There are miso-theists or just unbelieving Christians who argue that miracles just can’t happen because they defy the laws of physics. The universe is set on a path ultimately leading to a cold dark future. Entropy cannot be stopped. There was no Creator other than the laws of physics.
However a proper understanding of the sustaining power of the Creator over His whole creation builds faith and trust in Him.
In the Exodus account we read that the Lord God spoke to Moses out of the ‘burning bush’. But the bush was not consumed.
2 And the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the middle of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. 3 And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt.
Exodus 3:2-3 AKJV
Why is this so unusual? It is because from natural experience we expect the fire to consume the bush. This is our familiar experience with the Second Law of Thermodynamics, whether we know the name of it or not.
When energy is released from burning, or any oxidation process, the end state of the material being burnt is ashes. The ashes are disorganised wood or other combustibles, if I can put it that way.
In all reactions, left to themselves, the end state is more randomised than the initial state. That randomisation is called entropy. The forward march of time is determined by entropy always increasing. Most people are familiar with that when we call it decay.
All systems tend to decay. Only if there is intelligent machinery that reverses that decay, that is, repairs and rebuilds the products of decay, is it ever reversed.
Fire causes this decay. All oxidation processes lead to decay (an increase in entropy), and that includes metals rusting, wood rotting, etc. Eventually they all go to dust.
So when Moses saw the bush on fire but not being consumed it appeared miraculous and he took notice.
When any organism dies it cools down, comes into equilibrium with the temperature of its environment and slowly turns to dust.
29 You hide Your face, and they are troubled; You gather their breath, and they expire and return to their dust. 30 You send out Your Spirit, and they are created; and You renew the face of the earth.
Psalm 104:29-30 KJ3
Without the sustaining power of the Creator all living things return to dust.
Not only that, the whole creation was created thermodynamically such that energy can be derived from it. The sun has enormous amounts of energy and it is pouring out that energy as it is running down the thermodynamic hill. At the bottom of that hill it would become cold and dead.
But is that the whole story?
Look at the creation in a different way. We see the 2nd Law operating but we also see the fabric of the universe remaining intact.
3a He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.
Hebrews 1:3a ESV
God upholds the universe; He holds it together and to do so He uses some power which we could call His sustaining power. If it didn’t exist everything would decay instantly, instead it takes some time to do so. So this sustaining power operates against decay, slows it down.
In the case of the burning bush, God increased His sustaining power to a level which meant the bush was being regenerated as fast as it was burning.
I once theorised that in the future there will come a time when this will happen to the whole universe, and it will be maintained by the Creator forever. Read Our Eternal Universe.
The physics of entropy and the laws of thermodynamics are only one side of the story. The other side is this sustaining power of God.
5 To Him making the heavens by understanding, For to the age is His kindness. 6 To Him spreading the earth over the waters, For to the age is His kindness. 7 To Him making great lights, For to the age is His kindness.
Psalm 136:5-7 YLT
The correct tense of these verses is continuous. God is continuously maintaining His creation, making the heavens, the stars and the planets. He is continuously holding together the fabric of the cosmos.
7 לְעֹשֵׂה אֹורִים גְּדֹלִים כִּי לְעֹולָם חַסְדֹּֽו׃
Psalm 136:7 WLC (Westminster Leningrad Codex)
This is the tense in the original Hebrew text and that is also seen in the Greek Septuagint.
7 τω ποιησαντι φωτα μεγαλα μονω οτι εις τον αιωνα το ελεος αυτου
Psalm 136:7 LXX (Septuagint)
I don’t read Greek so I used the ABP Greek-English Interlinear to check this.
7 τω To the ποιήσαντι one making φώτα [2 lights μεγάλα 1 the great] μόνω alone, ότι for εις into τον the αιώνα eon το έλεος αυτού is his mercy.
Psalm 136:7 ABP (Apostolic Bible Polyglot Greek-English Interlinear)
My point is that we have no experience with a universe without the Creator’s sustaining power. The current universe with His sustainment is something we accept from experience but without any thought. It is by the Word of His power that He upholds His creation.
1 In many ways and in various ways of old, God having spoken to the fathers in the prophets; 2 in these last days He spoke to us in the Son, whom He appointed heir of all things; through whom He indeed made the ages; 3 who being the shining splendor of His glory, and the express image of His essence, and bearing up all things by the Word of His power, having made purification of our sins through Himself, He sat down on the right of the Majesty on high,
Hebrews 1:1-3 KJ3
The Creator created all things, but also He created the laws of physics of the universe. The decay process is just one of those laws.
