 Scientifically based speculations about the state of the cosmos in the far future and the possibility of endless life were first discussed in the late nineteenth century in connection with the controversy over the heat death predicted by the second law of thermodynamics. Some of the German scientists involved in the controversy argued that life might persist even in the very high-entropic environment of the far future, and they explicitly referred to the eschatological aspects of cosmology. Characteristically, while the heat death scenario was welcomed by Christian authors, it was vehemently opposed by materialists and atheists who argued for an eternal universe with eternal life. As Eddington, a Quaker and an advocate of the inevitable heat death, later asked: “Since when has the teaching that ‘ heaven and earth shall pass away’ become ecclesiastically un-orthodox?” (Eddington 1935, 59).