The Mystery of the Second Law

Jesus said that only God is good. The Word of God declares in James 1:17:

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.

Everything good on the earth—and for that matter, everything good everywhere—is from God. From the faithful and glorious sunrise to its sunset, from the sparkling clear water in the brook to the sweet standing corn in the field, God is the maker and giver of all good things. The ultimate good thing for the believer is the blessed hope, where the redeemed live forever in a new heaven and a new earth with the Father and the Son. On the other hand, those who reject God ultimately reject the good. Eternal damnation—the final destiny of the wicked—is a place called the lake of fire, which is also referred to as outer darkness and it is a place bereft of the benefit of any good thing—only eternal torment. Matthew 25:43-46:

43 I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.

44 Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?

45 Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.

46 And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.

But the good God has made a way of escape. John 3:16:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

This way of escape, this everlasting life, begins with what Jesus calls born-again. John 3:3:

Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

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GOD SAID, Genesis 1:31:

And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

GOD SAID, Genesis 2:17:

But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

GOD SAID, Romans 8:2:

For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.

GOD SAID, Romans 8:22-23:

22 For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.

23 And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.

MAN SAID: Man has no higher God-given purpose. We evolved from nothing and are going nowhere. Man is just another animal.

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Their questions are in all the right places, but no answers for the carnally "enlightened" ones. The source of all knowledge is God, and His Bible is the owner’s manual that He has given man to navigate one’s life. To reject His Words is to be placed on the sea of this existence without compass: lost, and without purpose.

In the June 19, 2010 issue of Science News, in the "Bookshelf" feature, a new book by Sean Carroll is highlighted. The title of his book is From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time. The following excerpt is from the Science News review of Carroll’s book:

Caltech physicist Sean Carroll’s articulate exposition avoids any pretension of solving the problem. Instead, he tells a rich story of the various attempts to track time’s arrow to its source, which clearly has something to do with the second law of thermodynamics. That law requires the amount of disorder, or entropy, in a closed system to stay the same or increase over time until reaching its maximum possible level. Time marches forward because entropy in the past was lower than now. But that explanation merely restates the problem by defining "the past" as a time of lower entropy. Explaining time’s arrow, Carroll asserts, requires explaining why entropy was so low at the Big Bang.  [End of quote]

II Timothy 3:7 speaks of the wicked and reads:

Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.

The ungodly’s questions are in all the right places, but because of their clear rejection of God’s Word—the truth—they are doomed to their fruitless search and their quest for things like the source of the time arrow.

The review of Mr. Carroll’s book highlights three issues:

(1.) Tracking time’s arrow to its source.

(2.) How the second law of thermodynamics and entropy rule the world of time.

(3.) Why was entropy so low at the theorized Big Bang?

The source of time’s arrow is a creator issue. The law of entropy is a sin issue. Why disorder was so low in the beginning is an issue of the word good.

Concerning thermodynamics, Jeremy Rifkin writes the following in his book, Entropy: A World View:

Now, however, a new world view is about to emerge, one that will eventually replace the Newtonian world machine as the organizing frame of history: the Entropy Law will preside as the ruling paradigm over the next period of history. Albert Einstein referred to it as the supreme metaphysical law of the entire universe. The Entropy Law is the second law of thermodynamics. The first law states that all matter and energy in the universe is constant, that it cannot be created or destroyed. Only its form can change but never its essence. The second law, the Entropy Law, states that matter and energy can only be changed in one direction, that is, from usable to unusable, or from available to unavailable, or from ordered to disordered.  [End of quote]

Much confusion and debate exists in the field of science concerning the second law of thermodynamics. It is theorized that at the Big Bang there was maximum chaos, which in scientific parlance means disorder or entropy, but time’s arrow contradicts because when one travels back in time, entropy decreases. This of course is the case, and now what do we do with the Big Bang?

Richard Morris, in his book Time’s Arrow: Scientific Attitudes Toward Time, writes:

There are other problems associated with attempts to apply the second law of thermodynamics to the universe as a whole. Presumably the universe began in a very chaotic state. A chaotic state is, by definition, a state of high entropy (when we speak of "chaos," we mean that there is a great deal of disorder). On the other hand, numerous kinds of structure have appeared since the universe began. For example, stars and galaxies have formed. The creation of this structure, and the fact that stars gain entropy as they burn their nuclear fuel, would seem to imply that the universe is far from a state of maximum entropy now. But how can this be, if entropy was so high at the beginning? Doesn’t the second law of thermodynamics tell us that entropy increases with time?  [End of quote]

Or how about this statement by Don Page in Nature under the heading, "Inflation Does Not Explain Time Asymmetry:"

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 was in a highly ordered state.  [End of quote]

They have rejected the truth, consequently they are frustrated by the obvious facts.

Science is trying to track time’s arrow to its source. For every human, the clock is the harbinger of death. We are all born with a time limit attached to our lives and the second law reigns supreme. Was that the way it was in the beginning? The Scriptures teach that Adam and Eve were created to live forever, and therefore, the life clock in regard to man simply was not ticking. Amazingly enough, the Bible declares that in the end, time will be no more. Revelation 10:5-6:

5 And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven,

6 And sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer:

Time’s arrow, the clock, is regulated by the second law of thermodynamics, which can simply be defined as order to disorder, life to death. The Scriptures call this scientific law "the law of sin and death." Sin equals death. Genesis 2:17:

But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

Romans 8:2:

For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.

I Corinthians 15:56-57:

56 The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.

57 But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Time’s arrow in regard to man and this earth has a source alright, and that source is sin. But for the redeemed this impediment will soon be gone, for sin and time shall be no more.

The truth-deniers in the field of science are flummoxed. "Explaining time’s arrow,” Carroll asserts, “requires explaining why entropy was so low at the Big Bang." Keep in mind that entropy is a measurement of death (order to disorder; life to death). Why, they ask, was it so low at the theorized big explosion when the opposite should have been the case? The answer is oh-so gloriously simple. Genesis 1:31:

And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

Time’s clock was just not ticking.

The second law is the law of death and it is a product of sin. In the Scriptures, it is properly called the law of sin and death. This earth and its inhabitants, according to science and the Bible, are on a one-way street to destruction. Some scientists project that when entropy reaches its maximum, the universe will explode in a consuming blaze of fire. II Peter 3:10-12:

10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.

11 Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness,

12 Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?

For you and me, God has made a way of escape. Click onto "Further With Jesus" now, and again, it will be "very good."

Thousands of years before science asked the questions, the Word of God declared the answers.

GOD SAID, Genesis 1:31:

And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

GOD SAID, Genesis 2:17:

But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

GOD SAID, Romans 8:2:

For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.

GOD SAID, Romans 8:22-23:

22 For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.

23 And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.

MAN SAID: Man has no higher God-given purpose. We evolved from nothing and are going nowhere. Man is just another animal.

Now you have THE RECORD.




References:

Authorized King James Version

"From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time," Science News, June 19, 2010, p30

Morris, R., Time’s Arrow: Scientific Attitudes Toward Time, Simon & Schuster, 1984, p240

Page, D.N., "Inflation Does Not Explain Time Asymmetry," Nature, vol. 304 (July 7, 1983), pp39-41

Rifkin, J., Entropy: A New World View, New York: Viking Press, 1980, p305

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