The Second Law of Thermodynamics (The Law of Entropy)

The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that left to themselves and abandoned to natural conditions, all systems in the universe will move towards irregularity, disorder and corruption in direct relation to the passage of time. This is also known as the Law of Entropy. In physics, entropy is a measurement of the irregularity within a system. A system's passage from a regular organized and planned state to an irregular, disordered and unplanned one increases that system's entropy. This means that the more irregularity in a system, the higher its level of entropy.

If you abandon a car to natural conditions, it will age, rust and decay. In the same way, in the absence of a conscious order, all systems in the universe tend towards chaos. This is an inescapable law of nature.

This is something we all observe during the course of our daily lives. For example, if you leave a car in the desert and go back to it some months later, of course you can't expect it to have become more advanced and better maintained. On the contrary, you will find the tires have gone flat, the windows are cracked, the metalwork has rusted and the battery is dead.. Or if you leave your home to its own devices, you will see that it becomes untidier and dustier with every passing day. That process can be reversed only by conscious intervention-by your tidying and dusting it.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics, or the Law of Entropy, has been definitively proven by theory and experiment. Albert Einstein, described it as the first law of all the sciences. In his book Entropy: A World View, the American scientist Jeremy Rifkin says:

The Entropy Law will preside as the ruling paradigm over the next period of history. Albert Einstein said that it is the premier law of all science: Sir Arthur Eddington referred to it as the supreme metaphysical law of the entire universe.210

The Law of Entropy definitively invalidates the materialist view that the universe is an assembly of matter closed to all forms of supernatural intervention. There is evident order in the universe, although the universe's own laws should work to corrupt that order. From this, two conclusions emerge:

1. The universe has not, as materialists suggest, existed for all time. Were that the case, the Second Law of Thermodynamics would long ago have done its work, and the universe would have become a homogeneous collection of matter with no order to it at all.
2. The claim that after the Big Bang, the universe took shape with no supernatural intervention or control is also invalid.  In the universe that initially emerged in the wake of the Big Bang, only chaos ruled. Yet the level of order in the universe increased, and the universe eventually attained its present state. Since this took place in violation of the law of entropy, the universe must have been  ordered by way of a supernatural creation.

The order in the universe reveals the existence of Allah, sublime ruler of the universe. The Nobel Prize-winning German physicist Max Planck describes this order:

At all events we should say, in summing up, that, according to everything taught by the exact sciences about the immense realm of nature in which our tiny planet plays an insignificant role, a certain order prevails-one independent of the human mind. Yet, in so far as we are able to ascertain through our senses, this order can be formulated in terms of purposeful activity. There is evidence of an intelligent order of the universe. 211

Materialism, which maintains that the universe has existed for ever and has never been ordered in any way, is today in an impasse in the face of the universe's great equilibrium. The well-known British physicist Paul Davies says:

Everywhere we look in the Universe, from the far-flung galaxies to the deepest recesses of the atom, we encounter order. . . Central to the idea of a very special, orderly Universe is the concept of information. A highly structured system, displaying a great deal of organised activity, needs a lot of information to describe it. Alternatively, we may say that it contains much information.

We are therefore presented with a curious question. If information and order always has a natural tendency to disappear, where did all the information that makes the world such a special place come from originally? The Universe is like a clock slowly running down. How did it get wound up in the first place? 212

Well, a priori one should expect that the world would be rendered lawful [obedient to law and order] only to the extent that we [human beings] intervene with our ordering intelligence... [But instead we find] in the objective world a high degree of order that we were a priori in no way authorized to expect. This is the "miracle" that is strengthened more and more with the development of our knowledge.213

The order in the universe, which contains such enormous information, was brought into being by a supreme Creator and Lord of the universe. To put it another way, Allah has created and ordered the entire universe.

210. Jeremy Rifkin, Entropy: A New World View, New York: Viking Press, 1980, p. 6.
211. Barth, A., "The Creation In the Light of Modern Science," (1966) Jerusalem Post Press, Jerusalem, p. 144.
212. Paul Davies, The Accidental Universe, 1982, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Preface.
213. Albert Einstein, Letters to Maurice Solovine, 1956, pp.114-115.