1. Introduction:

The History of Salvation can be seen and admired at various levels: original glory, gradual disintegration, redemptive efforts, and the final hope for fullness. The crowning, corruption, redemption, and completeness show how God has been dealing with humans and how humans have been responding to God’s offer. What happens in the realm of grace seems to be reflected in the world of energy. The fullness of energy is getting depleted and if this trend continues there would be the final extinguishing. But there is always a hope for the better.

In the world of energy, as the available energy is getting depleted, one imagines that one day the universe would undergo heat-death, due to loss of energy. Is that all? Will the world end like the bursting of the soap-bubble? Entropy threatens complete depletion of energy and the total end of life. But there is hope for a new beginning. The Big Bang might end up in a Big Crunch but there might be another beginning (perhaps on a higher level of reality).  We need to discern and decipher the process.

2. Entropy:

Energy is very essential not only for the origin of life but also for its existence. From the equation E = mc² we know that matter (m) and energy (E) are inter-convertible (with c, which is the velocity of light, as a constant). When work is done energy is expended and in the process of work done some energy is converted while some energy becomes unavailable (it is wasted). And this unavailable energy is called as entropy. Energy and entropy are inversely proportional. Hence if energy decreases, entropy increases. That is, when energy becomes minimum, entropy becomes maximum. These concepts are clearly discussed in thermodynamics.

2.1. The Law of Entropy:

Thermodynamics sounds like a very complicated concept. In reality it is both the simplest and at the same time the most impressive or elegant scientific conception we know of. Thermodynamics is the science that deals with energy. Energy is transmitted from one body to another and energy can be transformed from one form to another. The first law of thermodynamics states that through all these transmissions and transformations, the net amount of energy does not change. The second law states that while energy is never lost, it can be wasted, in the sense that it can become unavailable for further transformation, and thus unavailable for any further use (Goldstein, p.1). Both laws of thermodynamics can be stated in one sentence as

The total energy content of the overall universe is constant and hence the total entropy is continually increasing.

This implies that it is possible neither to create nor to destroy energy. The first law is known as the law of conservation (of energy). It says that while energy can never be created nor destroyed it can be transformed from one form to another (Rifkin p.33). According to the second law, whenever energy is transformed from one state to another ‘a certain penalty is exacted’. That penalty is a loss in the amount of available energy to perform further work in the future. This loss of available energy is termed as entropy.  Thus entropy is a measure of the amount of energy that is no longer available to do work. In other words, an entropy increase means a decrease in ‘available’ energy. Every time something occurs in the natural world, some amount of energy ends up being unavailable for future work (Rifkin, p. 35). When more and more work is done, more and more energy is converted and hence some energy always gets wasted and thus becomes unavailable. Hence entropy is continually increasing and must eventually attain a maximum  level. (Rifkin, p. 37)

2.2. Cosmology and the Second Law of Thermodynamics:

At the outset the entropy law seems to apply to the macro world of stars and galaxies that make up the universe. When the available energy becomes minimum there can happen nothing in the universe and the universe would eventually die due to lack of energy. This is known as ‘heat death’:

According to the ‘heat death’ theory of Helmholtz the universe is gradually running down and eventually will reach the point of maximum entropy or heat death where all available energy will have been expended and no more activity will occur. The heat death of the universe corresponds to a state of eternal rest….. As the big bang theory, originally conceptualized by Canon Georges Lemaitre, the universe began with the explosion of a tremendous dense energy source. As this dense energy expanded outward, it began to slow down, forming galaxies, stars, and planets. As the energy continues to expand and become more diffused, it loses more and more of its order and will eventually reach a point of maximum entropy, or the final equilibrium state of heat death. The big bang theory coincides with the first and second laws….(Rifkin, p. 44f).

So entropy seems to be a threatening entity to the existence of the universe. If it cannot be stopped from increasing, the universe seems to be running to a natural death.  Would it be possible to increase the available energy through some means?

