Thermodynamics and Theology:
Entropy, Disorder, and Sin
(and Young-Earth Creationism)
Why is a page about thermodynamics-and-theology
in a website about origins? Because some young-earth creationists, beginning
with Henry Morris, claim that The Second Law of Thermodynamics makes
evolution impossible. This claim is intended to be partly scientific,
because it seems (for those who don't understand thermodynamics) to be a good
argument against evolution, and is partly theological, based on a theory that
as a result of human sin a "perfect" creation — unaffected
by sin, disorder, and decay — became
subject to the dreaded Second Law.
Here is a brief summary of my views about
thermodynamics and theology:
God designed and created the universe so the characteristics
of natural processes would allow life. The Second Law is an essential part
of these cleverly designed characteristics, which allow the reactions that occur
during life, and in sunshine and many other good things in nature. Although
miracles violate the Second Law (since it is an essential part of non-miraculous
natural
process),
this
does
not
limit
divine
action
because
God
controls
thermodynamics,
not
vice-versa.
an I.O.U. — Inspired by constructive
criticism from
Brian
Pitts,
later (but I'm not sure when) I will revise this page, to make
it more appropriately humble about "how the world could
be" in the past, present, and future, about possibilities for God's
initial
creation
(before
human sin), current creation (including spiritual interactions), and future
creation
(of
heaven).
This is one page in a two-part series. You
can begin by reading either page:
•
Theology of Thermodynamics (this page) shows that The Second
Law is an essential part of the way God has cleverly designed nature; it
is
not
about
sin.
• Science
of Thermodynamics shows that The Second
Law is about mathematical probabilities for energy distributions, not disorder.
Why am I writing these two pages? My
motives are similar to those of Allan Harvey, so I'll just borrow what he says
in his page about The
Second Law of Thermodynamics in the Context of the Christian Faith:
My main purpose here is to dissuade
my fellow followers of Christ from pursuing incorrect arguments based on
a lack of understanding
of the second law. One might ask whether it is really important for Christians
to think about entropy in a mature manner. For many, it probably isn't. But
for those who engage in apologetics, and for those who might find themselves
defending the faith to those who are scientifically literate, I think it is important
for three reasons.
The first is that, by abandoning these errors,
we can focus more effectively on legitimate arguments for the faith. ...
The second reason is the special responsibility
to truth we have as people of God. There is no room for falsehood in
God's kingdom, even in the defense of the Gospel. We should be diligent in
our efforts to avoid bearing false witness. ... Worldly politicians
or marketers may say "I don't mind using a little falsehood as long as it
helps persuade my audience," but that is unacceptable for a Christian. We
who serve the God of truth should make a special effort to cleanse our words
of all falsehood.
Finally, there is the Christian witness
to the world. ... It is tragic that many think of Christians only as "those
people with the crackpot arguments about a young Earth and entropy" and do
not even consider the Gospel because they think it requires them to believe
things they know to be as silly as a flat Earth. The myth that Christianity
is for stupid people is widespread, and part of the blame must rest on some
Christians. This harm to our witness will only be overcome if Christians
refocus their message on central truths (like the fact that God created everything)...
and repudiate those arguments (like the misuse of the 2nd law) that are simply
incorrect. Many will still reject and belittle Christ and those who
follow Him. But if the world is going to laugh at us, let it at least
be for a central doctrine like the Cross or the Resurrection, or for our
insistence on loving everybody, not for mistaken pseudoscientific arguments
on peripheral issues.
The Second Law: Is it
our enemy?
God designed and created the
universe so the characteristics of natural processes (governed by the force
laws, values of constants,...) would allow life. And
the Second Law is an essential part of these life-allowing characteristics. {
Notice that I didn't say "natural processes... would produce
life," because I don't think this is true. }
In the natural world, the
Second Law is our friend, not an enemy. Without it we would not
have the chemical reactions that occur during life, or nuclear-generated sunshine,
or blue skies, or anything else that is familiar in nature. The Second
Law is not a curse; it is an essential part of what makes life possible. For
everlasting life with no death and decay, we need Jesus and the Tree of Life,
not just a repeal of the Second Law!
