It’s Entropy

Neil MacLennan June 11, 2025 0 0

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Genesis 11: 1-9 (NIVUK)

1 Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. 2 As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.

3 They said to each other, ‘Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.’ They used brick instead of stone, and bitumen for mortar. 4 Then they said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.’

5 But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. 6 The Lord said, ‘If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.’

8 So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. 9 That is why it was called Babel – because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.

“Entropy” is a scientific term roughly denoting the amount of “disorder” in a system. In general, and since the beginning of time, it is always increasing. Indeed, the question of what the universe looks like towards its end time, at maximum entropy (disorder), continues to exercise cosmologists’ coffee break discussions.

That entropy always increases is easy to see: break an egg, burst a balloon or light a fire. These actions create disorder, and are nigh-on impossible to reverse.

However, that does not make entropy undesirable or unhelpful. As the idiom goes, “You can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs.”

Contrast the outcome of the building of the Tower of Babel with the events of Pentecost. Each resulted in the increase of frustration and confusion. However the purpose of both in divine providence reveals that humans being of one earthly mind, purpose and endeavour is a futile ambition; however God shows us that in our diversity — like in the vibrant multilingual explosion of Pentecost — we have unity, in the Godhead: Father, Son, Spirit.

Prayer:

Holy Spirit,

That the world turns and slows, that the sun shines and shrinks and that time passes, relentlessly, does not surprise nor concern us.

That we were born, are living lives, and will die is not news to us.

That we are each different from the other and singularly unique is cause for great delight — not division.

Today I pray for Christian unity, common understanding and a shared vision of our Saviour.

One church, One faith, One Lord.

Amen.