2.3. Big Bang and Big Crunch:

Attempts have been made to find out whether energy can be continuously created so that the havoc threatened by entropy can be avoided. Looking into the radio sources, which indicate origin of energy, was one attempt in this direction. In the 1960s, astronomers began counting the number of radio sources back from the past. If the number of the radio sources were shown to be nearly the same, then it could be concluded that there has been continual creation of energy. Instead they found out that there were more radio sources in the distant past than at present. Hence the theory of continual creation of energy could not be held; they could only uphold the big bang theory and the second law, that the entropy of the universe is moving toward a maximum and thus the universe is heading towards heat death (Rifkin, p.45f).

Then, alternately, the possibility of a repetition of the big bang can be considered. One can ascertain whether there would again be big bang resulting with the creation of the universe. But the cyclical theory, namely, that the universe is forever moving through an endless series of expanding and contracting phases (that is, big bang and big crunch) without beginning or end, remains speculative: According to this theory, as the present expanding universe reaches maximum entropy, it will then begin to contract back to a more and more ordered state until the entire universe is condensed into a critical mass at which time it will explode back (due to condensation of matter and high temperature) out into the cosmos (Rifkin, p.46). In this case of the repetition of the big bang, only the available energy at the time of previous big crunch would be available for a new universe! This may eventually mean that there would absolutely be no available energy possible as the entropy takes over completely the universe.

2.4. Thermal Equilibrium:

Since the entropy is ever on the increase we could say that there will be no thermal equilibrium in the universe. Then the question will naturally arise: Why cannot our world be in thermal equilibrium? There can be three possible answers to this question:

1. If it were in thermal equilibrium, we would not be alive today to know about it. In fact Boltzmann even suggested that the present structure of the universe is due to a gigantic fluctuation from equilibrium, itself a precondition for the existence of biological matter. Otherwise life would not have surfaced on the face of the universe.
2. The universe is temporally finite. That is, the world was simply created a finite time ago in a low entropy state, and is running out its course to equilibrium.
3. There is a global temporal asymmetry resulting in the expansion of the universe. (P.C.W. Davies, In: Kubat, p.15f).

Thus we understand that due to thermal inequilibrium biological life forms appeared and due to the evolutionary process complex lives developed in the universe. But one poses the critical question in the light of the observation that life is a sign of ‘order’, namely, how come ‘order’ is born out of ‘disorder’ due to thermal inequilibrium.

2.5. Life and the Second Law: Order vs Disorder

Entropy points to disorder but life indicates order! Evolution itself appears to represent the continued accumulations of greater and greater order from disorder. For example, every time we look at a plant or animal we marvel at how well organized are all of the billions of molecules that make it up. This contrast with the concept of entropy is explained by Harold Blum as ‘The small local decrease in entropy represented in the building of the organism is coupled with a much larger increase in the entropy of the universe’ (Rifkin, p. 51). Living beings need energy for origin and development.

Living things are able to move in a direction opposite to that of the entropy process by absorbing free energy from the surrounding environment. The ultimate source of that free energy is, for us, the sun. All plant and animal life is dependent on the sun for survival – either directly, in the case of plants performing photo-synthesis, or indirectly, in the case of animals that eat plants or other animals. Every living thing survives, in the words of Erwin Schrödinger, ‘by continually drawing from its environment negative entropy…. What an organism feeds upon is negative entropy; it continues to suck orderliness from its environment’ (Rifkin, p. 51). But all the same the entropy increases!

The entropy increase is even more graphically illustrated in the normal food chain. Chemist G. Tyler Miller sets up a very simple food chain to make the point. The chain consists of grass, grasshoppers, frogs, trouts, and humans. Now, according to the first law, energy is never lost. But according to the second law, available energy should be turned into unavailable energy at each step of food chain process, and therefore the overall environment should experience greater disorder as entropy increases. In fact, this is exactly what happens. At each stage of the process, when the grasshopper eats the grass, and the frog eats the grasshopper, and the trout eats the frog, and so on, there is a loss of energy. In the process of devouring the prey, says Miller, ‘about 80-90% of the energy is simply wasted and lost as heat to the environment’. Only between 10-20% of the energy that was devoured remains within the tissues of the predator for transfer to the next level of the food chain. Consider for a moment the numbers of each species that are required to keep the next higher species from slipping towards maximum entropy. ‘Three hundred trout are required to support one man for a year. The trout in turn, must consume 90,000 frogs, that must consume 27 million grasshopper that live off of 1000 tons of grass’. Thus, in order for one human being to maintain a high level of ‘orderliness’, the energy contained in 27 million grasshoppers or a thousand tons of grass must be used up. Is there any doubt, then, that every living thing maintains its own order only at the expense of creating greater disorder (or dissipation of energy) in the overall environment? (Rifkin, p.53)

