Entropy and a vision of hope!
You drop a glass from a table - it smashes into lots of pieces. Chaos from order.
It takes a lot of effort to put it back together. You can't just throw all the pieces back onto the table and expect to get your glass back.
Scientists call the amount of 'chaos' the amount of 'entropy'. They would say that the entropy has increased by dropping the glass off the table.
In fact scientists have a rule: entropy always increases within a system. It means that the natural state of a world full of stuff is disorder and the entropy (or disorder) will always increase until it is completely disordered.
An untended woodland, a rock on the seashore getting battered into a pile of sand over the years, a bunch of kids in a playroom with no supervisor! You get the picture... chaos increases if something is left unchecked.
What if the same is true in the moral sphere? What if the natural state of humans is to have disorder, disunity, disharmony in the relm of morality. What if a society is naturally prone to become less moral, less civilised and less human over time? Does the moral entropy increase naturally as well?
The Lord of the Flies springs to mind - as does my time at university!
How do you reduce entropy in a system? In scientific terms the only way is for something outside the system to reach in and organise the system - the tree surgeon, the sea breakers and the teacher would fill this role in the examples above.
What about the moral entropy? What moral energy is going to reach in to restore humanity? Jesus stepped in - from outside the system - with a new moral code and a new 'power/energy' to reduce this entropy.
Jesus restores - in each one of us - a heart for justice, a heart for peace, a heart for community, a heart for reducing the moral entropy around us. The Holy Spirit lives in each one of us giving us the energy from 'outside the system' to bring about these changes.
Ever since the Fall in Eden moral entropy has increasing. One of the things Jesus is trying to achieve is to reduce the moral entropy in this world we live in. If I am bringing about justice, mercy , compassion and community in my 'world' then i am rebelling against the natural law of the world and instead bringing in the Kingdom of God.
As we begin - in our society - to reevaluate the worth of the woman, the unborn baby, the environment, the homeless person, the city banker and our family we are not only being nice. We are reversing the increase of moral entropy. We are destroying the work of the evil one.
It takes a lot of effort to put it back together. You can't just throw all the pieces back onto the table and expect to get your glass back.
Scientists call the amount of 'chaos' the amount of 'entropy'. They would say that the entropy has increased by dropping the glass off the table.
In fact scientists have a rule: entropy always increases within a system. It means that the natural state of a world full of stuff is disorder and the entropy (or disorder) will always increase until it is completely disordered.
An untended woodland, a rock on the seashore getting battered into a pile of sand over the years, a bunch of kids in a playroom with no supervisor! You get the picture... chaos increases if something is left unchecked.
What if the same is true in the moral sphere? What if the natural state of humans is to have disorder, disunity, disharmony in the relm of morality. What if a society is naturally prone to become less moral, less civilised and less human over time? Does the moral entropy increase naturally as well?
The Lord of the Flies springs to mind - as does my time at university!
How do you reduce entropy in a system? In scientific terms the only way is for something outside the system to reach in and organise the system - the tree surgeon, the sea breakers and the teacher would fill this role in the examples above.
What about the moral entropy? What moral energy is going to reach in to restore humanity? Jesus stepped in - from outside the system - with a new moral code and a new 'power/energy' to reduce this entropy.
Jesus restores - in each one of us - a heart for justice, a heart for peace, a heart for community, a heart for reducing the moral entropy around us. The Holy Spirit lives in each one of us giving us the energy from 'outside the system' to bring about these changes.
Ever since the Fall in Eden moral entropy has increasing. One of the things Jesus is trying to achieve is to reduce the moral entropy in this world we live in. If I am bringing about justice, mercy , compassion and community in my 'world' then i am rebelling against the natural law of the world and instead bringing in the Kingdom of God.
As we begin - in our society - to reevaluate the worth of the woman, the unborn baby, the environment, the homeless person, the city banker and our family we are not only being nice. We are reversing the increase of moral entropy. We are destroying the work of the evil one.
posted by Dan | 3:54 PM
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