Spiritual Entropy, Death and Decay

As we look around at material creation, we can readily see the Law of entropy at work. Entropy being defined as the gradual progression of things from a more ordered to a less ordered state. We can see this principle at work from everything from the dissipation of light and heat to their surrounding environments, to the gradual disintegration of manmade structures such as buildings, bridges, and vehicles, all the way to the death and decay that gradually reduces every living thing to the dust from which they were taken.

But how far does the Law of Entropy extend? Is this merely a Law inherent within the material creation, or to the Spiritual as well? We know that once the Life giving Spirit is demanded from us, our bodies immediately die, and the process of Decay sets in immediately. We therefore know that the only thing preventing such decay from occurring even now, while we are alive, is the Spirit inside of us. The very inanimate elements we are composed of absolutely depend upon the ANIMA (spirit) to animate them. The fact that we are still breathing is evidence in itself of God's gift to us, namely, life.

We can extend this principle to a spiritual level. A glimpse at pre-Christian Christendom will show us a glimpse of animalistic, uncivilized man. In every culture that the knowledge, and subsequently, the Grace of Christ reached, we see a renewal from a less ordered, uncivilized state, to a more ordered, civilized state. From Tahitian cannibals, to Germanic raiders, decadent Romans, to warmongering peoples the world over, we, through history, have seen Christian peoples go from being governed by animalistic tendencies of Greed, Hunger, Lust, and Anger, to being governed by the higher principles of self-restraint, obedience, loyalty, courage, love, and truth, albeit at varying degrees.

What happens, however, when we rebel against and refuse this Grace that Christ gives us to live by such higher principles? What happens when we forsake the very power that enables us to war against and overpower our innate, fleshly tendencies? Do we not slowly but surely revert to the bestial, innate, fleshly tendencies, the uncivilized state from which we were redeemed by His Blood? Do we not, as surely as flesh turns to dirt, also return to the degraded state from which we were created?

Mankind does indeed not live on bread alone. The second Adam (Christ), was a life-giving Spirit, and we need His bread to renew and sustain our Spirit as much as we need the physical bread to sustain the flesh. Without it, we see where we are headed back to, and a close look at ancient Christian pre-history will convince us that it is a state that we do not wish to return to.