Something to think about

One of the major obstacles to the validity of Darwin’s theory of evolution is the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Commonly known as the Law of Entropy, this scientific law states that in all energy transformations, there is a tendency for some of the energy to be transformed into non-reversible heat energy. In other words, everything runs down or wears out. It decays. It dissipates. Reminds me of my 72 year-old body.


Entropy is used as a measure of the amount of energy depleted from a system. We can manipulate energy, but we can’t create it. This is confirmed by the First Law of Thermodynamics, also called the Law of Conservation of Energy. This one says that energy can be transformed in various ways, but it can neither be created nor destroyed. This means that the amount of energy cannot increase and that’s the key. Everything within our system, the entire universe, is running down, decaying, decreasing in complexity. This includes our own sun. It also includes my car and my brain.


The implication is that the universe is moving toward an irreversible state of maximum disorder and minimum energy. The second law says that this will not happen in reverse, mo matter how hard you work out at the gym. Energy and order won’t increase and since a maximum state of entropy has not been reached, the universe has not been here forever. It was “wound up” at some point and is now running down. In short, the universe had to have a beginning.



In the late 1920s Edwin Hubble discovered that the light from distant galaxies shifted toward the red end of the spectrum, indicating an expanding universe. Stars are moving away from us. This is similar to tossing a pebbled in a pond. The circle moves away from the center. Some scientists say that the original configuration of the universe may have been a state of infinite density where all mass, energy, space and time were contained in a single mathematical point with no dimensions. This is a hypothetical and complex concept that simply points to a beginning. I couldn't begin to understand it.


The evidence and natural laws fly in the face of the idea espoused by Bertrand Russell that the universe is “just there and that’s all there is to it.” The only rational alternative is that something has to be “eternal.” If the universe isn’t eternal then something external to the universe, such as a Creator, must be eternal. God is outside of time and space. God is eternal. God is the artist painting our universe on a canvas of time and space and it is within this portrait that we are created and temporarily confined.


I like to think about this stuff, despite the fact that I’m thinking about it while in a process of accelerated entropy, moving toward an irreversible state of maximum disorder and minimum energy. I think I'm already there! It’s time for a nap.