Eh? Adam and Eve were always on Earth. Made of the same stuff.
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I am well aware of the meaning of entropyâŠthe issue is, you do not understand the theological implications of a claim that is based in evolutionary belief. I do not agree that âlife requires entropy to existââŠGod miraculously spoke the universe and this earth into existenceâŠit was miraculous and not scientific. Science is an explanation of we observe, it is our construct of what God has done. We observe and test only that which sin has already corruptedâŠwe have absolutely no modern or historical model with which we may test creation prior to sin.
The bible quite explicitly tells us, prior to the war in heaven, after which Lucifer and his angels were cast out, prior to the fall of Adam and Eve, things were very very different in not only the universe, but also on this earth. The bible spends an entire 66 books illustrating the pain, death, suffering, destruction caused by the entry of sin into the universe (particularly this earth - because the bible is about our story/journey), it impossible to ignore that and make the claim that we are evolving into something better (which is what i believe the very definition of Entropy attempts to portray)
Christs ministry clearly shows the plan of salvation has absolutely nothing to do with us evolving into some thing betterâŠin fact the book of revelation prophecies us descending into darkness and destruction if left to our own accord and its at this point of no return that God will finally step in and stop Satanâs merciless plunder of what was once a beautiful creation now ruined by sin.
But Eden (while on Earth) was supernatural, no death, A&E living in the presence of God.
Your last sentence is entropy because of the implications on biblical theology as a result of the standard evolutionary entropy model. It cannot explain miracles and that is a significant issue. One cannot simply ignore miracles whilst still maintaining an allegiance to the naturalism evolutionary model of entropy.
Im. happy to have biblical texts quoted to correct my thinking on thisâŠi havenât quoted any in response yet because my responses above are my face value responses without having thought in depth about it yet. (that is not to say i havenât indirectly thought about it because my theological response shows that i have clearly âoff the cuffâ thought up significant problems without even researching).
As you know, Im not a shallow researcher of biblical theologyâŠso my answers usually are cross linked to the entire biblical theology and when problems appear in one small area, i notice them immediately.
Iâm happy to have these issues surrounding the entropy resolved because lets face it, given my academic background is based in technology and education, Iâm supposed to attempt to support the idea rather than deny it without first considering the possibilityâŠmy throwing up a wall doesnt mean that it cant be torn down or a doorway made in order to pass through it?
That has not been evident in your discussion.
That is so wrong I would not know where to begin - I donât mean theologically, or implications or evidence of anything - just that you do not have a grasp of the definition or meaning of the word.
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Nobody died yet, before the fall. And neither did anybody die immediately after the fall, although God said they would die.
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Depends on what you mean by function?
Is life possible without it? No. The struggle against opposing forces is the very essence of the process of life. Without these challenges there is no life â nothing to learn and no reason to adapt. The question is identical to the whether life can exist without death, for death is only the ultimate consequence of this thermodynamic law.
So does this mean there is death in heaven or no life in heaven? No. It is only necessary in the beginning of life, when you want something that organizes itself and completely responsible for what it becomes. But once the commitment to life (to learning) has been made, then all life needs is something to learn. And then instead of the struggle against nothingness life can about the reaching for the infinite - something we can find in a relationship with God.
But then why not simply start with the latter? Because in that case you will only have an extension of God, i.e. servants. God created the universe with its laws of nature (including thermodynamics), because God wanted more than this â children. Those with a life all their own choosing for themselves to seek after all their parent can offer them.
That would explain why Adam and Eve did not heed Godâs warning â they didnât have any idea what God was talking about.
(sarcasm font)
So the Bible is talking about fairies, unicorns, and Harry Potter. If only we can find some magic dust then we will be saved.
When I was in high school someone asked me what I thought of the Bible. I said, âit is at least as good as the other fantasy and science fiction books I have read.â And that is because I read the Bible in the way you suggest also â having nothing to do with real life. But I am a Christian now because I found another way to read the Bible, where it is not about some magical world nobody can see like Santaâs north pole, but about the invisible realities of the real world all around us â about how the earth can be a garden of Eden if our self-destructive habits (called sin) didnât poison everything.
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Rather more philosophical than what I had in mind. But certainly interesting and much more creative.
The best response one can conjur up despite my explaining the point and you still not able to comprehend the theological implications.
This is why some individuals here have such terrible biblical theologyâŠthey seek nothing more than a shallow investigation of its contents.
Im a plan b kinda guy, i dont tend to rely on face value it leaves little substance when shown to be deficient or even wrong.
Well thats obviousâŠwhen one hasnt a strong biblical background then they must revert to other sources for biblical knowledge and belief.
It would be far better if you started studying for yourself.
You canât âcomprehend the theological implicationsâ when you canât even get the concept right. That you think that thermodynamics has anything to do with evolution shows you donât know what entropy is about.