2.6. Entropy and the Closed System:

The difficulty to accommodate living systems into the second law, namely increase in unavailable energy, could be explained thus: Entropy presupposes a closed system – a system in which energy but not matter can be exchanged with the outside surroundings. Living systems, however, are open systems – both matter and energy are exchanged with the outside. Living systems can never obtain an equilibrium state, while they are alive, because an equilibrium state means death. So, living things maintain themselves far away from an equilibrium state by continuing to feed off the available energy around them. This state is called the ‘steady state’. If matter and energy cease flowing through a living organism, the steady state is abandoned, and the organism drifts to equilibrium and death. In living systems, then, free energy flow, not entropy, is the primary concern. In the case of the plant, it survives by photosynthesis, sucking negative entropy from the sun’s rays. In the process, only a tiny fraction of the solar energy is actually picked up and used by the plant; the rest in simply dissipated. Compared with the tiny entropy decrease in the plant, the energy lost to the overall environment is monumental (Rifkin, p. 52). Thus the situation becomes very bleak and confusing. We could look for enlightenment elsewhere –  from a scientific perspective we could now turn to a theological perspective.

2.7. The Christian View:

The Christian view of history, which dominated Western Europe throughout the Middle Ages, perceived life in this world as a mere stopover in preparation for the next. The Christian world view abandoned the Greek concept of cycles but retained the notion of history as a decaying process. In Christian theology, history has a distinct beginning, middle, and end in the form of the Creation, the Redemption, and the Last Judgment. While human history is linear, not cyclical, it is not believed to be progressing toward some perfected state. On the contrary, history is seen as an ongoing struggle in which the forces of evil continue to sow chaos and disintegration in the earthly world (Rifkin, p. 13f). This is similar to the entropy which brings in disorder in the world of energy.

In 1750, Jacques Turgot, a history teacher at the Sorbonne, changed the entire construct of world history: Turgot rejected both the cyclical nature of history and the concept of continued degradation. He argued that history proceeds in a straight line and that each succeeding stage of history represents an advance over the preceding one. Hence, history, according to Turgot, is both cumulative and progressive. Unlike the steady-state philosophers of Greece and theologians of the Roman Church, he heralded the virtue of constant change and movement. Turgot was willing to acknowledge that progress is uneven and that occasionally it becomes bogged down or even retreats a few steps. Yet he held steadfast to the conviction that history demonstrates an overall advance toward the perfection of life here on earth (Rifkin, p.15).

From the world of entropy, which is a measure of disorder, we could now look into another perspective, namely the origin of disharmony in the history of salvation. The lack of harmony has been brought in from the tendency of the humans to rebel against the grace of God that brings order over the entire universe. Let us now look into the phases of fullness of grace, rebellion against such grace, and redemption in the history of mankind.

3. Original Sin:

In the history of salvation God created humans in His own image and likeness. God was so close to them that He walked with them in the cool breeze in the Garden of Eden. And God created them as the crown and steward of the entire creation. But we see a desire in them for freedom and independence which results in their rebellion against the Creator. Humans tend to play God. But they were forced to remember who they were – God tells them that they have to earn their livelihood by the sweat of their brow. This tendency for independence is shown in Cain eliminating Abel from the face of the earth. Then reality dawns upon the humans: The land becomes barren and they have to till it. Even then humans could have lived a happy life based on their hard work. But the original human tendency for aberration becomes stronger in Sodom and Gomorrah. The tendency for freedom and independence ends up in the Babel tower resulting in linguistic confusion.  But is this the end? No! There is not going to be a tragic end and destruction. There is hope coming in. In the life of Ezekiel we see dead bones joining together and the humans are renewed, reshaped and enlivened. And in Revelation the Lord assures us: See I make all things new. A new creation or new world order is the result.

