נשלח: דאנערשטאג נאוועמבער 24, 2022 2:21 pm
אז איך האב דערמאנט די צווייטע געזעץ פון טערמאדינאמיקס דא אינעם אשכול בקשר להרעות, איז מערקווידיג צוצוצייכענען וואס דער כעמיסט דר. עלען האַרוויִ (א קריסט) שרייבט אין דעם ובנוגע חטא עץ הדעת (בתוך דעם ברייטערן קאנטעקסט פארוואס די געזעץ איז נישט קיין סתירה צו עוואלוציע):
My final topic is the occasional identification of entropy with "evil" or "death," an identification often accompanied by the assertion that the 2nd law is a consequence of the Fall. I believe that this is wrong for several reasons. [NOTE: I am neutral with regard to the literalness of the Biblical account of the Fall. I am open to the idea that it is a figurative account of mankind's collective rejection of God's authority. For simplicity, this section uses terminology that presumes the literal interpretation. But the arguments are not significantly affected if one takes a less literal view.]
First, I believe the identification of the 2nd law with "evil" is a consequence of some of the misconceptions mentioned above. We identify God (and therefore good) with "order," but mistakenly identify the ungodly "disorder" in the world with the thermodynamic entropy. Certainly entropy is a factor in some of the world's "disorder," such as the degradation of the environment. But gravity, electromagnetism, and the 1st law are all involved as well, and there are no grounds for assigning any special "evil" role to the 2nd law. Calling the 2nd law evil because it is involved in, for example, the decay that accompanies physical death is as unfounded as calling gravity evil when somebody falls off a cliff
Second, the physical evidence strongly indicates that, like all God's other physical laws, the 2nd law has been operating since creation. Entropic processes are involved in the burning of the Sun and other stars (many of which emitted the light we see today longer ago than the 6000-20,000 years ago usually assigned to the Fall), and would have been involved as Adam and Eve walked, ate and digested their food, etc. Assuming there were flowers in the garden, it is the 2nd law that allowed Adam and Eve to smell them (again speaking against the concept that entropy is inherently evil). While it is not impossible that God had an entirely different set of physical laws in place before the Fall, such speculation is not supported by any scientific or Biblical evidence
There may be an additional logical (and theological) fallacy at work in those who attribute the 2nd law to the Fall. The (faulty) line of reasoning goes something like, "Since the 2nd law will not exist in God's final Kingdom [that may or may not be the case], it must not have existed before the Fall." This simply does not follow. Nowhere in the Bible does it suggest that the final Kingdom will simply be a restoration to pre-Fall conditions. Instead, it is pictured as something brand new and infinitely more glorious than what Adam and Eve experienced in the Garden
With all that said, I should add that I do believe that the Fall (whether interpreted as a singular event or as a metaphor for pervasive human sinfulness) has consequences. But Scripture does teach (Gen. 3.17) that there are also negative consequences for our surroundings. I do not deny that, in some sense, the ground (and maybe even all of creation) is "cursed" because of our sin (I lean toward viewing that as our relationship to the environment being corrupted by sin). What I do deny is that the 2nd law of thermodynamics is any more a part of that curse than is gravity or any of the other physical laws God has crafted for His creation