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100 Reasons to Believe New Testament History
3. The Second Law of Thermodynamics
The second thermodynamical law states that the energy in the universe available for useful work is always decreasing. If we spin the clock backward we would eventually reach a place where the amount of energy available for useful work would exceed the total amount of energy in the universe, which is an impossible condition according to the first thermodynamical law. This is another evidence that the universe had a beginning, hence, a cause.
A consequence of the second Law is that, as time goes by, systems and structures (if left to themselves) will always tend toward increased disorder (entropy) A. Our universe, however, displays an incredible amount of both complexity and order (i.e. the incredible complexity of living systems for example). If we spin the clock backward, we don't find ourselves at a chaotic big bang, but a highly organized, complex, created universe. In light of the second Law of Thermodynamics and all its implications, belief in a Creator God is more than reasonable B.
3. The Second Law of Thermodynamics - Notes and References
A. "The time asymmetry of the universe is expressed by the second law of thermodynamics, that entropy increases with time as order is transformed into disorder. The mystery is not that an ordered state should become disordered, but that the early universe apparently was in a highly ordered state…There is no mechanism yet that would allow the universe to begin in a arbitrary state and then evolve to its present highly-ordered state." Don N. Page, "Inflation Does Not Explain Time Asymmetery", Nature, vol. 304, July 7, 1983, p.39
"…total entropy increases, mostly because the sun increases its entropy as it radiates energy…The universe tends toward death and disorder. It's the law." David Harry Grinspoon, Assistant Professor of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences at the University of Colorado, "Venus Revealed", Helix Books, Addison - Wesley Publishing, 1997, p. 297
"So time is relative, changing. Can it be reversed? No. The second law of thermodynamics - which states that isolated systems move from order to disorder - unequivocally rules that out. Humpty Dumpty won't ever put himself back together again…Look at the film of an egg as it falls to the floor and breaks. Run the film backward. Watch the egg reassemble then rise through the air. This demonstrates a basic law of science: that nature is a process of disorganization. This increasing natural disorganization - or entropy - is based on the principle that there are more possible disordered states in nature than ordered states. This tendency toward disorder is called an arrow of time." "The Enigma of Time", National Geographic, March 1990, pp. 119, 131
B. "A final point to be made is that the second law of thermodynamics and the principle of increase in entropy have great philosophical implications. The question that arises is how did the universe get into the state of reduced entropy in the first place, since all natural processes known to us tend to increase entropy?…The author has found that the second law tends to increase his conviction that there is a Creator who has the answer for the future destiny of man and the universe." Gordon J. Van Wylen, "Thermodynamics", New York, John Wily & Sons, 1959, p. 169
"The evolutionary model, by secondary modification and extension, might then perhaps be harmonized with the second law, but it could never predict it. The creation model, however predicts the second law." Professor Henry M. Morris, "The Scientific Case for Creation", Creation-Life Publishers, San Diego, California, 1977, p. 26