Short Note on the Theoretical Physics of Grace

(with an application to politics)

Rev. Douglas Olds

March 14, 2024

The Second Law of Themodynamics informs us that entropy degrades every closed system, so that only the constancy of renewal—the earth’s essence—from the open system of sun, spirit, rain, new generations of vitality and genius of language and art can keep the church from becoming first chaotic, then tepid, then saltless and insipid. What the Shema calls us earth imagers (Trustees) of the divine to: the endless expansion of purpose, empathy, intelligence/logos, and kinesthetic schema (soul). And teleology emerges from the renewing earth and is recognized as its essence that becomes part of the human essence of repair. In this, teleology is attended as a Trinitarian feature, a union of the human trustee and the earth divine imager of grace's heart. 

Teleology can either be denied—and resisted as a force instead to wallow in walled-off, separate, static definitions of “nature" [1]--

cast in secular terms in neoliberalism’s updating of mammon: the moral horror of consequentialist “thinking,” (non-empathetic and inconsiderate of moral claims and duties—the disparagement of “moralism”,)  aligned with the warrant of ignorance by bourgeois anonymity, crowd mirroring, celebrity-careerist vapidity, “bro-sports speak” and  “I think you’re pretty, do you think I am?” that never goes anywhere but to serve appetites for security-- 

or it can become part of an awareness, an alignment, a caring attendance. This is the crux and touchstone of humanities portraying character development by the Golden Rule. Grace is the eternal and infinite reaching into and leavening closed systems (institutions) to reform them and so to sustain and heal neighbor. Grace Reforms and Always Reforming. By this the earth is repaired, humanity is redeemed, and through which eternity is launched, peopled, mirrored, and won.

APPLICATION:

To enclose and sustain power, inner circle culture is an entropy-spreading system that climbs mountains on the backs of subordinates and is thus the palette of the prophetically goat-doomed. As David French notes (NYT 12/7/23), its religious forms are marked by certainty, ad hominem “ferocity, and solidarity (loyalty + confidentiality)” to maintain an elite’s control of narratives, especially those that privilege their “power” at the expense of enemy outsiders, esp. traitors to this culture.

Instead we come to recognize, by the Spirit of Pentecost, that an ethnos/nation is a language group (Acts 2:1-12), we discern political lies & propaganda function as ethnic “treason.” Beware the ad hominem sleight, redirecting questions of intent (logos) into disputes about “numbers.”  And the “spirit of perpetual, unrepentant, anger-filled derision towards dissent:” revilement of the Kingdom of God, to be avoided. (1 Cor 5:11, 6:10). Concocting enemies is the Machiavellian proclivity, mode, and ploy of [Schmittian] religious politics to justify strong man saviors and warrant their violence.

Note:

[1] the error of organicism applied to theology and self- focusing or group-sustaining systems.