God and Nature Winter 2020
The Ends of the World
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By Lucas Mix
Winter is coming. So say the astronomers. Every light will go out and every hearth grow cold. The stars will sputter and die, scattering ashes until not an ember remains. This is their story, their “cosmology” or logic of the cosmos.
It is not my story. Or, perhaps, it is part of my story—but not all of it. I am a pastor and a biologist, and I am very careful of the stories I tell. Some stories fit together; others do not. The biological story covers four billion years of struggle and strife. It happens in the autumn, with a blaze of color, but it must eventually give way to winter. Life is tragic because it happens in a tragic world.
I tell the Christian story differently: life conquers death, love conquers estrangement, and all things are being made new. The winter of the astronomers is only prologue; Easter comes in the spring. The order matters. Christian cosmology redeems the tragedies of life, their brevity and pain; it never denies them. With Job, I wonder why God makes us pass through winter, through the suffering and death. And yet, when I tell the story in the right order—evolution within entropy, and entropy before resurrection—the pieces fit.
Many worry about evolutionary stories and their cosmology. Can we reconcile the suffering and death of Darwin with the hope and life of Christ? I believe we can. The world of biology labors in futility. Biological life cannot defeat death, nor should we ask it to. And yet, death remains our foe. We turn to God, a greater power and a longer story.
Winter is coming. So say the astronomers. Every light will go out and every hearth grow cold. The stars will sputter and die, scattering ashes until not an ember remains. This is their story, their “cosmology” or logic of the cosmos.
It is not my story. Or, perhaps, it is part of my story—but not all of it. I am a pastor and a biologist, and I am very careful of the stories I tell. Some stories fit together; others do not. The biological story covers four billion years of struggle and strife. It happens in the autumn, with a blaze of color, but it must eventually give way to winter. Life is tragic because it happens in a tragic world.
I tell the Christian story differently: life conquers death, love conquers estrangement, and all things are being made new. The winter of the astronomers is only prologue; Easter comes in the spring. The order matters. Christian cosmology redeems the tragedies of life, their brevity and pain; it never denies them. With Job, I wonder why God makes us pass through winter, through the suffering and death. And yet, when I tell the story in the right order—evolution within entropy, and entropy before resurrection—the pieces fit.
Many worry about evolutionary stories and their cosmology. Can we reconcile the suffering and death of Darwin with the hope and life of Christ? I believe we can. The world of biology labors in futility. Biological life cannot defeat death, nor should we ask it to. And yet, death remains our foe. We turn to God, a greater power and a longer story.
"But I also see glory in birth and cooperation, light in the darkness." |
Entropy: The Coming Dark
The farther we look backward in time, the hotter things get. Look far enough—approaching fourteen billion years—and it all becomes a bright fog of plasma. Beyond that, no one can see. Astronomers argue that the pattern continues all the way back to a single cosmic explosion: the Big Bang. The universe expanded and cooled. Stars and galaxies formed from hydrogen and helium.
Looking forward, we see dark energy pushing the galaxies apart. Stars burn through their fuel. Small stars fade to smoldering embers while large stars collapse into black holes that consume everything around them before slowly evaporating. Trillions of years from now, the last star will die, and the great dark will begin: Heat Death. Dark energy will scatter the ashes until nothing remains but a vast desolate expanse. The last remnants of matter and energy will be too distant to interact. And still they will drift apart.
The universe is a colossal engine, converting energy into distance. It consumes heat and light; it produces time and space. A bit poetic, perhaps, but the best physics usually is. Physicists call this ancient story the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Entropy, the disorder of a system, must increase unless some outside force intervenes. Christians call it impermanence and mortality. Ashes to ashes and dust to dust. As Dickens said about Marley’s death at the beginning of A Christmas Carol, “This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate.”
