Entropy, Meaning, and the Image of God

From Entropy to Imago Dei

“We’re not just human beings. We’re low-entropy structures temporarily resisting disorder by constantly consuming energy.”

That’s the new thermodynamics joke I came up with after stumbling into a chat room that suggested I should “advertise” myself.

My usual line is simpler and bleaker: the second law of thermodynamics dictates that the heat death of the universe is inevitable, so none of this really matters.

I tend to bring it out when a friend is spiraling over something they can't control. Zoom out far enough and your bad day looks microscopic. Your political frustration looks provincial. Your anxiety looks biochemical. Entropy increases. The universe winds down.

It’s technically correct. We take in energy. We export heat. We delay equilibrium. Eventually equilibrium wins. The second law of thermodynamics does not negotiate.

You can use that perspective to shrink problems.

You can also use it to flatten meaning.

If the laws of physics are all there is, then the bleak version follows naturally. We are molecular machines in a decaying universe. Morality is evolutionary convenience. Love is neurotransmitters firing in useful patterns. Hope is adaptive psychology.

At that scale, what’s the point?

Why even try?

What Science Says, and What It Doesn’t

Science, or more specifically the scientific method, is a set of tools designed to help us understand the world. It describes mechanisms. It does not assign meaning.

Thermodynamics explains how local order persists by increasing global disorder. Evolution explains how organisms have adapted over time. Neuroscience maps correlations between brain states and experience.

None of that tells you whether meaning is real, whether morality is objective, or whether consciousness is accidental or intended.

You can describe something in smaller and smaller pieces and still miss what it actually is.

Missing the forest for the trees as it were.

You can say a symphony is vibrating air molecules. A sunset is scattered photons. A human being is a network of biochemical reactions.

All true.

Still not enough.

The question is not whether we are energy-processing systems. We are. The question is whether that is the whole story.

The Universality of Moral Grammar

Across civilizations and centuries you find recurring moral architecture. Murder within the community is condemned. Justice is valued. Loyalty matters. Sacrifice is honored. Some level of theological awareness shows up almost everywhere.

Different cultures. Different rituals. Different doctrines.

Similar moral grammar.

You can explain that through evolutionary pressure and social stability models. That explanation is not irrational.

I do not believe it is sufficient.

From a Lutheran perspective, this should not surprise us. Scripture teaches that the law is written on the human heart. Conscience is not invented by culture. It is part of our created nature. Even those outside the visible Church operate within moral frameworks they did not design from scratch.

That shared moral structure does not erase real differences between beliefs.

It does suggest that human beings bear the image of God.

Joshua’s “No”

If meaning is grounded in something beyond physics, then it cannot be grounded in us.

In Joshua 5, Joshua encounters the commander of the Lord’s army and asks, “Are you for us, or for our adversaries?”

The answer is simple. “No.”

God is not a tribal mascot. He does not enlist Himself in our political anxieties. He does not bend to our categories.

That “No” is clarifying.

It flies in the face of the idea that meaning originates in human preference, consensus, or power.

God is not required to side with our worldly concerns. We are required to conform to His will.

If we are created, then meaning does not come from our declarations. It originates from the One who made us.

Why I Reject the Purely Material Bottom Line

If reality ultimately reduces to blind physical process, then consciousness is an accident, morality is contingent, and meaning is temporary scaffolding. It may feel real. It may function socially. But it has no footing beyond survival and preference.

I don’t buy that.

As a member of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, I confess something different.

God created the heavens and the earth. He created mankind in His image. That image matters. It means we are not self-invented.

Yes, humanity fell into sin. Yes, we are bent and broken. But the story doesn't end there. Christ entered His creation to redeem what was lost.

Salvation is not self-improvement. It is not optimization. It is grace. Undeserved. Freely given.

That changes everything.

We are not just entropy managers trying to squeeze meaning out of chemistry. We are creatures.

His creatures.

Finite. Fallen. Subject to death.

But intentionally made.

The human experience is not an accident. It is part of a created order sustained by God.

The Joke Revisited

When I say, “We’re just low-entropy structures resisting disorder,” I know what I’m doing.

On the surface, it deflates ego. It shrinks melodrama. It reminds us that our daily grievances are small compared to the scale of the universe.

Underneath it is a deeper conviction.

The fact that we can reflect on entropy, debate morality, long for justice, and wrestle with God is not adequately explained by chemistry alone.

Physics describes how the engine runs.

It does not explain why there is an engine.
It does not explain why it is intelligible.
It does not explain why it produces self-aware beings who ask ultimate questions.

From my perspective, the human experience does not exist without God. Not as psychological comfort, but as ontological grounding.

Without Him, you have processes. An unaware system. Matter in motion. With Him, you have purpose.

Entropy still increases. Bodies still die. The universe still decays.

But meaning does not come from permanence. It comes from the One who stands outside decay.

That is not thermodynamics.

That is confession.