My background is science. One of the threads that runs through all of science is the search for truth……..the search for what is, as opposed to what we want. At what I hope is the close of a particularly acrimonious political season, the search for truth really appeals to me. The great truths of science wind up being called laws. They are so central to our world that you know many of them……. even if your background is not in a scientific field. You know the basics of the law of gravity. A dropped slice of pizza always lands gooey side down. The law of inertia is a bit less obvious. An object at rest will stay at rest unless energy is applied and an object in motion will not change its motion unless energy is applied.
So far so good.
Entropy is a bit tougher still. At its core, entropy is the law regulating disorder. The second law of thermodynamics basically says that a system will become less organized, more random, unless energy is applied. Anybody who has raised children has seen the practical application of this law……..in their bedrooms.
In practical terms, the second law of thermodynamics, the law of entropy, the law of disorder, says that you can make hamburger out of a cow………but, it is very hard to make a cow out of hamburger.
As we watch the world around us, we can see the natural growth of entropy, disorder. We apply energy to the system we live in constantly in order to keep entropy, disorder, at bay. The largest and most obvious arena in the fight against entropy is the environment. And we have made a lot of progress. The air is far cleaner today than it was when I was young. We expend a lot of money, energy, to make it so. If we stopped putting energy, in the form of effort, resources, thought, and money into the environment, air quality, water quality, and many other facets of the environment would deteriorate, probably rapidly.
Here is my point. Look back over your life…..at the world we live in. In spite of the energy we apply to the system we live in, during our lifetimes, disorder is growing: climate change, plastic in the ocean, contamination of our water supply, extinctions, and many more.
So far so good.
But, now, consider the secular humanist, scientific, creation story.
A giant explosion, a cloud of subatomic particples, the particles assemble themselves into atoms, the atoms assemble themselves into molecules, the molecules assemble themselves into cells, the cells become alive, they reproduce, they evolve into every living thing on earth, including Angelina Jolie. All of this occurrs in a closed system without the application of outside energy. All of this occurrs without the intervention of an outside intelligence.
All of this organization……..all of this decrease of entropy……. occurs in blatant violation of the second law of thermodynamics.
Returning to the present, experience tells us that today, the world is becoming more disorganized in spite of the energy we have applied to fight disorder. And yet the secular humanists, the scientists, tell us that this incredible, complex planet and everything on it came about by a string of trillions upon trillions of random, consecutive, cumulative, positively adaptive, interdependent…….. accidents. In practice, the scientists, the secular humanists, throw the second law of thermodynamics out the window. Their justification……..”there was a lot of time for all of the accidents”.
They are wrong. The second law of thermodynamics holds. You cannot use millions of years of time to reverse the second law of thermodynamics………you cannot use time alone to create order out of disorder. You can wait a lifetime, but unless somebody applies energy, and intelligence, to the system………your child’s bedroom is not going to become organized. In your heart, you know this.
To create order out of disorder in a closed system…….you must apply energy and intelligence………from the outside. You can quibble about the details……..but this is a good working definition of a “creator”.
This incredible planet is no accident.
It is the result of the application of energy, energy applied by an intelligent creator.
And he cares deeply.
For you.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.
John, NIV
“I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity, I am the Lord, who does all these things.”
God, NIV
“Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
God, NIV