Order out of Chaos

The Orign of Order

1In the beginning when God created (ex hihilo, out of nothing) the heavens and the earth, 2 the earth was formless and void void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. 3 Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light. 4 And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

6 And God said, ‘Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.’ 7 So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so. 8 God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.

9 And God said, ‘Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.’ And it was so. 10 God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. 11Then God said, ‘Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it.’ And it was so. 12 The earth brought forth vegetation: plants yielding seed of every kind, and trees of every kind bearing fruit with the seed in it. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.

14 And God said, ‘Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, 15and let them be lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth.’ And it was so. 16 God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. 17 God set them in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth,18to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.

20 And God said, ‘Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the sky.’ 21 So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, of every kind, with which the waters swarm, and every winged bird of every kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them, saying, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.’ 23 And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.

24 And God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind.’ And it was so. 25 God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind, and the cattle of every kind, and everything that creeps upon the ground of every kind. And God saw that it was good.

26 Then God said, ‘Let us make mankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.’ 

27 So God created mankind in his image,
   in the image of God he created them;
   male and female he created them. 

28 God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.’ 29 God said, ‘See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. 30And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.’ And it was so. 31 God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. (Genesis One)

There is nothing new under the sun, Solomon said 3000 years ago. (Ecclesiastes). I’m always looking for new truth having forgotten what I once knew! So it is with Entropy. What prompted my new search today was fresh realization of the brokenness, disorder, chaos on every side. It’s not secret anymore!

I also remembered today that truth never changes. If something was once true it’s still true today.

Pontius Pilate made a big mistake when he said “What is truth?” When THE truth was standing in front of him. At least Pilate told the Jews he found to fault in Jesus (John 18:38)

One of my must interesting classes in Physics was Thermodynamics. I still have the textbook 65 years later and the basics are still true! The Law of gravity is still true. So is the “law of sin and death.”

In regard to the coming new creation what Ray Stedman said half a century ago come to mind, “God is going to save everything that can possibly be saved. But then He will destroy what can not be saved.”

I looked today through my old notes on the original creation.  My notes are disordered of course, that is, high in entropy. Low entropy means high order, lots of energy available to do useful work.

God apparently created the universe by first creating (ex nihilo, out of nothing) all the necessary elements and then assembling them. His two-stage work was “forming and filling.” Order out of chaos never happens by chance, or by time plus chance. in real life. There must always be an intelligent cause. There is no such thing as chance! There are no accidents, either. Every effect has a cause, though that seems not to be so in our chaotic, disordered world. The proponents of the Big Bang Hypothesis admit they know nothing about prevailing conditions before the t=0 event happened. (Was there a God? No one knows, they often say).

Science as we know it is limited to observations about the natural world! Scientific inquiry into the universe is mostly gained by observations made by man's five senses. The range of these senses is today greatly extended by cameras and sensors which permit measurements of sounds and vibrations beyond the range of hearing, light waves above and below the range of the eye (by many orders of magnitude), and a host of other detectors too numerous to mention.

What is measured very much has to do with the physical world. Science does poorly with one-of-a-kind events such as a resurrection from the dead, or a few UFO sightings, or an annually-weeping statue. Science does well when many measurements of phenomena can be made and independently confirmed by other (hopefully objective) observers. And, science does poorly when attempting to deal with the spiritual world.

In situations where a large amount of data can be acquired, it is often possible to process this information statistically in search of orderly patterns and "laws." When patterns or trends are found, extrapolations beyond the data at hand can frequently be made and useful predictions follow. If trends are observed very often a mathematical model can be written and a "law" formulated.

Science assumes a rational universe, and laws of nature which are the same everywhere, and laws which are applicable both in the microscopic and macroscopic worlds. Frequently science is faced with describing extremely complex events---such as weather patterns, for instance---where the number of variables is very great and the system changes rapidly in time. Fortunately modern high speed computers have helped immensely with "number crunching" in fields such as aerodynamics, or plasma physics, or weather analysis, and so on.

Modern scientific thought in the West springs from Greek Philosophy and came to us by way of Roman civilization. Science in the West owes a debt to ancient Egypt, to Arabic and to Hebrew culture as well. These days there are some scientists who would draw on Hinduism or other Eastern schools of religious and philosophical thought to better help us understand modern physics and the nature of the cosmos.

Today's scientific discoveries rest on the foundations of previous generations, and many pioneers of science in western science were either Jewish or dedicated followers of Jesus Christ and students of the Bible. Science as we know it in the West is a product of Western Civilization and the roots of this heritage are unmistakably Biblical in origin. A number of philosophers have noted that scientific thought such as we take for granted is a product of Western Civilization with its Roman, Greek and Biblical roots. Our ability to do science then depends on a set of presuppositions and assumptions and on an underlying philosophy. There are rules to be follow and a protocol to be observed, even though the average scientist does not need to remind himself of these ground rules at every step of his work... (See The Limits of Science)

The greater body of information available to us comes by revelation from outside the cosmos. There are vast realms only accessible through knowing God (and He is very knowable). There exists, for example, both a macrocosm and a microcosm with man stationed at the midpoint. But there is reason to believe the universe has 10 or more dimensions--not just the 4 science is preoccupied with. If a superior intelligent Being is in fact responsible for our existence, then such a god has it in his power, in his ability, to remain unknown and unknowable should he so choose. Without revelation initiated by God we would know nothing about the nature of this Being.

The Bible, however, declares that the Creator has in fact made Himself known, and has given us a very large body of knowledge about His nature, character, attributes, and activities. The Biblical record, unfolding as it does over the space of hundreds of years, indicates to us that the self-disclosure of God is progressive in history. It was Jesus who said that "all the hidden things of darkness will be brought to light," and "there is nothing secret that will not be made known."

Furthermore the God of the Bible is a Personal God who enters into personal, intimate relationships with individuals and with groups of individuals. No one is looking for God, but He is looking for us! Check it out. You could be wrong in your presuppositions.

1: Water is probably the most remarkable substance known to man. Dr. Ed Boudreaux, a nuclear scientist, showed that all the elements of the periodic table could be generated in a matter of hours or days using H₂O as a working substance, given temperatures and pressures thought to have existed during the six days of creation week. 

2: In systems that seem chaotic there is often hidden order. Waterfalls are a good example. A new field called Fractals unfolded a few decades ago adding to the natural world what was obvious in biological systems. 

3: The Human genome is utterly amazing!

4: The universe is God's "house" --though the heaven of heavens cannot contain Him, (1 Kings 8:27) The universe was constructed in modules, that is in "six days." Time also was created that week. The days are paired--1-4, 2-5, 3-6. See The Uniqueness of Creation Week.