Evolution: Candles in the Dark
Biology happens between the extremes, fiery heavens and fathomless deep. A living world needs just the right amount of energy and entropy. There is a time and a place: a star of the right age, a planet at the right distance, a thin layer of ocean and atmosphere—a “habitable zone.” Heaven and earth can be metaphor and allegory. They can also be quite literal: sky and ground, hot and cold, Big Bang and Heat Death.
When biologists tell the story of life, they speak of evolution by natural selection. Three to four billion years ago something wonderful happened. In the thin space between too hot and too cold, molecules gained meaning. They kept records, managed metabolism, and constructed cells. They changed their environment and were changed by it. They were fruitful and multiplied. No one knows how that first community started. Lightning struck in a warm little pond. Waves stirred up a tidepool. Water seeped through cracks and crevices, enlivening the deep. Glowing rocks quickened chemistry. All of these things occurred, and more.
Cells evolved. They hunted and gathered. When the time was ripe, they copied themselves, obeying the rules of entropy. Copies take energy and good copies take even more. Perfect copies take too much. So, the cells made imperfect copies. Replication led to variation, countless copies in endless variety.
Entropy balances energy and space; too much of one means too little of the other. So there was always a struggle for limited resources. New varieties replaced the old in wave after wave of conquest. Evolution rewarded innovation and efficiency, cooperation and complexity. No selfishness was required, no desire for dominance. Replication, variation, and limitation were enough: imperfect copies in an imperfect world. Organisms, like the stars, burn through fuel, genes and cells riding the wave of increasing entropy.
Evolution lights candles in a dark world: community and communication, memory and innovation, warmth and stability. There have always been limits to energy and space. Call it too little or too much or just the right amount. Evolution makes use of what there is.
“Endless Forms Most Beautiful”
I have friends who think that evolution involves too much suffering and death. I understand their distress, but I do not share it. From a single cell, I grew into an adult. And then I stopped; I am big enough. Moderation keeps me healthy and leaves more for others. I have enough air and food, energy and space. I have enough time as well. I cannot say how long this life will last, but I will make use of what there is.
A single life can be too short or too long, but length alone does not determine value. I would never shorten a life unjustly, nor pay too high a price to make it long. A short life may be better than a long one, when lived for God.
Every life shines in the darkness and the number of deaths must ultimately be equal to the number of births. I give thanks for countless lives, myriad species in myriad generations, long and short, easy and hard, happy and sad. My own life will pass like a dream in the morning. Who am I to say another life is too short to matter? Nor can suffering diminish the value of a life. It is the price we pay for existence and the fuel we consume. I would never cause pain unjustly, nor pay too high a price to avoid it, but I accept pain as part of life.
Job cried out to God, asking for oblivion. “O, that I had never been born.” But he reconsidered. He chose hope and continued his conversation with an inscrutable God. Job chose the difficult relationship; I pray I will always make the same choice. And, if I choose life for myself, I dare not prefer death for another. The briefest, hardest life is still time spent with God. Endless lives in endless variation have incalculable value. I cannot fault evolution for suffering and death. Within the limits of entropy, evolution bears wondrous fruit. It brightens the autumn with extravagant color. But, ultimately, it gives way to winter.
Hope for a Tree Cut Down
I suspect our real problem is entropy. We want an endless summer, where biology defeats physics and astronomy. Some speak of minds or souls as an invading army, unnatural rulers of nature. Others speak of them as lifeboats, fleeing a sinking ship. Such “vitalism” pits biology and physics against each other. Whether we call it Idealism, Progressivism, or Transhumanism—whether we label it religious or secular—this tale does not sit well with science or Christianity.
Biologists accept the basic laws of physics. Evolution is in thrall to entropy. It depends on scarcity and the inevitability of death. I see the tragedy there, the burden of constant competition. But I also see glory in birth and cooperation, light in the darkness. We cannot blame evolution for the limits of the universe and the thinness of the habitable zone. Entropy ensures the end of every plant and every animal. The universe itself will come to an end.
Christians also accept the basic laws of physics, but we claim that they too shall end. There will be a death of death, a new life and a new spring. But, one year must end before another begins. Jesus promised this life was only the prologue. “Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24).
