The problem of entropy is one that presses upon us the average mortal life perhaps more strongly than evil.
By "entropy" I mean the universal tendency for beings to experience cumulative adverse change with time: dysfunction, degeneration, disease - and the ultimate manifestation of entropy is death.
All of these are unavoidable, are universal.
Traditional Christian theology usually conflates entropy with evil; indeed entropy/ death is usually subsumed within the concept and causes of evil.
For example, the traditional interpretation of the Adam and Eve story is that they began as good and immortal beings; free from both evil and death.
With The Fall they chose evil, and at the same time necessarily became mortal - subject to entropy and death.
(In traditional theology) with the salvation from Jesus Christ we are allowed to return to the primal situation of Adam and Eve - saved from our self-caused punishment of both entropy and evil.
After their fall; A & E and their descendants also needed to toil in order to live - in effect toil was needed to overcome entropy.
Because (in effect) entropy meant that, over time, our minds and bodies and the environment are all against us: we must make efforts every day, we need to toil simply to remain alive and functional, but all such efforts are temporary palliative: will inevitably be overcome and will fail.
(In this sense, entropy is a more pervasive problem than evil.)
And ultimately all of this bad stuff supposedly happens because of The Fall!
Everything bad is down to an evil choice of ancestors, and its ramifications.
This is very difficult to comprehend or believe. There seems a gross disproportion between the events described in Genesis, and thousands of years of billions of people's suffering and toil, disease and dying in fighting - and failing to defeat - entropy.
Well, be that as it may; traditional theology regards evil as primary, entropy as a part of evil: evil is the ultimate cause of entropy.
Therefore trad-theol has it that we overcome entropy by overcoming sin, where "sin" is understood to mean the manifestations of evil.
That is; the repentance of evil/sins, leads also to the escape from entropy: leads to eternally healthy and vigorous - and happy - life in Heaven.
I have described elsewhere my understanding that entropy and evil can and should be distinguished, and that they have different causes.
Entropy is intrinsic to this creation, the one we inhabit now; to the original or primary Creation by God - this creation that we are born-into.
Heaven can be conceptualized as the answer to entropy; by a second and opt-into creation (i.e. the creation made possible by Jesus Christ) - with resurrection conceptualized as a voluntary re-making without entropy, as leaving-behind entropy.
So, while traditional Christian theology regards entropy-death as secondary to evil - and regards Heaven as the answer to entropy-death because, in repenting moral sins and having the effect of sins removed by Jesus, we also and simultaneously eliminate entropy.
But instead; I regard entropy and evil as ultimately distinct concepts: (in this creation) entropy is unavoidable, while evil is a choice.
However, the confusion and conflation of entropy and evil among Christians seems to be a consequence of the fact that the answer to both entropy and evil is the same: i.e. resurrection and our "escape"/ progression-into eternal, wholly-good life in Heaven; by following Jesus Christ.
In a nutshell: entropy and evil are different problems with different causes in this-world, but both problems are cured by the same treatment: following Jesus Christ to Heaven.
And otherwise they are not cured. One who does Not follow Jesus to Heaven; has thereby chosen to continue to live with entropy and evil.
Note Added: The difference is that:
Entropy is intrinsic to the nature of God's creation - the First creation.
Evil is about a specific-Being's attitude towards creation: positive, or negative, affiliative or hostile.
2 comments:
I was surprised to find a modern Catholic apologist (Jimmy Akin, I believe) writing (correctly) that entropy pre-dates the Fall no matter how you interpret Genesis because Adam, Eve, and the animals ate before the Fall (even if only plants) and eating is only necessary because energy dissipates which is entropy. I don’t know anything about the history of the concept of entropy, but I imagine ancients would have had the general idea from observing the aging process even among their most health-conscious and virtuous compatriots. Indeed, the manner in which immortality was to be achieved for Adam and Eve- eating the fruit of the Tree of Life daily- admits that decay and death was the baked-in default. So the wholly good God made a creation he called “good” that was always going to be slow torture for its inhabitants. We can explain this by understanding “good” as “fit for purpose,” the purpose being learning/growth, or we can understand it as foreknowledge of the evil of man (which is how I understand the orthodox view), or we can go the demiurge route, or we can place limits on God (such as by assuming he is unwilling or unable to tyrannize pre-existing beings and as such needed to start with a temporary creation.)
One thing I find interesting is in knowing a lot of Christians who posit creative unorthodox metaphysics nonetheless everyone seems to take it for granted that this is Level 1, i.e., the lowest level in whatever is going on. (Here I would call pre-existence Level 0, maybe that cheating but so it seems to me.) I don’t know why this feels so obvious to so many, but maybe entropy is the key.
@Mia - I haven't come across the "eating is entropy" problem in relation to Genesis, but I have in relation to the resurrected Jesus.
For me, this problem is some steps removed from the essential metaphysics - so that eating can always be explained, or explained away, in terms of the pre-assumed metaphysics - e.g that it was just (in some way) an appearance of eating, but not really so.
It is (for me, anyway) much clearer to get back and down to become clear about the underlying metaphysical assumptions - on the basis that metaphysics comes before evidence, explains what counts as evidence and what evidence means.
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