The theology of original sin seeks to explain the origin of evil in the world. Among many views on original sin one is the emergence of reason with Emmanuel Kant as its main proponent. He notes: ‘It is when reason comes into play and despite its weakness takes on the animal nature in all its force that evil has to appear; and worse, at the stage of cultivated reason vice appears, which is totally absent in the state of ignorance, that is to say, innocence’. As seen here the notion of sin is totally absent from this interpretation, which is strictly anthropological (J-M. Maldame, In: Boureux, p. 20f).

The moral reason, for Kant, convinces him that human beings have an inclination to evil, and because this fact is universal, he describes it as original.  Taking the initial condition of freedom of human beings, it could be interpreted that evil comes from freedom led astray. Kant notes that this fact is universal. It applies to humankind in its entirety. That is why he takes up the expression used by St Paul in his letter to the Romans: From all this it is clear that we daily act in the same way, and that therefore ‘in Adam all have sinned’ and still sin. This acknowledges the presence of evil universally (J-M. Maldame, In: Boureux, p. 21f).

Then there came a change of outlook: The change of attitude to myth came above all from the Romantic tradition, which put myth in a much broader relation to culture and civilization through the notion of Weltgeist, ‘the spirit of the people and the world’. This movement reaches a climax in the work of Schelling. Schelling gives myth a prominent role. He regards myth as a vehicle of the truth, since myth is not of the order of poetry, in the sense of being a creation of the imagination, but a concretization of what goes on in the human soul. For him there is a state of nature in which humanity, outside all revelation, was bound to one God and this abolishes the distinction between revealed religion and natural religion. The notion of fall is no longer bound up with a temptation, but has a place in a general phenomenon of the evolution of civilization (J-M. Maldame, In: Boureux, p. 23f).

The current metamorphoses of the notion of original sin cannot be reduced to anthropological rationalistic reduction or religious naturalization. There is a third reduction of a scientistic kind. It is called Concordism which is related to the theory of evolution: Concordism today likes to find in the Bible a response to open scientific debates, in particular the debate between gradualism (the theory according to which the transition from one species to another is gradual, continuous and progressive) and saltationism (the theory according to which the transition from one specifies to another is discontinuous, like a leap) (J-M. Maldame, In: Boureux, p. 24f).

These questions show the need for real theological work to restore meaning and full scope to the Christian affirmation about ‘original sin’. J-M. Maldame makes three suggestions about this:

1. First, theology must recognize a specifically theological way of talking about the doctrine of original sin, the understanding of which presupposes the study of the elements which presided over its constitution by St Augustine. It will thus manifest the prime sense of the expression that it is convenient to call ‘original sin’ because it expresses the origin of sin as such.
2. Secondly, theology must also read the biblical texts in the light of the knowledge which derives from diverse historical, literary or theological knowledge. It then appears that the notion of “Adam’s sin” is specific and should not be confused with the Augustinian notion of ‘original sin’.
3. Thirdly, theology must confront the misfortune in the world, from the perspective of the salvation accomplished by Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world: this gives specific meaning to the phrase ‘sin of the world’.

The hypothesis is that these expressions, namely original sin, sin of Adam and sin of the world, largely overlap but should not be confused. Their articulation makes it possible to accept new knowledge without losing the basic feature of faith in the love of God manifested in Jesus, saviour of all humanity and principle of a new world ((J-M. Maldame, In: Boureux, p. 27).

After the theories about original sin we can now look into personal sin. We need to ascertain the relationship between original and personal sin.