The Second Law in Life and Death
Is there a correlation
between the
Second Law and bodily deterioration? No. The Second Law is
operating, not just when our bodies deteriorate and die, but also when our bodies
grow larger during youth and adolescence, when we stronger in response to exercise,
when we feel refreshed after awaking from sleep, and when we recover from illness. Consider
a quickly growing infant, a healthy person in the prime of life, a sick person
getting weaker every day, an old person whose body is slowly deteriorating, a
victim of disease who is nearing death, a suddenly-lifeless corpse, and a corpse
that has been decaying for a week or a decade. Each
of these is equally governed by the Second Law, which is what makes all reactions
occur, including the chemical reactions that allow life, health, and
growth.
In the biochemistry of our bodies, the difference
between life and death is equilibrium, not the Second
Law. While we're living, the biochemical reactions within our bodies are
trying to reach equilibrium but (on the whole) are failing. While we're
living, biochemical energy — obtained from the food we eat and the air
we breathe — keeps our bodies "away from equilibrium" but when
we die the chemical reactions can finally begin to reach equilibrium, first in
the life-giving reactions of metabolism and continuing through a long process
of decay. During the whole process, from conception to death and afterward,
the Second Law is operating in the same way, so the chemicals can "do what
comes naturally" in their reactions.
Do miracles violate the Second Law?
Yes, because the Second Law is an essential part of natural
process, and God's
actions
are
different
during
natural process and during a miracle. But in Judeo-Christian theology,
the
actions
of
God
are
not
limited
by
natural process or the
Second
Law. In
the Bible, God's actions were usually natural-appearing (with
natural process being divinely guided sometimes, and perhaps always) and
occasionally miraculous-appearing, with God deciding which type of action
to use in each situation. I
think both types of action were used by God in the distant past (in the formative
history
of
nature)
and
are still used in the present. An essential part of natural process is
the Second Law, which states that "highly improbable things don't happen," but
God
can
make
improbable
things
happen because God controls thermodynamics, not vice-versa.
a
brief interlude:
Since I wrote this page (mainly in 1998 & 2000)
I've discovered a web-page by Answers
in Genesis (Ken
Ham's young-earth creation organization) about "arguments
we think creationists should NOT use" including the argument
that "the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics began at
the Fall," which should not be used because:
This law [the
Second Law] says that the entropy ('disorder') of the Universe increases
over time, and some have thought that this was the result of the Curse. However,
disorder isn't always harmful. An obvious example is digestion, breaking
down large complex food molecules into their simple building blocks. Another
is friction, which turns ordered mechanical energy into disordered heat — otherwise
Adam and Eve would have slipped as they walked with God in Eden! A
less obvious example to laymen might be the sun heating the Earth, but
to a physical chemist, heat transfer from a hot object to a cold one is
the classic case of the Second Law in action. Also, breathing is
based on another classic Second Law process, gas moving from a high pressure
to low pressure. Finally, all beneficial processes in the world,
including the development from embryo to adult, increase the overall disorder
of the universe, showing that the Second Law is not inherently a curse.
... (continued in the appendix)
The Second Law: Is it
a result of The Fall?
An important part of a
typical young-earth creationist view of thermodynamics (as advocated
by Henry Morris, but not Ken Ham) is a proposal
that our fall into sin (in Genesis 3) caused a radical
change in the characteristics of nature, due to The Second Law (which wasn't
operating before the fall) suddenly becoming active, bringing disorder and
decay into nature.
Theologically, a major claim of support
for this radical "transformation of nature" comes from the "creation... [in] bondage to decay" in Romans
8:20-22. But an examination of context (in Rom 8:12-25) shows that
Paul is describing a contrast between our current life (check Rom 7:18-25
where Paul describes his struggles with sin) and our future life.