Just more evidence you have no clue â why would anyone look in the Bible for knowledge about entropy? That makes no more sense than would studying the Bible to prepare for a driverâs test!
Try this:
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Without sin, just obeying that tiny limitation (donât eat from the forbidden tree) A&E and offspring (we) would still live in Eden, no death, no separation from God.
Separation from God (kicked out of Paradise) means spiritual death and was immediate. Landing on the natural world where all the Laws of Physics are present and thus with natural death as a logical result.
After natural death we return into the presence of God (Ecclesiastes 12:7), we are back into the spiritual world either saved by Christ and live forever in the presence of God (as Godâs original intent with A&E) or condemned to eternal separation from God, the second (spiritual) death, mentioned 4 times in Revelation.
Science is nice, spiritual understanding is better.
Well, that certainly is a way to read the texts based on certain assumptions informed by much later understandings of death, and the relationship between God and the world.
Again. That certainly is a reading of the texts, and a popular one. But God didnât say âspiritual deathâ and A&E had no way of understanding either contemporarily commonly understood meaning (physical or spiritual). Considering genre and the fact that there are two different, irreconcilable versions of creation narratives, there are likely other more valid readings and understandings of the purpose of these narratives.
If âdeathâ only means spiritual death, then why all the fuss about entropy?
In any case, the concept of entropy or the Second Law of Thermodynamics were as entirely incomprehensible to A&E as the concept of death would have been. As @mitchellmckain pointed out. The narratives could not possibly consider things that were only understood thousands and thousands of years later.
Animal life requires death. Digestion requires death. Plant life cycles require death. Remaining alive requires death â think of all the death proceeding from your body throughout your life: skin cells, stomach lining, blood cells, etc. What would a human body be like if it were not able to shed these things???
Observations of nature are not obliged to conform to ancient concepts. Neither can they reasonably be rejected on theological bases. Thatâs just silly. Loving God is not dependent on such things.
Interesting you should bring this up. Iâve been reading things by and listening to N.T. Wright a bit lately, who sees this entirely differently. Christ will return to Earth and renew it. âThe New Jerusalemâ will be, as is said in Revelation, on Earth. Humans will be with God on this physical and renewed Earth.
My last sentence is pointing out that, assuming Gen 1-3 tell us anything factual about the beginning, God did indeed act contrary to entropy, bringing order from chaos. See Gen 1:1-2.
The second creation story (beginning with Gen 2:5) simply assumes a functioning, unkempt, natural world devoid of human life or a cultivated garden for humans to reside in (Yes, I understand the conceptual connection between gardens and paradise. Likewise, I understand that these accounts are not merely things to take at face value.) Again, God is, contrary to entropy, bringing order to the mess and teaching man to do the work necessary to maintain that order.
Understanding entropy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics to describe how natural processes work, I assume, if there is anything factual in Gen 1-3, miracles would be among those facts.
I understand.
I disagree with your hermeneutical strategies, however. I understand that you as well as most Christians I have ever been in church with believe that the Bible interprets the Bible. Yet in applying that strategy you (plural) come to different interpretations based on different assumptions, focuses, and emphases.
If such a hermeneutic requires that I deny what is plain in front of me, or say it cannot be true because it doesnât fit with my particular reading of the Bible â a reading that I cannot have assurance is absolutely correct â the I canât accept that hermeneutic strategy as absolute.
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Undergraduate degree in Theology with concentration on Biblical languages.
My life has taken a few turns.
As has been pointed out by others, the Bible is not a science textbook, not directly, not incidentally - so the study of nature is not decided by proof texts.
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For a lay person this video was hard to appreciate. Lots of loaded terms.
Former editor at Nature magazine and trained physicist Philip Ball mentions Maxwellâs demon in his book How Life Works much more simply. My impression was that where life is concerned the cell membrane does a fair job in the roll of gate keeper to maintain a zone where life can persist.
A connection between entropy, information, and agency was established long before the contributions of Shannon and Schrödinger. In trying to understand how life overcomes the fundamental randomness of the molecular world, creating a local defense against the Second Law of Thermodynamics in order to attain some goal, Schrödinger was essentially articulating the same problem as the one posed in 1867 by the Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell. Maxwell had imagined how a tiny agent, later dubbed a demon, could mine useful energy (what physicists call work) from the random thermal motions of molecules. This feat defies the Second Law, which stipulates that energy dissipated as thermal noise canâ t be recovered to do workâthatâs basically the principle behind the inexorable rise in entropy.
Maxwellâs motivation was primarily religiousâyou might say that it was itself something of a quest for meaning. His demonic scenario was a response to the gloomy prediction that seemed to follow from the laws of thermodynamics formulated in 1850 by the German physicist Rudolph Clausius: the conservation of energy (the First Law) and the irreversibility of heat flow from hot to cold (the Second Law). Maxwell felt that the Second Law seemed to challenge the capacity for human free will. If there is only one way that things may happen (that is, in the way that increases entropy), we would seem to be locked into rigid determinism, and human freedom is just an illusion. As a devout Christian, he could not accept that God would arrange things this way. But how could free will be rescued without violating thermodynamics?