And Death Shall Have No Dominion
Evolution is a creature as much as any plant or animal. It cannot save us from death and suffering. To ask it would be idolatry. Entropy has been written into the very foundations of the universe. That is the fate God saves us from, the unbearable brevity of life. That is our starting point, even though it is not our final end. It may be good to limit biology. It may be good to say this is enough control, enough knowledge, enough certainty for now. Even our faults are finite. “Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death so that we would rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead” (2 Cor. 1:9).
I do not blame evolution. Evolution works with what it finds. I blame entropy.
Like Job, I sometimes question God’s wisdom in putting me here, but I choose a life in conversation anyway. God’s partial explanation satisfies me more than no explanation at all. Meanwhile, I wait for the longer story. Let evolution be evolution. Let winter come. Let entropy gobble up the universe. Biological life, with all its suffering and death, is sufficient, as I continue to listen to God speaking and wait for something even more wonderful than the life I know.
Lucas Mix is a writer and speaker specializing in theoretical and theological biology. He received a PhD in Evolutionary Biology from Harvard University and an MDiv from the Church Divinity School of the Pacific in Berkeley, CA. He serves as an officer in the Society of Ordained Scientists and maintains a blog on contemporary Christianity.
The farther we look backward in time, the hotter things get. Look far enough—approaching fourteen billion years—and it all becomes a bright fog of plasma. Beyond that, no one can see. Astronomers argue that the pattern continues all the way back to a single cosmic explosion: the Big Bang. The universe expanded and cooled. Stars and galaxies formed from hydrogen and helium.
Looking forward, we see dark energy pushing the galaxies apart. Stars burn through their fuel. Small stars fade to smoldering embers while large stars collapse into black holes that consume everything around them before slowly evaporating. Trillions of years from now, the last star will die, and the great dark will begin: Heat Death. Dark energy will scatter the ashes until nothing remains but a vast desolate expanse. The last remnants of matter and energy will be too distant to interact. And still they will drift apart.
The universe is a colossal engine, converting energy into distance. It consumes heat and light; it produces time and space. A bit poetic, perhaps, but the best physics usually is. Physicists call this ancient story the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Entropy, the disorder of a system, must increase unless some outside force intervenes. Christians call it impermanence and mortality. Ashes to ashes and dust to dust. As Dickens said about Marley’s death at the beginning of A Christmas Carol, “This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate.”
Evolution: Candles in the Dark
Biology happens between the extremes, fiery heavens and fathomless deep. A living world needs just the right amount of energy and entropy. There is a time and a place: a star of the right age, a planet at the right distance, a thin layer of ocean and atmosphere—a “habitable zone.” Heaven and earth can be metaphor and allegory. They can also be quite literal: sky and ground, hot and cold, Big Bang and Heat Death.
When biologists tell the story of life, they speak of evolution by natural selection. Three to four billion years ago something wonderful happened. In the thin space between too hot and too cold, molecules gained meaning. They kept records, managed metabolism, and constructed cells. They changed their environment and were changed by it. They were fruitful and multiplied. No one knows how that first community started. Lightning struck in a warm little pond. Waves stirred up a tidepool. Water seeped through cracks and crevices, enlivening the deep. Glowing rocks quickened chemistry. All of these things occurred, and more.
Cells evolved. They hunted and gathered. When the time was ripe, they copied themselves, obeying the rules of entropy. Copies take energy and good copies take even more. Perfect copies take too much. So, the cells made imperfect copies. Replication led to variation, countless copies in endless variety.
Entropy balances energy and space; too much of one means too little of the other. So there was always a struggle for limited resources. New varieties replaced the old in wave after wave of conquest. Evolution rewarded innovation and efficiency, cooperation and complexity. No selfishness was required, no desire for dominance. Replication, variation, and limitation were enough: imperfect copies in an imperfect world. Organisms, like the stars, burn through fuel, genes and cells riding the wave of increasing entropy.
