Faith and Freedom to ask the Big Questions #4: The Relationship Between Entropy and Evil?

As readers of this blog are aware, I’ve been posting a series of Faith/Science questions for discussion. See here for the introductory post and the comments in #1, #2, and #3 for some interesting dialogue on the first three questions.

For question #4, I’ve decided to take a different tact. Cliff Martin, the reader who originally presented these questions for discussion, has started his own blog Outside of the Box. His latest post “Entropy, the Concept” is the beginning of a series of posts that will (I think) provide an overview how he would start to answer question #4 below:

What is the relationship of evil to entropy? As entropy is essentially death, and the Enemy holds the power of death, how is the driving force of the entire cosmos related to evil, and to the “ruler of the cosmos” as Jesus calls him? If entropy is a temporary bondage from which the whole cosmos longs to be delivered, how might its undoing relate to the undoing of the evil one, the undoing of evil itself? Zoroastrians and Jewish Kabbalists have long seen some connection here. Isn’t it time Christians ask these questions?

I think it’s both more appropriate and productive for Cliff to lay out some of his ideas on his own blog. So rather than comment here, I encourage readers interested in these questions to comment over on Cliff’s site (I have and will). For question #5, which deals directly with evolution, the current plan is to go back to the regular format on this blog.

The questions above are interesting for me because they tie in with some issues I’ve been thinking about:

• What does entropy / evolution have to do with eschatology? I reread Polkinghorne’s chapter on Eschatology in “Science and Christian Belief” this past week. Excellent stuff.
• The incarnation of God in Christ is central to Orthodox Christianity, and Jesus is the only way to God, but does that mean we should ignore what other religions have to say on certain issues? Can we learn from them? (I think John Stackhouse wrote a book on this – I’ve got to dig it up. If anyone has a good recommendation for an Evangelical treatment of this question, please let me know).

A quick personal note: Until 2 months ago Cliff and I had never met (actually, we still haven’t except over the internet – it’s a long way from Oregon to Toronto). However, through a bit of Internet research we were able to determine that we are 5th cousins. I’m wondering if anyone can beat that, ie. say they met their Xth cousin on an internet blog or forum where X > 5.