Even if we (somehow) lived in an utterly perfect society under an utterly ideal political system - there would still be the problem of evil.
Even if the problem of evil was (somehow) cured; then there would still be the problem of entropy - of change, degeneration, disease, death.
Entropy is the ultimate enemy.
(Although modern Westerners have lost sight of it; the ultimacy of the problem of entropy has been recognized at least since the earliest known Greek philosophers, and is the focus of the Fourth Gospel's account of the purpose and work of Jesus Christ - i.e. at the very heart of Christianity.)
There have been (I think) three suggested ways that purport to solve the ultimate problem of entropy:
1. By Stasis
2. By Spirit
3. By Resurrection
The cure by stasis is that entropy is caused by (indeed actually is) change; and is solved by a reality in which there is no change. Eternity is therefore static.
The cure by spirit is that entropy is caused by matter, by "the material"; and therefore is solved by the replacement of matter by immaterial spirit. (Including that our death is, ultimately, due to being incarnated.) Eternity is therefore spiritual.
The cure by resurrection is that there must first be death, and after death (for those Beings that "follow" Jesus Christ) there can be a transformation, a re-making; such that we again become incarnated (i.e. made of solid "matter") that is everlasting, inhabiting a Heaven where we remain our-selves, and in which there is change.
The idea of resurrection as a cure for entropy is therefore something new and different from the more ancient ideas of stasis and/or spiritualization.
I find the answers of stasis and spirit to be incoherent from a Christian perspective; because they raise the problem of why a loving personal God would compel His children to pass-through the entropic phase of mortal incarnation. If stasis, or spirit, are the answer - why bother with all this tedious mucking-about in this state of change and as matter? If entropy is to be solved by stasis or spiritualization, why create the problem at all - why create change, why create matter?
But resurrection has not been understood as a third and qualitatively different solution from stasis and spirit - so that most supposed-explanations of resurrection, instead revert to variations and combinations of stasis and spirit.
A satisfactory and coherent explanation of resurrection needs to include:
1. Why death is necessary? Why does God not go directly to the non-entropic state of things?
2. Why our continued mortal life is necessary? If death is necessary to the abolition of entropy, then why don't we die ASAP and get on with the real business of post-mortal resurrected living?
It is because I could not find any such explanations, that I was compelled to devise coherent answers for myself; and why I ended-up with a new kind of metaphysical Christian theology.
14 comments:
how do you square the idea that change is the enemy but also that in Heaven there will be change?
@Laeth - Because it is Not change that is the enemy.
That was a mistaken conceptualization of the Ancient Greeks (and many others), a false dichotomy (Heraclitus, for instance, taking the other side of the perceived alternatives, of nothing-but-change); arising because they could not see any alternative; arising because of their assumption of a oneness metaphysics.
With a pluralist metaphysics of Beings, it can be seen that it is not change per se, but Entropy-Death that is the enemy.
then, if i understand the way you use the words, there are two types of change - entropic and not entropic. but what exactly is the distinction between one and the other? I feel this must be understood more precisely.
somewhat as an aside, what do you make of the scenes of the resurrected Jesus on earth? it seems like it would be very important to the question - because on the one hand it is after resurrection, but on the other it is not in heaven - so the question is, what rules applied there?
(I am happy if you prefer to discuss this by email and not publish the comment - since I understand you are still working it out. also, I understand if you do not wish to discuss it at all for the moment - I ask because I want to refine my own understanding)
@Laeth - Understanding the difference is not (ever) a matter of definitions, but a matter of knowing and understanding the metaphysical assumptions.
I have explained this several times, and I know you have read it; but (from your question) apparently so far you don't Get it (and this not-getting applies whether or not I am correct!)
For instance, if one understands Second Creation in the context of its "picture" of the history of creation, then you understand entropy.
I'll have another go. At resurrection, we consent to being re-made wholly on the basis of love. This means we leave behind all other "causes". A being that coheres and lives only by love is one that has no evil, and no entropy.
This is because in Heaven every interaction is governed by love - all Beings in Heaven have the same purposes and methods as divine creation.
In this mortal life, divine creation is continually be sabotaged by evil - which opposes it - and also by the continuing existence of the primordial chaos from which we were created.
Heaven (the second creation) excludes primordial chaos; it is a new creation without chaos. In Heaven there is change, because there is always and necessarily change, because reality is made of Beings - and Beings have the attribute of changing, as an aspect of being alive and living.
But on earth there is entropic change that dismantles divine creation - in Heaven there is not - there is only love (only love as a cause of cohesion and purpose).