3.1. Original Sin vs Personal Sin:

There are various outlines of the doctrine in present-day theology. First of all these focus on present-day historical experiences and then they largely agree to the traditional conceptual understanding of the fall, essentially worked out by Augustine. This is in particular with reference to the handing down of original sin through the progeny of the first human couple, which Augustine presupposes. Pope Pius XII still regarded monogenism as an indispensable presupposition for the dogma of original sin in his encyclical Humani generis. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (1993) is not very explicit about monogenism (P. Huenermann, In: Boureux, p.108).

In the traditional understanding of sin and original sin a sharp distinction is made between sin committed on personal responsibility and that inherited by propagation. In the traditional understanding, the use of freedom presupposes a finely constituted subject who chooses one or the other out of what one possesses. Modern philosophy and social sciences think of freedom, of the free responsible act, differently: freedom is essentially thought of as a ‘communication event’. The freedom of the child needs to be aroused by its parents’ care (P. Huenermann, In: Boureux, p.109). Thus personal sin is influenced by the parents or by the previous generation.

Mediaeval theologians like Thomas Aquinas quite naturally started from the presupposition that with the awakening of freedom every individual, in whatever period of history he or she might live, becomes either a sinner or one justified by faith. People become sinners if in their responsive freedom they orientate themselves simply on actual human conduct; and justified believers if with their responsive freedom they related to the origin or ground of all freedom – however clearly or unclearly this is recognized (P. Huenermann, In: Boureux, p.112).

Hence we seem to carry on with us or within us the after-effect of sinfulness from the origin of mankind plus the individual responsibility of misusing freedom thereby affecting harmony either with God or with our fellow human beings and with the environment. In the final analysis it looks as if we are not free from some kind of disharmony or a built-in tendency for moral disorder within us.

3.2. Freedom – Schools of Thoughts:

Since sin is oriented to freedom we could think of various schools of thoughts that reflect the theories discussed above:

3.2.1. Cat-Theory:

When a cat litters the kittens have no choice with regard to decision making. The mother cat decides everything: where to place them and when to shift them from place to place etc. The mother cat takes the kitten by their neck and the kitten behaves with all docility and obedience. And it is happy wherever it is placed since the mother cat knows what is best for it. Here everything is decided by someone else and there is not much room for one’s individual choice or freedom. Some are predestined for good and some for bad.

3.2.2. Monkey-Theory:

This is the opposite of the previous case. When a little monkey wants to be shifted from one place to another place it has to take the initiative – it holds on tight to the mother monkey and the mother monkey then transports the little monkey. Here it is upto the freedom of the little monkey. The mother only creates an atmosphere for transition or work to be done. You work out your salvation.

3.2.3. Chicken-Theory:

This incorporates the previous two schools of thought. When chicken are with the mother hen, they have a little freedom. They could move about a little distance away freely. But if there is any danger, the mother hen gives an alarm sound and all the chicks run for protection under the wings of the mother. This is the case of using one’s freedom with responsibility. But if a chicken chooses to wander too far from the mother, then it has to blame itself when any unforeseen crisis or misfortune occurs.

Here we see how freedom is considered from absolute lack of freedom to freedom to qualified freedom. The consideration of one’s sinfulness depends on the consideration of the quality of freedom. Now let us look at some religious views.

3.3. Experience Common to Religions:

1. Mensching pointed out that each religion knows an ‘essential sin’. Certainly not every religion can agree with this terminology, but every religion is able to express the fact: as well as having a dimension for which individuals are themselves responsible, evil and disaster also have a social and a natural dimension (H. Haering, In: Boureux, p. 65).

• Hinduism – the Drama of Evil:

There is no myth of Adam which places the origin of evil in a primal human freedom which fails from the beginning. So the question of a human disaster caused by human beings themselves plays a much more minor role. Evil is, mainly, not what human beings do but what happens to them. According to Karma: The good or evil deeds that we have done in a former life are our destiny and this alone decides how we will be reborn, whether for example in a distinguished or a wretched family; but right from earliest childhood onwards, the education, bravery and dignity of a person are as dependent on both his actions and on fate as a farmer’s harvest is. So the problem of predestination as such does not arise. The hope is that in the end there is the possibility of redemption for everyone (H. Haering, In: Boureux, p. 66f), freedom from the cycle of rebirth and from the bondage of sin and sinfulness.