Did human sin change the characteristics
of nature? When you study Genesis 3 (as described in "Sin and
Salvation" below), notice that everything — the
initial gift of life (with relationship, quality, and immortality) and its
removal due to our sin, followed by our salvation and (in the future) God
giving us back the tree of life — is for humans, not for cats
and mice. God never promised everlasting life
to non-humans, and questions about death (for creatures to whom it
was never available) should be based on this recognition, not on a doctrine
(an extension of eternal life to all animals) that is not taught in the Bible.
Sin
and Salvation
In Genesis 2, God says "you must
not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." (NIV) But
in Genesis 3, Eve and Adam disobey and fall into sin, with three
results: The immediate intrinsic result of
disobedience was a loss of their innocence and their intimate relationship with
God, as described in Genesis 3:7-11. Then two judicial
results were decreed by God, as described in Gen 3:14-24. The judicial
penalty for sin begins (Gen 3:14-19,23) with a decrease in quality of life for
all humans. And the ultimate penalty (Gen 3:22,24) involves the tree of
life: God said, "The man has now become like
one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his
hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever." To
prevent disobedient sinners from living forever, God removed the tree of life
so they would not "eat, and live forever." Without
supernatural support from God (symbolized by the tree of life), Adam and Eve
began to perish, with natural processes leading gradually to their eventual death.
The fall into sin
produced three results, one intrinsic and two judicial: a decrease in quality
of relationship with God, a decrease in quality of life, and a loss of everlasting
life. The initial gift of life (with relationship, quality,
and immortality) was offered to Adam, but was lost by his sinful disobedience. Later, this
gift of life (with relationship, quality, and immortality) was won back by
the sinless obedience of Jesus, and is offered to all who will accept God's
gift of grace: "The wages of sin is death,
but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans
6:23) The immortality taken from us in Genesis is given back to us
in Revelation: "To him who overcomes, I will give
the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.
... Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right
to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city." (Rev
2:7, 22:14).
The "tree of
[everlasting] life" was (and will be) a supernatural gift from
God, not a property of nature. God gave the tree of life to humans
(in Gen 2:9), temporarily removed it (Gen 3:22) due to the disobedient sin
of humans, and will give it back to humans (Rev 2:7, 22:14) through the salvation
that Jesus earned for us and offers to us (John 3:16). But the new
creation will not be like the pre-Fall creation, as you can see by comparing
the old (in Genesis 2-3) with the new (in Revelation 21-22).
APPENDIX Here
is a continuation of the AIG/Ham quotation from earlier: The paragraph above describes the young-earth claim that there was no death (for higher nephesh-animals) before human sin. This claim is examined in my page about Animal Death before Human Sin which includes these excerpts: Supernatural Protective Power Protective Power in Two Views Did human sin change the fundamental
characteristics of nature? No. Is there
scientific evidence that The Second Law has been operating in nature
since the beginning? Yes. Because light travels with
a finite speed, astronomical observations let us "time travel" to
earlier times in the history of nature. When we see sunlight, we
see light that was emitted by the sun several minutes ago. When
we see light from stars that are further away, we see light that was
emitted even earlier. For the nearest star (besides our sun) we
are seeing light from 5 years ago; the light we see from other
stars was produced thousands or millions of years ago, and light from
stars that are even further away was produced billions of years ago. By
studying the light that arrives from these stars (which are located at
different distances from us and, due to the "time lag" that
occurs before the light reaches the earth, show us what was happening
at different times in the history of nature), we can see "what nature
was like" at different times during the history of nature. What
we observe is that the basic characteristics of
nature (in the nuclear forces, gravitational force, Second Law
of Thermo,... that operate in stars to produce starlight) have
not changed. The characteristics of nature are the same,
whether we look at starlight showing us the recent history of nature
(from a few minutes ago, in light from our sun) or an ancient history
of nature (from billions of years ago, in light from faraway stars). According
to these observations, the mathematical probabilities described in the
Second Law (as explained in Part 2 of this page) have been with us for
billions of years, since God created the universe. |
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Animal Death before Human Sin? a wide spectrum of views, |
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