Any help?
thank you Bruce for trying again. Indeed I do not 'get' it. I will think more about it, but I think you're right that the reason I don't get it is because I do not share some of the assumptions. The main one is the idea that creation in Heaven can do away with 'chaos' - or primordial matter, pure potential. The story of Jesus, and the symbols it provides of the second creation, all include chaos and death (from the bread and wine to the very resurrection and what Jesus eats after resurrection). This assumption that chaos can be excluded at all to me implies just as much as traditional theology does that this life, and how it works, has zero meaning - the same question could be asked, Why do we need to go through a world with it, if it is to be done away in the end and can be done away in the end. And this is not at all the same question as evil, for evil is a motivation, it's not 'how things work' - and indeed, a motivation against how things work, and how coherence and change can coexist. I suppose to me the most important question, really, is not about Heaven - everyone intuitively 'feels' at least how Heaven should be like, a place of Love, indeed. The question that plagues me is what is the value of this life, and this is the 'appearance' I try to 'save' above all, and why I ultimately rejected traditional theology, as you know.
@Laeth - To put it simply to the point of crudeness:
1. Anyone can have salvation who chooses it, and consents to being remade/ resurrected.
2. The value of this mortal life is first that we need to choose Salvation. One who has chosen salvation can be allowed to die at any time. But one who has not (not yet) chosen salvation will probably (all else being equal) be kept alive to have further chances to choose salvation.
3. The more we learn from this mortal life, the more of ourselves we will retain at resurrection. A Saint would retain a great deal of himself. An evil person will have to leave behind a lot more of the characteristics of his mortal self.
4. We retain the loving and creative and Good experiences from this mortal life into eternal resurrected life. The more of these, and the better their quality, the more we will take with us.
(I don't think specific information about Jesus - or Lazarus - post-resurrection is very important - not least because it depends on access to the Fourth Gospel, accuracy of text and translation etc; at any rate I don't consider it very interesting.)
I don't believe entropy exists and I don't see it.
In fact I struggle a little to even understand what is meant by it.
I understand that in a purely mathematical sense, a thermodynamic system will tend towards orderless diffusion — but I reject the assumption in the first place that the world is a mere thermodynamic system. As soon as you introduce a higher order of energy (like spiritual energy) that no longer depends on thermodynamic constraints, the cosmic inevitability of entropy immediately disappears — especially since the whole cosmos is permeated with this meta-energetical life. Nothing is decaying, no "heat death of the universe" is necessary. I imagine an Archangel could concentrate his mind and fuse together 10 suns before breakfast.
But if we are using entropy as a poetic expression for the flux, change, and impermancy of things — culminating in bodily death... Well, let's be frank, resurrection alone doesn't cure it. Neither does spirit or stasis. If I am nostalgically longing for a specific time with a specific group of family & friends and a specific feeling of unity and well-being... It doesn't matter if heaven is "better", I will never get THAT moment back. Like an art-lover who refuses to go to heaven if his favourite Raphael isn't there, even if heaven's pictures are "better" and are the original source of Raphael's inspiration...
The only solution is a combination of the three that includes an eternal recovery of that moment (stasis), with a progressively expanding freedom (spirit), while maintaining my unique personhood and grateful appreciation for the gift received (resurrection).
What I think this really involves though is the recognition that the entropic process itself is a delusion.
My mother is sad that she can't go back to the days when her children were young. It doesn't matter if she has grandchildren to nurture now, she will never get back that experience of being a mother of her own. Does she have a right to reject resurrection if God can't give her back what she's lost? I don't think she will be satisfied with being immortal—she wants her infants back. The resurrection has to recover time in a way that returns everything good we've lost to us, so that my mum can be what she understands to be "herself" again.
I don't actually think this is impossible. In fact, I think it's precisely what the risen Lord means in Revelation when he says, "Behold, I make all things new." If entropy is in any sense real — any sense whatsoever — then that's impossible.
Entropy is just another word for the devil's kingdom and the illusions which govern it.
@Bruce,
"The value of this mortal life is first that we need to choose Salvation."
this to me begs the same exact questions. we are here... to choose something else that has nothing really to do with it. so why not choose directly from pre-mortal to post-mortal.
there is another problem in my view, and it regards the first creation (which I believe is also the work of Jesus, though pre-incarnate) but I don't think we will reach a consensus in either case. so probably best to leave it here.
still, I appreciate you taking the time to explain your position (once again) and please forgive me if I was too combative and/or annoying.