• Judaism – a Cry in the Present:

The doctrine of original sin is presented as a complex package into which various dimensions are woven. In the story of paradise the anthropological interpretation plays a major role: the departure of the first parents from paradise appears as the intrinsic consequence of a wrong attitude on the part of human beings, whether we call this arrogance or pride, or an inability to be modest or to limit oneself, and this wrong attitude characterizes all men and women down the ages. ‘The imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth (Gen 8:21)’ (H. Haering, In: Boureux, p. 67f).

From the first day of creation on, chaos and disorder remain threatening, and human beings remain in danger from without and within. These are the psychological and sociological elements. Time and again people cry ‘from the deep to God’. There are cries and lamentations in the Psalms, and the book of Job has become the great book of consolation for Christians as well. Of course the Jewish tradition could accept Paul’s remark that sin came into the world through Adam and through sin death (Rom 5:12). However, this Adam is also the human being of here and now. Only in this sense does Adam’s transgression become our transgression – not because we inherited the consequences of his sin but because we have become his heirs (H. Haering, In: Boureux, p. 68).

• Islam – Freedom and Predestination:

Here too the myth of Adam forms the narrative core which determines its views. Thus the origin of evil is transferred back into primeval times. Here too there follows the undisputed conviction that all evil is caused by human beings themselves, even if it sometimes has connotations of the demonic.  Evil never appears as a ‘continuum’; it has no social or historical features. The departure from Paradise is soon seen less as a punishment for sin and more as a prior condition for Adam to be able to attain a higher stage of his happiness: it can be attained only through tears. So Allah turns Adam’s transgression to his advantage. Here we see a central point of discussion in Islamic theology generally: it is the relationship between divine predestination and human freedom (H. Haering, In: Boureux, p. 69).

The Qur’an has an undertone of pessimistic views: ‘Whatever good befalls you is from good; and whatever evil befalls is in principle from yourself’ (Sura 4:79)… for ‘the soul longs imperatively for evil’ (Sura 12:53). Thus here is another parallel to a Christian idea, the experience of evil increasingly becomes a corrupt perception and is foisted on the evil desires of human beings themselves. In mysticism the soul (that is the ego, the self) can even become the ‘place of evil’ (H. Haering, In: Boureux, p. 70).

• Budhism:

Labe defines evil in Buddhism as ‘an a priori innate perversion of the views and realization of the self within which all action necessarily plays out as perverse action’ (H. Haering, In: Boureux, p. 71). A note is struck which is markedly reminiscent of modern interpretations of original sin. It relates to a perverse knowledge and an experience of suffering and sorrow which is aware of its hopelessness, since its own responsibility is included in this experience: ‘Real evil is described… as the dynamic subjectivity of human beings, as desire, not so much, however, as mere orientation (intention), but as being handed over to one’s own desires like a mad dog caught in a net’ (H. Haering, In: Boureux, p. 71).

Other philosophers, like Tanabe, go a step further: They find ‘radical evil’ which prevents illumination not only in the interior of the self but also in society and its institutions. Thus Tanabe combines the radical self-criticism of Buddhist thinkers with social criticism – This very connection is the point of tension with which a radical theory of original sin could link up (H. Haering, In: Boureux, p. 72).

The tendency is finally related to dichotomy between the individual and society as well as between the individual and the environment. Each person is affected individually as well as corporately – In other words each one is affected, due to the tendency of sinfulness, socially as well as psychologically. The effect of this sinful tendency is experienced within and without. This is also perceived as lack of life-giving energy within oneself to find harmony within oneself and with others and the environment. Evil is seen as negative energy leading to disharmony. And hence to overcome the tendency of negative energy is to acquire good and life-giving energy.

