Do the laws of thermodynamics refute pantheism?

[Eukaryote]

I used to be something of a transtheist or pantheist, however, when I learned the laws of thermodynamics, I decided that pantheism was not compatible with physics. By definition, a god is immortal, and the laws of thermodynamics describe a mortal universe: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_death_of_the_universe

Do you think the laws of thermodynamics refute pantheism?

 

[Hygro]

your premise requires that any god type is an object of the universe, and not vice versa.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Yes, what Hygro said. If god is infinite, eternal, permanent and unchanging and the physical universe is merely a illusory manifestation emanating from god, then the second law is part of that impermanent manifestation and therefore limited to the existence of the universe.

 

[Berzerker]

why is god immortal?

even the Bible suggests God has limited days, something about a 1,000 years to man is but a day to god

 

[Kyriakos]

Well, the second law of thermodynamics at least seems to be close to being "immortal", since heat has to pass from a more heated object to a less heated one, or alternatively lack of heat will "pass" from a less heated object to a more heated one.

So maybe your god should in fact be the second law of thermodynamics

As for the actual question on god being mortal if the world (cosmos) is mortal, the answer is that this does not have to be the case, given that god can exist in a multitude of relations to the cosmos, many of which would not diminish the god even if the cosmos is diminished or died utterly.

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

why is god immortal?

even the Bible suggests God has limited days, something about a 1,000 years to man is but a day to god

Could you quote the actual passage from the Bible?
There is similar notion in other scriptures. Basically the "higher" you go more your consciousness becomes effective maybe even to the point where time stops to exists and past, present and future become one reality. That however doesnt suggest that God is subject to death in the least. More likely Death is just one of many faces of God. The same goes for so-called demigods who are just manifested cosmic forces of the Absolute on lesser levels.

 

[Gigaz]

I think it's safe to say that any being that must obey the laws of thermodynamics will die sooner or later.

 

[Tahuti]

Yes, what Hygro said. If god is infinite, eternal, permanent and unchanging and the physical universe is merely a illusory manifestation emanating from god, then the second law is part of that impermanent manifestation and therefore limited to the existence of the universe.

That would be Panentheism: God is the universe, but is also more than that.

 

[Eukaryote]

Yes, what Hygro said. If god is infinite, eternal, permanent and unchanging and the physical universe is merely a illusory manifestation emanating from god, then the second law is part of that impermanent manifestation and therefore limited to the existence of the universe.

In other words our "universe" would not be the only universe in existence?

 

[Kyriakos]

In other words our "universe" would not be the only universe in existence?

In some cases, yes. In other cases, no. For example, if our "universe" is symbolised in an example as a line, then the deity can be a dot outside that line. It still is outside the line, but there still is only one line there. The deity can still be linked in some (unknown) way to the line, as a creator (in a myriad different ways) or some other relation to it which warrants it being termed its deity.

 

[Leoreth]

First of all, what does mortality for a divine being really mean? I mean even in the heat death of the universe scenario, the universe doesn't stop existing. It's just that it has reached maximum entropy so nothing interesting happens anymore, but I don't see why this would imply the "death" of the pantheist God.

But even if it did, God would still live as long as the universe does. Is living really a term that has any meaning outside of the universe? From a certain point of view this is as immortal as it gets within the physical world.

(I don't see a reason to make God's eternal existence a necessary attribute of Pantheism even though I could see why that would be unsatisfying for you.)

 

[Eukaryote]

In some cases, yes. In other cases, no. For example, if our "universe" is symbolised in an example as a line, then the deity can be a dot outside that line.

That doesn't sound like pantheism.

 

[Tahuti]

That doesn't sound like pantheism.

Indeed, it is panentheism. Mentioned already by the same poster in the reply above him too!

 

[Borachio]

Doesn't sound like it to me, either.

Pantheism is the belief that everything composes an all-encompassing, immanent God,[1] or that the universe (or nature) is identical with divinity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantheism

 

[Kyriakos]

^This would still (probably) mean that human pantheism (or rather local-universal pantheism) can exist, while the deity will be in another plane, and still by all means linked to our own universe for the simple fact that in that scenario we can only sense/think our own universe anyway.
Again: if the line is the universe, god can be the dot outside it, being linked to the line in a dimension those in the line cannot see: to them the deity is outside the line. To the deity it looks very different. And since my example is general, i would not really venture on building more parallelisms on it, a line is 1d, a dot is '0d', but a dot can always be a line which is in a second dimension, with one dimension of it being linear, and the other dimension of it placed in such a way so that it is projected here as a dot. So in that case, the dot and the line can have many links we just would never see from our own universe of a line.

 

[warpus]

If this God is able to jump ship from Universe to Universe, as one dies its heat death and another one is born, it could be said to be immortal.. So there's no contradiction there.

 

[Kyriakos]

If this God is able to jump ship from Universe to Universe, as one dies its heat death and another one is born, it could be said to be immortal.. So there's no contradiction there.

Yes, but if a dog could think and have a sort of impression of what another planet is in relation to earth, then watching a human leaving the dying earth for another planet would be pretty much the same as us watching this sort of "god" go to another universe. In my view a god would not need to go anywhere. He might as well be anywhere/everywhere already. We lose tiny cells from our body all the time, we still go on without even noticing, and we are not those cells in collection but a being which has a myriad of myriads more complexities than just those which the cells together affect (but i am not arguing that we are to god what one of our cells is to us, merely making a general analogy there, which would need more levels to function properly...)

 

[Hygro]

if a god is the conscious manifestation of a maximally aggregated energy network (like, say, the universe and all its parts interacting), then God still exists at maximum entropy. It's just a very boring (or awesome) god.

 

[Takhisis]

This reminds me of a story by Asimov that ends in 'Let there be Light!'

 

[timtofly]

Yes, but if a dog could think and have a sort of impression of what another planet is in relation to earth, then watching a human leaving the dying earth for another planet would be pretty much the same as us watching this sort of "god" go to another universe. In my view a god would not need to go anywhere. He might as well be anywhere/everywhere already. We lose tiny cells from our body all the time, we still go on without even noticing, and we are not those cells in collection but a being which has a myriad of myriads more complexities than just those which the cells together affect (but i am not arguing that we are to god what one of our cells is to us, merely making a general analogy there, which would need more levels to function properly...)

Perhaps if the entities in your analogy were even comparable to each other? A dog has no control over it's world. A human has slightly more control, but not even the ability to decide when to loose a cell. I am not sure about a pantheist deity, but according to the Bible, God has absolute control, except for the issue that no one can agree on about free will. Which means that we have some choices and some control, but we cannot change the laws of nature. Perhaps God having the final authority may sound better, but absolute control does not mean that he controls everything, but has absolute power to override some actions and choices. Animals do not seem to obey anything out of what their design ability allows them to do. They have choices in their world. Whether they actually act out of choices may be debated though.

Personifying God or even phenomenalising God will never work; whatever we come up with only gives us something to conceptualize him with. I don't think we could ever grasp what God is. If the universe is a part of God, which part would that be? His mind, body, soul, etc. If the universe is just one cell, then would every other cell be another universe? Does God even have cells? If part of a body like ours, then maybe? If the universe is just an object of his imagination, then does it even exist? In other words, can we even pin God down, much less how the universe is involved in God's existence? Modern man has so wrapped himself in the empirical, that he has denied the spiritual. Even changing an illusion into something that can be grasped thus defining the illusion as empirical also.