@IB - This is metaphysics, a matter of assumption not evidence.
If you choose to assume that entropy doesn't exist and explain everything otherwise, you can do so - and you can choose to tolerate the implications.
There are, after all, billions of people, who have (apparently) believe that ultimately there is no change in reality, no time, and everything is one - and all else is delusion (maya).
@Laeth - "why not choose directly from pre-mortal to post-mortal."
The answer is from Mormon theology, which I though you had already accepted. But to explain my understanding of it: It is that - as a matter of fact, this is just the way things are - i.e. the Only path to eternal incarnate life is via the intermediate of mortal incarnate life.
It just happens to be impossible for creation to proceed directly from spirit to eternal body - presumably a constraint of reality.
i.e. we must first have a mortal body as the basis for resurrecting an immortal body.
This is why Jesus says we Must die, we must be born again if we are to have life everlasting. If we want eternal embodied life, we must first have mortal embodied life.
This means that we must incarnate mortally, however briefly. Some, perhaps most in human history, have incarnated into the womb, but never been born - and this is sufficient.
To speculate, for those who have already chosen resurrection as pre-mortal spirits, mortal incarnation only needs to be very brief.
(Of course, no Man is an island, and our mortal lives have effects on others, which God takes into account in deciding how long to sustain our mortal lives. But I am talking here about minimum conditions. )
Doesn't entropy rely on metaphysical assumptions? It certainly isn't the same as flux or change. I don't think the notion of entropy is possible prior to a Newtonian metaphysic. I reject Newtonianism so entropy plays no part in my worldview. Entropy seems, like Darwinism, to be another modern, scientistic myth—taking local measurements and blowing them into a grand cosmological narrative.
@BI "Doesn't entropy rely on metaphysical assumptions?"
Yes of course - that's what I just said.
BTW - if you are rejecting my use of entrooy, you would first need to understand what I mean by it, by reading some of the linked posts. This is not the same as "Newtonian" entropy - if there is indeed any such thing, which I doubt! The usual current usage of entropy in science is, I think, much more recent; and derived from Shannon's ideas about information.
But either way, I use entropy in a precise but somewhat different way - much more akin to what is implied in the Fourth Gospel by the concept translated in the AV as "death" and which is also called "sin".
https://lazaruswrites.blogspot.com/
@Bruce,
indeed I accept the answer from Mormon theology, but I don't think they have taken it as seriously as they should within the context of their larger worldview. I especially don't think they take their pluralism and the limitedness of Godhood seriously, and both have a bearing on this question. Because I believe there are multiple origins for the beings that end up here, I also believe there are multiple destinies beyond - many heavens, we could call it (or many mansions, as Jesus does). And so there is not only one thing everyone is doing here, but many - some, indeed, I believe are only here to destroy and sabotage. At least it is what I cannot but observe. And I also cannot but observe that God is not in control of it all (and it is how I can regard Him as Good, rather than as a monster). We can speak of a lowest common denominator, or minimum requirement, and this may be achieved without having actually lived - but I think there's more that can and should be attained, and the cases of early death are the only ones where reincarnation makes sense to me, but even these I consider to be, overall, rare. Hence the idea of earth as a place of learning and growth - not just as a ballot box for salvation. As for death/entropy I don't think there is one that happens at the end of this life, but it's always happening in multiple ways (in fact, it happened before for us to be born here), and I regard it as a given. The problem to be solved for me is not change and death - I believe we can master it, as Jesus has mastered it -, nor is it suffering; both of these are just givens, they just are, and will always be, part of the fabric of how things work (the only alternative is complete stasis, or an omnipotent God). for me the real problem is evil and cruelty. these must be excluded from the next world in order for us to continue to work towards God-likeness, but this likeness in my view is not the power to bend the fundamentals of reality, but rather working with them, and these include change, death and renewal (which I see as a spectrum, not as two separate kinds, as in, entropic and not entropic change). This, to me, is the only answer that does not void this life completely of any meaning and does not make God a horrible monster.
I'll just say I intuitively like the idea of resurrection as discussed here as a resolution at a higher level. Modern people really balk at the idea - like Douglas Murray - who definitely wasn't out behind the barn when they were passing out the brains. But for me it touches my sense that total transformation isn't just an attractive idea, but a reality that can be lived through and beyond death. That is what makes Christianity so revolutionary - it directly asserts what we strongly tend to believe in our bones is just not the case. Most of us most of time are missing the point as completely as the Roman soldiers were dicing for Jesus' clothes.
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