This morning I continued reading a book my Father had given me titled, “From Eternity to Here,” which details the quest for the ultimate theory of time. There’s nothing that fascinates me more than thinking about time and how it works, especially in the context of theology. What does it mean for God to be outside of time? If time slows down as an object approaches the speed of light, does that mean that Christ as the “light of the world,” isn’t so distant? I may be speaking for myself, but the Gospel becomes even more extraordinary when Quantum Physics is a part of the narrative.
In “From Eternity to Here,” Sean Carroll writes about the difference between the past and the future. It would make perfect sense to say to a friend, “Let’s change our Spring Break trip from Cancun to Paris.” This gets confusing if the conversation goes something like this: “Let’s change last year’s Spring Break trip from Cancun to Paris.” Of course, all bets are off after watching “Inception.” The reason changing the future seems as easy as making a decision, and changing the past is as impossible as, well, changing the past, is that all things move from low entropy to high entropy, or all systems move from order to chaos. It’s like putting ice cubes in a glass of water. The ice cubes will melt and the hot water will become warm. Things break down. It would seem quite odd for a warm glass of water to become hot while producing ice cubes.
Sean Carrol writes, “The punch line is that our notion of free will, the ability to change the future by making choices in a way that is not available to us as far as the past is concerned, is only possible because the past has a low entropy and the future has a high entropy. The future seems open to us, while the past seems closed, even though the laws of physics treat them on an equal footing . . . Every crisis is an opportunity, and by thinking about entropy we might learn something important about the universe” (43). I would argue that thinking about entropy is not only valid in understanding the universe; it also aids our thinking about the creator of the universe and the church with which God has blessed us.
There are two statements I would like to ponder. One, Entropy makes life possible. Two, The only objective truth is “possibility.” First, Entropy makes life possible. Carroll writes, “In the real universe, the reason why our planet doesn’t heat up until it reaches the temperature of the Sun is because the Earth loses heat by radiating it out into space. The only reason it can do that is because space is much colder than the Earth.” In short, the universe is not static. The law of entropy expresses how the order of the Big Bang breaks down over time, and this breaking down actually makes life possible. (I am a simpleton when it comes to discussing these things, so if this explanation doesn’t work for you, read “From Eternity to Now,” for yourself for more details.) This breaking down allows for possibility. If the universe moved from chaos to order, there would be no room for possibility. Possibility would be determinism or, as Calvin would shout, Predestination.
This brings me to my second point–The only objective truth is possibility itself. I wish I had a transcript of the conversation between me and my father a few weeks ago. This whole thing made much more sense then. My dad and I were talking about objective truth. We were going back and forth about the relationship between truth and the individual. In our postmodern world, the predominant thought is “If I think it is true, it is.” This is dangerous, never mind that fact that there’s nothing objective about it. But then I started thinking if objective truth existed, could we ever know it.
Theologians have a clever way of discussing this in terms of the Trinity. Orthodox teaching communicates that there are two natures of God, the economic and the essential. The Economic Trinity is the way in which we have experienced how God is who God is–Father, Son, and Spirit. The Economic Trinity is, more or less, a subjective truth, in the sense that it is an expression of humanity’s experience of God. The Essential Trinity, if we can even use that language, is forever shrouded in mystery. We will never know what lies at the heart of the essential trinity.
For example, how do you know your best friend? Do you know her by her actions and words? You may know her exceedingly well to the point when you can complete each other’s sentences; however you will only know her through what she communicates (Economic Trinity). You will never know her thoughts or be able to dive into her memories or fears (again, we’re not talking Inception here), which essentially makes her who she is (Essential Trinity).
What kind of truth exists independent of our experiences? Considering Entropy and the Essential nature of God, my father and I decided that the only objective truth is possibility. It is what happened when God said, “Let there be light.” The perfection of unity within the essential Godhead spilled forth when God said, “Let there be light.” From order to chaos, relatively speaking. This spilling forth fundamentally is an expression of “possibility.” There are other verses I could expound upon, but my battery is low, and with a temper-mental computer, you ought to not upset it. Let me say this, that understanding possibility to be the only objective truth gives profound meaning to “All things are possible through Christ,” as Paul reports.
To make a lame post short, I say all of this because I think The United Methodist Church is in need of a little entropy. Just like the couple who impossibly wants to change last year’s vacation, we need to stop looking into the past in order to change the future. Times are a changin’. The institution needs to move from order into a bit a chaos. Those of my generation are not interested in institutions. They are hungry for movements, life-changing movements which bring meaning to life and life after life, not meaning to the institution itself. We need to live into the scary, unpredictable possibility God blesses us through Christ in the power of the Spirit. We need to live into the chaos which teaches us to rely on God and not the things our hands have made.
Anyway, my computer is running out of battery power, and with a temper mental computer, you ought not to tempt it. Give me your comments. What are your thoughts on time, possibility, entropy, the church . . . etc?