Temporal Law and Freedom
It hardly comes as a surprise to learn that we are mortal beings tethered to mortal earth by mortal laws. For example, we are subject to gravity and the laws of gravity. We are subject to entropy and the laws of entropy, which means that things move from order to disorder which brings death into the world. We are subject to time. Time is perhaps the most curious factor of all. Without death, time, as we know it, would be meaningless.
We live inside a celestial clock. The spinning earth gives us our day. We divide our day into hours, our hours into minutes, our minutes into seconds, and our seconds into nanoseconds and so on. The circling moon gives us our month, and the circling earth around the sun gives us our year. Time has no inherent meaning for our celestial clock has been ticking for billions of years in endless repetition and will continue to tick for billions of years more in endless repetition unless interrupted by some cosmic cataclysm. In our mortal world, only death gives time its meaning. Science tells us that entropy gives time its arrow. That is because death cannot be reversed by mortal laws.
If science were not so blinded by paradigms, they would see that the above is why neither the Big Bang, nor evolution, nor accident could have created life. Mortal law manages death. That is its entire purpose. Evolution is a product of mortal laws only.
As Christians we believe in two kingdoms. The mortal kingdom and the immortal kingdom. The mortal kingdom is governed by mortal laws. The immortal kingdom is governed by spiritual laws. Life is related to spiritual laws. Mortal laws provide a mortal body for our spirits. Mortal laws and mortal bodies only exist for the duration of our mortal existence. After that they have no power or authority over the spirit.
In this podcast I am only talking about our mortal kingdom and our mortal laws. My thesis is how temporal laws relate to freedom. In other podcasts I have asserted that freewill and agency are spiritual matters only. The spirit has freewill, not the body. However, freedom is tied to our mortal experience, and therefore, freedom is governed by mortal laws.
As stated above, unless some cataclysmic event occurs first, our celestial clock will eventually run down and be destroyed by entropy, and all life will cease. In the same way unless some tragic event occurs, our physical bodies will eventually be destroyed by our biological clock. All mortal things suffer a heat death. As Gertrude said to her son Hamlet:
“Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted color off,
And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.
Do not forever with thy vailèd lids
Seek for thy noble father in the dust.
Thou know’st ’tis common. All that lives must die,
Passing through nature to eternity.”
We accept the laws of nature. We bow to them. We have no choice. I have been to Saint Augustine, Florida. I have drunk from Ponce de Leon’s Fountain of Youth many times, but it turned out to be just water, and not very good tasting water at that. Despite drinking from the fountain of Youth, I shed my youth like a snake that sheds its skin and grew inexorably and undeniably old, and my aching joints and brittle bones are rattling toward death. Because of entropy mortal laws cannot give us immortality. That leads to the ultimate law of our mortal world:
No sphere can rise above the complete set of laws by which it is governed.
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free