10 And, “You, Lord, at the beginning laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are works of Your hands. 11 They will vanish away, but You will
continue; and all things will become old, like a garment, 12 and You shall fold them up like a covering, and they shall be changed. But You are the same, and Your years shall not fail.”Hebrews 1:10-13 KJ3
25 Before time You founded the earth, and the heavens are the work of Your hands. 26 They shall perish, but You shall endure; yea, all of them shall wear out like a garment; You shall change them like clothing, and they shall be changed.
Psalm 102:26-27 KJ3
We could call this sustaining power of God another law of physics. It is another of those invisible things that God sometimes manipulates and when He does so we call it a miracle. He increased it’s sustainment or reduced it depending on what He was doing. We only see it manifest in the physical, like in the case of the burning bush.
20 For the unseen things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things made, both His eternal power and divinity, for them to be without excuse.
Romans 1:20 KJ3
The visible creation then shows us the hand of the invisible God on His creation. He is the unseen Master Operator behind the laws of the universe.
Creation is not a product of random decay processes. Life did not arise by random rearrangement of chemicals in some pond scum billions of years ago. Those Satanic ideas resulted from a rejection of the Creator and the laws He imposed on the creation.
15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
Colossians 1:15-17 KJ3
The 2nd Law works to drive all systems into greater entropy and decay. It is part of His creation. And it was not a result of the Curse after Adam sinned. No, the 2nd Law was created from Day 1 of creation.
The Curse resulted as God withdrew some of His sustaining power. Prior to that God’s sustainment meant that the creation was perfect and constantly being replenished just like the burning bush was not consumed.
The 2nd Law must have been in operation in the Garden before Adam and Eve sinned because they ate and digestion requires it. The 2nd law is intrinsically connected to deriving energy from food.
From a study of thermodynamics we learn that the state of the universe came only from the intelligent Mind of the Creator. It cannot come from materialism, i.e. from only matter and energy.
This has been acknowledged by intelligent reasoning physicists. I quote here from one of my old university level physics textbooks on thermodynamics wherein the authors wrote:
“… we see the second law of thermodynamics as a description of the prior and continuing work of the creator, who also holds the answer to our future destiny and that of the universe.” (my emphasis added)
Richard E. Sonntag and Gordon J. Van Wylen, 1982, Introduction to Thermodynamics, Classical and Statistical, 2nd Edition, John Wiley and Sons, page 271.
The hand of the Creator holds together the fabric of space, and the particles within it.
6 You, even you, are LORD alone; you have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth, and all things that are therein, the seas, and all that is therein, and you preserve them all; and the host of heaven worships you.
Nehemiah 9:6 AKJV
The anti-theists agree that the laws of physics are consistent and continuing. That is, those laws that we have not been able to refute in laboratory experiments. (That is why they are called laws.) But why should that be? Why aren’t those laws constantly changing and decaying?
3 By faith we understand the ages [worlds] to have been framed by a Word of God, so that the things being visible should not come into being out of things being seen.
Hebrews 11:3 KJ3
I suggest it is because of the invisible hand of God; He is constantly sustaining His creation. This true for the world in this age, until sometime in the future where the Creator may change those laws.
5 For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago [thousands not billions of years ago], and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, 6 and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished [in the flood in Noah’s time]. 7 But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.
2 Peter 3:5-7 ESV
God changed the world in Noah’s time and He can do it again. He has said so, soon in the coming the resurrection of all people and the final judgment of the wicked.
But until that time comes, God has promised that the cycles of life on Earth will continue as they always have. No Climate Cult scam should be believed over the Word of God.
22 While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.
Genesis 8:22 AKJV
We are the creation of the Living God. It is by His sustaining power that we have any life at all.
28 For in Him [God] we live and move and exist, as also some of the poets among you have said, For we are also His offspring.
Acts 17:28 KJ3
4 The Spirit of God made me, and the breath of the Almighty enlivened me.
Job 33:4 KJ3
Recognising the sustaining power of the Creator encourages our faith and trust in Him as we acknowledge His sovereignty over all things.
22 Cast your burden on the LORD, and He will sustain you; He will never allow the righteous to be shaken.
Psalm 55:22 HCSB
His daily provision to all creation testifies to this sustainment. He will never permit your faith to be shaken if you put your trust in Him.
His Holy Spirit power pervades and sustains all creation. This is illustrated by the Creator in the beginning.
1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
Genesis 1:1-2 ESV
God created the heavens and the earth, meaning the whole universe, including all the physical laws it operates by and He superintends, or hovers over, that creation, sustaining it until the end of the age.
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One response to “The Sustaining Power of the Creator”
Interesting idea that the sustaining power of God is another law of physics.
And that the fall involved not the start of entropy but the relaxing of the sustaining power of God which was operating from the first day of Creation.
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