Cosmology and Atheism
By Daniel C. Peterson and William J. Hamblin
One of the most popular and interesting arguments for the existence of a creator (God) involves the so-called Second Law of Thermodynamics. According to this law, processes occurring within a closed system move toward a state of equilibrium. In other words, unless energy is fed into a system from outside, the processes going on within the system will run down and, eventually, quit altogether. Thus, for example, a ticking alarm clock cannot simply keep going by itself. Somebody must wind it up. And unless somebody keeps winding it up, it will cease to function and, finally, will simply sit inertly on the nightstand while you miss your early morning flight. The clock is a closed system. The person winding the clock is its external source of energy.
How does the Second Law of Thermodynamics suggest the existence of a creator? According to an atheistic view, the universe is a gigantic closed system. It is, by definition, everything there is. There is nothing outside it. Therefore, through this view, given enough time, the universe and every process within it must run down to equilibrium. Cosmologists call this the “heat death” of the universe. Once things reach this state, no further motion or change will be possible. The universe will be dead.
This is, in fact, the scenario that many scientists currently predict, although they differ as to what the final state of the cosmos might look like. Present evidence suggests that the universe began roughly fifteen billion years ago, in the famous “Big Bang.” As a consequence of that inconceivable explosion, every part of the universe is still rushing away from every other part, like ripples on the surface of a smooth lake racing away from a pebble’s point of impact.
Some contend that gravity will finally kick in and that the universe will ultimately contract. The cosmos will become one great black hole. Everything will be sucked in; nothing will re-emerge. Others argue that gravity cannot overcome the force of the primordial explosion, and that the universe will simply go on expanding forever. The stars will burn out, protons will decay into electrons and positrons, and space will be filled-if “filled” is the appropriate word-by a gas so thin and rarefied that the gap between neighboring subatomic particles will be roughly the distance across our present galaxy. Equilibrium will occur-a cold, dismal, dark equilibrium-and the entire universe will have achieved its final state. No change will occur again. No motion will take place. Ever.
Here arise the theological questions: If the universe has existed forever, eternally, why has it not reached “heat death” already? Why is it still ticking? The Second Law says that, given enough time, a system will exhaust its usable energy and reach equilibrium. Isn’t eternity enough time? The Second Law permits infusions of energy from outside of a system. But what can be outside the universe? What is its energy source? Who or what keeps winding it up?
Perhaps someone could respond that, in fact, the universe has not existed from all eternity, so that, yes, it is running down but it simply hasn’t reached equilibrium yet. But that poses a challenging problem: If the universe, which an atheist must define as “everything there is” with nothing outside it, came into existence at some time in the finite past, how did that happen? What started it? (That “what” would, again by definition, have to be something or someone outside the universe.) Where did the Big Bang obtain its unfathomably vast energy? What or who wound the whole system up? Why did it begin when it did, and not at some other point in the infinitely available past? How can anything come from utterly nothing?
We still have many things to learn. But it is not obvious that atheism, with its insistence on the universe as a closed system-the totality of what has been, is, and ever can be-has any plausible answers to these questions.