3.4. A New Outlook:

Adherents of the Eastern religions, especially the Buddhists, have long understood the value of minimizing energy flow. The practice of meditation is designed to slow down the wasteful expenditure of energy. The state of Nirvana or truth is reached when the individual is expending the least energy necessary to support his outward physical survival. The Eastern religions have long claimed that unnecessary dissipation of personal energy only adds to the confusion and disorder of the world. Ultimate truth, according to Eastern doctrine, is arrived at only by becoming one with the world around you. This can only be accomplished by entering into a unified relationship with the rest of nature (Rifkin, p.235).

While the Eastern religions have understood the value of minimizing energy flow and lessening the accumulation of disorder, it is the Western religions that have understood the linear nature of history, which is the other important factor in synthesizing a new religious doctrine in line with the requirements of the Entropy Law. Unlike Eastern theology, which emphasizes recurring worlds and history as cycles, the Judeo-Christian tradition has always taught that earthly history has a distinct beginning and end. The account regarding creation states: ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth’. The concept of dominion has been used by people to justify the ruthless manipulation and exploitation of nature (Rifkin, p. 235f).

The new interpretation of Genesis begins with the idea that God created the heavens and the earth and everything in this world. Hence all His creations take on importance and an intrinsic worth because they are of His making. Since this creation of God has a purpose and order to it, that purpose and order is to be revered just as God’s creations are to be revered. Finally, what God has created is fixed. The Lord created the world and everything in it and then he rested, according to the Creation narrative. It follows from this, argue the new theologians, that anything that exploits or harms God’s creation is sinful since it is an act of rebellion against God himself. Likewise, anything that undermines the fixed purpose and order that God has given to the natural world is also sinful and an act of rebellion (Rifkin, p.236).

It follows, then, that sin is people’s manipulation and exploitation of creation for purposes other than what it was created for. Sin is also people’s attempt to reorder this world and to redefine its purpose to suit their own whims and fancies. The Christian life must be one of conserving wholeness over fragmentation, balance over imbalance, and harmony over disharmony. A Christian must love God’s creation and treat it with respect because God created it with love. Human beings have dominion over God’s creation. But dominion means stewardship over nature. H. H. Barnett, in his book The Church and the Ecological Crisis, points out that the Biblical view of humankind “is that of a keeper, caretaker, custodian… of the household earth”. The first requisite of a steward, according to Barnett, “is faithfulness, because he handles that which belongs to another”. The concept of stewardship leads directly to the Biblical notion of covenant (Rifkin, p.237).

The new stewardship doctrine and the laws of thermodynamics, when combined with more orthodox theology, set the tone for a new, reformulated Christian doctrine and covenant suited to the ecological prerequisites of an entropic world view. Most of all, the stewardship doctrine provides an answer to the ultimate question, “Why should I take responsibility of caring for and preserving the natural order?” – Because it is God’s order. God created it and God entrusted human beings with the responsibility of overseeing it. It comes down to a question of serving God or rejecting him (Rifkin, p.238).

The Christian individual who for hundreds of years sought salvation through productivity and subduing of nature is now being challenged by a new Christian person who seeks salvation by conserving and protecting God’s creation. The Christian work ethic is being replaced by the Christian conservation ethic (Rifkin, p.240).

4. Conclusion:

Let us have a synthesis of the discussion above, namely entropy and original sin – Both tend to create disorder/disharmony in the universe.

4.1. Facing Entropy Crisis:

The entropy crisis is real. It is no coincidence that genetic engineering is moving out of the laboratories and into the region of applied science at this moment in our history. As entropy builds, our bodies internalize the disorders in the form of cancer, birth defects, and so on (Rikfin, p.243).

The optimists argue that we are not only moving from the age of non-renewables to the age of renewables, but equally from the age of physics to the age of molecular biology. They point out to the incredible scientific breakthrough in genetic engineering in recent years and claim that within the next two decades our existing industrial technostructure will begin to give way to an entirely new set of technological transformers derived from bioengineering (Rifkin, p.244).

