Fortunately, the universe is large enough to accommodate ample potential for order to emerge from the chaos. The rub is that the entire universe is assumed to be a closed system, and so despite pockets of order that seem to contradict the second law, the sum total of entropy in the universe is always increasing. Any system left on its own tends toward disorder unless work is applied from the outside. To build it, its builder must lay waste to a number of trees such that the total disorder of the system increases. Think, for example, of a beautifully ordered and symmetrical log cabin. The answer lies in the work that is necessary to create order. So how can it be true that chaos, decay, and wastefulness always increase? New life, new creation, new possibilities. It is easy to think of beautiful, hopeful instances of order. This leads me to ask, what kind of God would create a universe in which entropy, or disorder, always increases? Let’s see if wrestling with the concept of entropy hinders or helps our faith. Still, be it technical or by analogy, it is at first glance a troublesome concept. ![]() Its technical application does not translate well to our everyday experience of increasing disorder except by analogy. Science, however, sums up the ever-increasing disorder in a single word: entropy.Įntropy, also known as the second law of thermodynamics, succinctly states that as time marches forward, systems tend towards disorder. ![]() Sin, suffering, the groaning of creation, lament, grief. Our faith provides language to help us grasp and endure this kind of disorder. And it doesn’t even include the disorder each of us feels in the personal chaos we must navigate. We know firsthand a thing or two about disorder. A changing-some might say-deteriorating, landscape for the Christian church.
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