The Way Fayer

The Garden of Eden and the Big Bang tell us a similar story. In fact, many of the creation stories familiar to us follow a similar pattern, at least in regard to one thing: entropy.

Entropy refers to the thermodynamic quantity that characterizes a system’s inability to convert thermal energy into mechanical work. Now, before I lose you, this basically just means that a system is disorganized and cannot function properly because of that disorder. Therefore, in lay man’s terms—which are essential to me because I know about as much thermodynamics as a toddler knows algebra—entropy means disorder. It’s like trying to hold together a crumbling gingerbread house … if it were to continue fragmenting, melting, and expanding until there was nothing to be done except watch it spill over the edge of the table.

In our creation stories, we often start with an orderly universe. In Genesis, God creates the heavens and the earth. Then, he proceeds to create all the beautiful and banal parts of our creation that mesmerize us at times and dull our attention at others. The beauty of a sunset versus the monotonous drone of a fly. In Genesis, God orders creation into existence.

Meanwhile, the Big Bang tells us that the universe was once contained into a ball several trillionths the size of the period that ends this sentence. All that is—matter, gravity, space, time, energy—ordered perfectly (?) into this ridiculously small margin.

But what happened? In both cases, revolution. In Genesis, Adam and Eve rebel against God’s order in the Garden of Eden. In the Big Bang, energy rebels within, creating an “inflation field” that rapidly expands the universe by some mysterious force. 13.8 billion years later, here we are.

Thus, the fall of man sets entropy in motion quite like this subtle instability within the infinitesimal universe expands disorder to unfathomable proportions at the beginning of time.

For this reason, it is far easier to smash glass on the floor than it is to put it back together. We live in entropy. So to work on maintaining, conserving, building, we have to defy the very system that leads us to destroy. An entropic revolution.

Why do we lie? To avoid responsibility. Why do we hate others? Because we hate ourselves. Why do we cheat? For the same reason we steal: to get what we want. Why do we leave? Because staying entails facing the darkness and fighting entropy into submission. But if we fail to do this, is anything really worth fighting for? Perhaps not. Why do we get divorced? Because we don’t think it is. Entropy pulls things apart, disintegrating us, society, and existence itself.

Nevertheless, in many ways destruction is a new creation. The Big Bang certainly thinks so. Children exist as a consequence of entropy, and entropy is not all bad. It allows us to multiply. If you are tricked into thinking it is all good, however, it will separate you from your family, your spouse, yourself, and, ultimately, from God. God is greater than entropy, that’s the pillar we ought to cling to. Those who fail in this regard risk letting their minds, bodies, and spirits dissolve into the stardust from which they came never to take form again. The infinite expansion into the black hole.

But maybe we are all destined for this fate. And yet, isn’t it better to give it our all in hopes of love prevailing? Isn’t it more stable to suppose that love is as much a cosmic force as gravity or matter? Maybe love was the mysterious force that caused the expansion. Maybe God is love. Maybe love regulates entropy so that necessary change can occur while teaching us how to protect those things that should never be broken. Maybe love can bring us back together.

Love: not the googly-eyed b.s. we see on TV. True, sacrificial, die-on-the-cross-for type love.

The wonderful thing about Genesis is that it does not contradict the Big Bang, nor does the Big Bang contradict Genesis. Both work together, literally and symbolically, to paint a picture for us to learn from thousands of years after human beings spoke to each other for the first time. So why don’t we? Why don’t we speak to each other? Why don’t we learn? I think it’s time to prioritize love over entropy.

Amor vincit omnia.