This paper critiques life extension via aging retardation and the hope that animates these projects through the lens of theological hope. I begin by examining the work of Francis Bacon (1561-1626), who, in arguing for a new scientific methodology rooted in the investigation of the particular, sought to elevate aging attenuation as the ultimate goal of medicine. Though Bacon acknowledged the resurrection of the body, and thus a ‘hope for heaven,’ he insisted that our hopes are better focused on discovering the mechanisms of aging, which lead him to embrace dualistic account of hope. To this day, the theological concept of hope has received little attention as it relates to slowing aging and biomedical progress in general. Moreover, in the few instances when theological hope is brought to bear on bioethical issues such as life extension, it has engendered a variety of responses that range from a refutation of slowing aging on the one hand (Richard Sherlock), and a demand that hope resists death and a world that puts up with it on the other (Moltmann). In working within these extremes, I will engage the work of Josef Pieper (1904-1977), who reflects on hope as a theological virtue, and consider the implications of slowing aging as it relates to the formation of character. With the help of Pieper’s observations, I argue that while slowing aging cannot be described as a project proper to theological hope, it exposes a potential danger of making us ‘old’ by tempting us to think that our “not yet” is greater than our “has been.” More positively however, I suggest that theological hope is just the virtue required to help us navigate a potentially longer life by shaping us in ways that guard against the character-distorting assumption that we’ve created longer earthly lives at our own bidding.