In the next few years there will be a mad scramble to embrace renewable resources as the new energy base, genetic engineering as the new technological transformer, and the theory of dissipative structures as the new scientific paradigm. If we proceed into the age of molecular biology, we can expect the span from beginning to end to be greatly reduced: the entire age may run its course in less than half a century. That’s because the increased flow of matter-energy through the system will create disorders of an even greater magnitude than those produced by the massive flow of nonrenewable energy through the system. While the solar flow is virtually unlimited, the matter-energy that makes up the earth’s crust is not. The earth’s matter is continually degrading and dissipating. Natural recycling only reclaims for future use a part of whatever matter-energy is used up. The rest is irretrievably lost. Thus, the faster we speed up the flow of matter-energy through the system, the faster we will run out of renewable resources, regardless of how long the sun shines (Rifkin, p. 246).

Each attempt at forcing order with new high-energy technologies will only speed up the chaos. Genes will be manipulated to create new forms of renewable energy or to cure disease or to raise IQ, but in the process, the evolutionary wisdom of billions of years will be irreversibly destroyed (Rifkin, p.248).

4.2. From Despair to Hope:

There is great beauty in the Entropy Law. It guides us through the cosmic theater with a bittersweet authority. There is the threat of the ultimate fate that lies ahead but the decision is ours regarding how to proceed. Up to this point in history the human race has driven relentlessly rushing forward, conquering everything in its path. Now that it has succeeded in capturing and exploiting virtually every major ecological force on the planet, humanity finds itself at the cross-roads of its own history. The colonizing mode is taking its toll. As humankind continues to try to maximize its energy flow-through, the world’s total energy environment depletes faster and faster, and the dissipation and disorder ever increases exponentially. The only hope for the survival of the species is for the human race to abandon its aggression against the planet and seek to accommodate itself to the natural order (Rifkin, p.255f).

Because every event of the past and of the future is interconnected with the present, we share an ultimate responsibility for the infinite past and future. What we do in this world reverberates into the remotest corner of the universe, affecting everything else that exists. How we choose to live our lives is not only our own individual concern. It is of concern to everything, because our actions touch everything. The law of entropy, however, tells us that every occurrence in the world is a unique experience; it is the uniqueness of every event that makes us aware of the respect we owe to everything that exists around us. The whole world is temporary. In its finiteness, we experience our own. In its vulnerability we experience our own. In its fragile nature we experience our own. The becoming process of life is synonymous with the notion of an ever-growing consciousness (Rifkin, p.256f).

4.3. Reconciliation:

This power of sin is initially disclosed in Israel’s faith in the reconciling God. By the notion of the reconciling, merciful God we are given an inexorable insight into the abysses of our history which doe not veil anything. This power of sin is finally and totally disclosed in the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the witness of God who seeks boundless reconciliation with the sinner and has love for him. But precisely for that reason, Christian faith likewise confesses that this reconciling and loving God is close to everyone and, in however hidden a way, offers every possibility of conversion and reconciliation, of rending the veil of evil in history (P. Huenermann, In: Boureux, p.113).

Energy is depleted but conservation of energy is the need of the hour to minimize entropy. When the available energy is lost continual creation, thereby ensuring flow of available energy, would give us hope of survival of the universe. And at the same time when the negative energy within oneself and in society is diminished due to sinful tendency or act God’s abundance grace is the source of hope. And hence conservation of energy and preservation of Grace is the solution to the crisis created by entropy and original sin as well as individual sin. As Teilhard de Chardin would say that we would be carried by the evolution of the noosphere tending to converge towards the Omega point. A new creation, a renewal of the present one, is the hope of entropy and original sin.

Bibliography:

2004. Bourdeux and C. Theobald, Original Sin: A Code of Fallibility, (Concilium 20004/1), SCM Press, London 2004.

1993. Goldstein, I.F. Goldstein, The Refrigerator and the Universe: Understanding the Laws of Energy, Harvard University Press, Cambridge (USA), 1993.

1990. Gray, Entropy and Information Theory, Springer-Verlag, New York, 1990.

1975. Kubat and J. Zeman, Entropy and Information in Science and Philosophy, Academic, Prague 1975.

1980. Rifkin, Entropy: A New World View, Viking Press, New York, 1980.