Defending the Faith by Henry Morris

Author:Henry Morris
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: RELIGION / Religion & Science, RELIGION / Christian Theology / Apologetics
ISBN: 978-1-61458-118-5
Publisher: Master Books
Published: 2011-07-07T16:00:00+00:00

Physical Sciences

Let us take the physical sciences first. Psalm 102:25–27 is quoted in Hebrews 1:10–12: "Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands: They shall perish; but thou remainest; and they all shall wax old as doth a garment; And as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed: but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail." There are numerous other references in the Bible to the same effect. This whole physical creation, the heavens and the earth, are now in the process of getting old. They are wearing out. The sun is sending out great quantities of energy, but someday it will burn out. So will all the other stars. Heaven and earth are passing away, but Jesus says His Word will not pass away (Matt. 24:35).

This phenomenon of decay, of increased entropy, of increased probability, proceeding from a state of high organization and complexity to a state of low organization and complexity, is essentially the condition that the second law of thermodynamics describes. It has universal applicability in every field of physical science.

That is why, for example, in engineering, it is impossible to make a perpetual motion machine. Many people have tried, and large numbers of ingenuous devices have been sent to the patent office. Without exception they are thrown out, however, because perpetual motion machines are known to be impossible according to the second law of thermodynamics. One cannot get something out of nothing: in fact, he cannot even keep what he has, for it will eventually run down or wear out.

This is also why we cannot design a machine that is 100 percent efficient. We try to design our processes and our machines to be as efficient as possible, in an attempt to approach that 100 percent, but we can’t make it. Inevitably, some of the energy that goes into the process will be degraded through friction into low-level heat energy, no longer available for useful work.

Not only is this principle true in the processes of energy conversion, but it is even true in the structure of matter itself. Here the term "configurational entropy" is used. The crystal structure of solids, for example, steel or a similar substance, ideally should be perfect in its structure. We normally visualize a crystal as being of an ideal geometric shape. Actually, however, there is no such thing as a perfect crystal; all of them have defects. In terms of God’s perfect creation, it is hard to understand why every material in the world is defective. There are many kinds of defects: impurities enter, or there are vacancies where an atom ought to be, or something else. Inevitably, there are defects in every solid, and the location and character of these defects determine the particular strength or other properties of the material. The configurational entropy is simply a measure of the degree of disorder in such a structure.

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