Evolution lights candles in a dark world: community and communication, memory and innovation, warmth and stability. There have always been limits to energy and space. Call it too little or too much or just the right amount. Evolution makes use of what there is.
“Endless Forms Most Beautiful”
I have friends who think that evolution involves too much suffering and death. I understand their distress, but I do not share it. From a single cell, I grew into an adult. And then I stopped; I am big enough. Moderation keeps me healthy and leaves more for others. I have enough air and food, energy and space. I have enough time as well. I cannot say how long this life will last, but I will make use of what there is.
A single life can be too short or too long, but length alone does not determine value. I would never shorten a life unjustly, nor pay too high a price to make it long. A short life may be better than a long one, when lived for God.
Every life shines in the darkness and the number of deaths must ultimately be equal to the number of births. I give thanks for countless lives, myriad species in myriad generations, long and short, easy and hard, happy and sad. My own life will pass like a dream in the morning. Who am I to say another life is too short to matter? Nor can suffering diminish the value of a life. It is the price we pay for existence and the fuel we consume. I would never cause pain unjustly, nor pay too high a price to avoid it, but I accept pain as part of life.
Job cried out to God, asking for oblivion. “O, that I had never been born.” But he reconsidered. He chose hope and continued his conversation with an inscrutable God. Job chose the difficult relationship; I pray I will always make the same choice. And, if I choose life for myself, I dare not prefer death for another. The briefest, hardest life is still time spent with God. Endless lives in endless variation have incalculable value. I cannot fault evolution for suffering and death. Within the limits of entropy, evolution bears wondrous fruit. It brightens the autumn with extravagant color. But, ultimately, it gives way to winter.
Hope for a Tree Cut Down
I suspect our real problem is entropy. We want an endless summer, where biology defeats physics and astronomy. Some speak of minds or souls as an invading army, unnatural rulers of nature. Others speak of them as lifeboats, fleeing a sinking ship. Such “vitalism” pits biology and physics against each other. Whether we call it Idealism, Progressivism, or Transhumanism—whether we label it religious or secular—this tale does not sit well with science or Christianity.
Biologists accept the basic laws of physics. Evolution is in thrall to entropy. It depends on scarcity and the inevitability of death. I see the tragedy there, the burden of constant competition. But I also see glory in birth and cooperation, light in the darkness. We cannot blame evolution for the limits of the universe and the thinness of the habitable zone. Entropy ensures the end of every plant and every animal. The universe itself will come to an end.
Christians also accept the basic laws of physics, but we claim that they too shall end. There will be a death of death, a new life and a new spring. But, one year must end before another begins. Jesus promised this life was only the prologue. “Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24).
And Death Shall Have No Dominion
Evolution is a creature as much as any plant or animal. It cannot save us from death and suffering. To ask it would be idolatry. Entropy has been written into the very foundations of the universe. That is the fate God saves us from, the unbearable brevity of life. That is our starting point, even though it is not our final end. It may be good to limit biology. It may be good to say this is enough control, enough knowledge, enough certainty for now. Even our faults are finite. “Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death so that we would rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead” (2 Cor. 1:9).
I do not blame evolution. Evolution works with what it finds. I blame entropy.
Like Job, I sometimes question God’s wisdom in putting me here, but I choose a life in conversation anyway. God’s partial explanation satisfies me more than no explanation at all. Meanwhile, I wait for the longer story. Let evolution be evolution. Let winter come. Let entropy gobble up the universe. Biological life, with all its suffering and death, is sufficient, as I continue to listen to God speaking and wait for something even more wonderful than the life I know.
Lucas Mix is a writer and speaker specializing in theoretical and theological biology. He received a PhD in Evolutionary Biology from Harvard University and an MDiv from the Church Divinity School of the Pacific in Berkeley, CA. He serves as an officer in the Society of Ordained Scientists and maintains a blog on contemporary Christianity.