To find out how Maxwell rescued free will I will need to read on as this is just as far as Iâve gotten with his book.
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Which if you read the OT as an ancient Israelite becomes pretty obvious; the whole point all along was to âget back to the Gardenâ â thatâs why Jerusalem gets called a garden â and resume the program of turning the whole world into a Garden that interfaces with heaven.
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The second law of thermodynamics says, in simple terms, entropy always increases . This principle explains, for example, why you canât unscramble an egg. The second law of thermodynamics states that processes that involve the transfer or conversion of heat energy are irreversible and always move toward more disorder.What is the second law of thermodynamics? | Live Science
I reject that claim and hereâs why:
- it aligns with the naturalistic model that life starts from primitive and moves to more complex
- it supports the notion that humans, because of the laws of naturalism, can attain self enlightenment through our own efforts (this is anti biblical)
- It supports your view that TEism is an adquite theologyâŠit is not and there are so many deeply flawed theological and doctrinal dilemmas TEism experiencesâŠit fails to overcome most of theseâŠsome examples below
- Christ died physically on the cross for sin (it was not a spiritual only event), thus fulfilling literally, the Old Testament Sanctuary model down to the minutest of details. every part of the OT tabernacle is illustrated in the New Testament Crucifixion and resurrection of christ (with the exception of the second coming and final judgementsâŠbecause they havenât happened yet obviously)
- miracles directly contravene all scientific lawsâŠIâm still yet to see an adequately referenced and explained theological answer on that problem from anyone here on these forums.
- it ignores that sin has corrupted ALL CREATION. Therefore you cannot claim entropy existed prior to sin. The bible is our story and it focuses almost entirely on the ârestoration of a damaged piece of furnitureâ naturalism does not align with that model.
- Exodus 20:8-11 The Sabbath commandment clearly states âin 6 days God created the heavens and the earthââŠwhich is the same day based context as the illustration of jonah in the fish
- jonah was in the belly of the fish 3 days (clearly a set period of time representing known evening and morning time periods)
- I think miracles contravene the definition of Entropy that one âcant unboil and eggâ. That is the complete opposite of miracles in the bible. I do not think that the biblical model of raising a dead rotted corpse from the dead, and people rising from the grave and floating up into the sky and off into outer space where there is no breathable air.
I believe entropy exists because of sin. That God does not coexist with chaos and disorderâŠthe void and without form does not specifically mean chaotic entropy or imperfect. Some believe that this bible states simply means the void of space (noting we also have the argument about what is meant by separating waters below and above the earth which suggests to me that this is the event when the atmosphere and liquid water appear)
The bible clearly states, God spoke and things immediately appear in the creation model (eg âlet there be lightâ). I donât see the need for an entropic model in order for God to exist and by association the universe to exist.
I do not limit God to the notion that he cannot create energy and matter from nothing simply by speaking, therefore, he is also not limited by the second law of thermodynamics which says âits impossible to unboil an eggâ!
Not sure that holds up. You could not digest food without entropy increasing, or metabolize food into energy. You could not walk without the friction and abrasion of your feet on the ground. If you take a literalist view, how could life exist in Eden without entropy? For us non-literalists, not a problem.
True, but with a bit of added energy, you can make deviled eggs out of them. Yum! âŠBut deviledâŠ.perhaps that adds sin to the mix. 
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that is that same dilemma atheists use scientifically to deny that either Christian model are even viable
- Christs resurrection from the dead and
- the second coming of Christ where individuals are also raised from the dead
- and we float off against gravity into space where there is no breathable air).
Your arguments do not resolve those far bigger problems that naturalism throws at the very notion that Christianity is even believable.
You see the very argument you are throwing at YECism, atheists claim also falsifies your own belief in the second coming/resurrection/redemption/heaven. So we both experience the same prosecuting argument there.
The bible model of salvation is clearly not harmonious with the naturalistic evolutionary modelâŠit becomes an intollerable mish mash of circular reasoning where its own arguments create unresolvable theological dilemmas. In the end, TEists throw their hands up in the air and simply rely on the simplest possible theology (do unto others as you would have them do unto you).
Trouble is, without the other âbelief in miraclesâ bit, that becomes entirely works based salvation!
ahahahaha great point. well said 
i donât eat eggs personally (breading budgies turned me off it). funny nevertheless.
BTWâŠwhilst i debate this notionâŠI am open to the idea that theologically i need to compromiseâŠso donât completely write me off on this. It would just need to define a theological position in relation to entropy and sin vs a secular model which denies God (and despite any claims to the contrary, secularists always interpret science in the absence of God.
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