would be no special divine guarantee. On the other hand, is inaction any more permissible morally?

The conclusion depends on how much risk is tolerable and how inscrutable the far-future effects are. If it’s more likely that the future is shorter than the timelines under secular longtermism, this could affect the risk analysis. Predicting effects some hundreds or thousands of years into the future is very hard but still probably easier than predicting effects millions of years from now.

If mere uncertainty about far future effects is enough to trigger impermissibility for actions that are otherwise within God’s moral will, this would make most if not all actions impermissible since the far-future effects of actions are highly uncertain. But this clashes with Christian moral principles. One cannot forego feeding the hungry because of fear of far-future consequences. So it appears God guarantees that actions like these will not have catastrophic far-future consequences.

This means actions that are clearly within God’s moral will and that may also produce good in the longterm future should be safe options. Prevention of catastrophic risks like a nuclear war or man-made superpandemics would fall into this category as well as various interventions aimed at building good institutions. It is even plausible there could be a guarantee that God would arrange things so that what is short-term effective  is also long-term effective.

In the history of Christianity, Christians haven’t usually thought about the consequences of their actions tens of generations from their time. Yet through their activities the church has lasted for 2,000 years and spread all over the world, probably reaching many more people than most of them could have imagined. This is an example of clearly good present-day actions having good longterm consequences.

1

A belief in the possibility of salvation in the afterlife could make pursuing salvation in this life relatively less pressing unless the salvation of the people in the afterlife depends on the actions of those currently living like intercessory prayers. Because the purgatorial process in these views could still be very long and painful, actions that would make this process easier or avoid it could still be extremely valuable.

2

It could be interesting to speculate how the Simulation Hypothesis fits in with this since it allows for in-effect supernatural tampering with the world and an end of the world as a result of simulation shutdown. Cf. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1905.05792. This is obviously not relevant to Christians who believe in TCE but challenges the narrative a bit for the kinds of secular longtermists who take the simulation hypothesis at least somewhat seriously.

3

See for example Ps. 139:16 (ESV): 

Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
    the days that were formed for me,
    when as yet there was none of them.

and Jeremiah 1:5 (ESV):

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
and before you were born I consecrated you;
I appointed you a prophet to the nations.

4

Atemporality by itself might not rule out God showing partiality to people living in some particular time on other grounds. This could be analogous to someone showing partiality for people living in a certain region despite living nowhere nearby themselves. However, as far as I’m aware, there are no indications of this kind of temporal partiality on God’s part in Scripture or church tradition and prima facie it would seem to go against the passages that say God shows no partiality. (Acts 10:34 and Romans 2:11, though both of these passages are in the context of ethnic partiality.)

Forms of open theism have God experiencing the flow of time with creation in some sense, as God is not considered to fully know the future in open theism.

5

I’m not sure how literally one should take these figures. How many hold this as a reflected-upon belief that affects their day-to-day behaviour? 

6

There could be situations where it would be legitimate to give a very high probability of the Parousia happening soon, like the appearance of a figure who obviously fulfils a literal reading of Antichrist prophecies. Even here we have to be careful since Christians have a track record of overestimating how clearly someone fulfills those prophecies—cf. all the people claimed to be the Antichrist and heralding an imminent Second Coming. On the other hand, nobody since the destruction of the Second Temple in AD 70 has fulfilled Paul’s prediction that the “man of lawlessness” will take “his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God” in a a literal sense since there has been no temple of God. (2 Thessalonians 2:4, ESV)

7

Assuming a stable population of 10 billion and an average lifespan of 85 years would result in 235 billion people in 2000 years. This is almost exactly double of 117 billion, the Population Research Bureau’s estimate of the number of people who had ever lived by 2022.

8

“God-given” in this context could be taken in a Divine Command Theory framework to mean commandments God has given or or in a natural law framework to mean the the comamndments of Natural Law. In a a consequentialsit framework, God could have communicated to humans heuristics or rules the following of which will result in good consequences. 

God-given moral principles would be ones Christians can reach with enough certainty either through examining the Scriptures, church tradition or their conscience, or by reasoning about God’s moral will. The authority of these diferent sorces differs in theological traditions. Direct revelation from God might also in potentially shed light on principles include in his moral will, but it is usually assumed to be subject to Scripture and/or tradition.

1. A belief in the possibility of salvation in the afterlife could make pursuing salvation in this life relatively less pressing unless the salvation of the people in the afterlife depends on the actions of those currently living like intercessory prayers. Because the purgatorial process in these views could still be very long and painful, actions that would make this process easier or avoid it could still be extremely valuable. ↩

2. It could be interesting to speculate how the Simulation Hypothesis fits in with this since it allows for in-effect supernatural tampering with the world and an end of the world as a result of simulation shutdown. Cf. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1905.05792. This is obviously not relevant to Christians who believe in TCE but challenges the narrative a bit for the kinds of secular longtermists who take the simulation hypothesis at least somewhat seriously. ↩

3. See for example Ps. 139:16 (ESV): Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. and Jeremiah 1:5 (ESV): Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations. ↩

4. Atemporality by itself might not rule out God showing partiality to people living in some particular time on other grounds. This could be analogous to someone showing partiality for people living in a certain region despite living nowhere nearby themselves. However, as far as I’m aware, there are no indications of this kind of temporal partiality on God’s part in Scripture or church tradition and prima facie it would seem to go against the passages that say God shows no partiality. (Acts 10:34 and Romans 2:11, though both of these passages are in the context of ethnic partiality.)

   Forms of open theism have God experiencing the flow of time with creation in some sense, as God is not considered to fully know the future in open theism.

   ↩

5. I’m not sure how literally one should take these figures. How many hold this as a reflected-upon belief that affects their day-to-day behaviour? ↩

6. There could be situations where it would be legitimate to give a very high probability of the Parousia happening soon, like the appearance of a figure who obviously fulfils a literal reading of Antichrist prophecies. Even here we have to be careful since Christians have a track record of overestimating how clearly someone fulfills those prophecies—cf. all the people claimed to be the Antichrist and heralding an imminent Second Coming. On the other hand, nobody since the destruction of the Second Temple in AD 70 has fulfilled Paul’s prediction that the “man of lawlessness” will take “his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God” in a a literal sense since there has been no temple of God. (2 Thessalonians 2:4, ESV) ↩

7. Assuming a stable population of 10 billion and an average lifespan of 85 years would result in 235 billion people in 2000 years. This is almost exactly double of 117 billion, the Population Research Bureau’s estimate of the number of people who had ever lived by 2022. ↩

8. “God-given” in this context could be taken in a Divine Command Theory framework to mean commandments God has given or or in a natural law framework to mean the the commandments of Natural Law. In a a consequentialsit framework, God could have communicated to humans heuristics or rules the following of which will result in good consequences.

   God-given moral principles would be ones Christians can reach with enough certainty either through examining the Scriptures, church tradition or their conscience, or by reasoning about God’s moral will. The authority of these diferent sorces differs in theological traditions. Direct revelation from God might also in potentially shed light on principles include in his moral will, but it is usually assumed to be subject to Scripture and/or tradition.

   ↩