Entropy

We believe in an inexorable and inevitable force called "entropy" in which all things break down over time to it's lowest energy state. Everything slows down. Everything dissipates energy, finally ending up in nothing. Every star runs out of hydrogen power. Every person is dying the day they are born. Every living thing will die, some in only minutes from birth, others in hundreds of years, but die they will. Mountains will wear down. Energy will cease. Eventually, all will become as one mass of rock with dispersed energy that cannot be focused. Death. Destruction. Waste. Nothing. Utter loss and disintegration. It's inevitable. It's inexorable. It is the end of all the Universe.

However, what if this energy to destroy is confined to a certain area, time, or sphere? The power to destroy is balanced by a power to create. There is a creative power that is the force of life. Life creates, inexorably, inevitably, and abundantly! The life force is the ability to improve, build, grow, increase, ascend and expand. It is more. It is redoubling. It creates more than itself and thus continues to grow. There is no end to this growth. Each life can reproduce itself many times over. You may count the seeds in one apple, but you can never count the apples contained in one seed. Eternal increase is just as much a force as entropy!

These are two opposing forces. Both are immutable. Both are ubiquitous. Both are inevitable. But why should either exist at all? Why don't things just always stay the same? It would make more sense if all things just remained as they are, but then there would be nothing -- no life or growth, no death or decay -- just nothing. Existence requires that there be opposition. There must be death if there is to be life. There must be suffering in opposition to joy. There must be a creative force in opposition to entropy. If you have only only one side it's like everything being the same color -- vision requires differences in shade, color and hue. If everything were the same color, there would be no way to see anything -- vision would not exist. Likewise hearing requires high, low, loud, soft, silence, and sound, or there is no hearing. If everything makes the same noise no information can be passed, and we may as well be deaf. Hot requires the opposing cold in order to exist.

Lehi explains to his son this concept:
For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so, my first-born in the wilderness, righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one; wherefore, if it should be one body it must needs remain as dead, having no life neither death, nor corruption nor incorruption, happiness nor misery, neither sense nor insensibility.
2 Nephi 2:11

Life requires opposition. God is life. God must require both good and evil in order to exist. "He comprehendeth all things, and all things are before him, and all things are round about him; and he is above all things, and in all things, and is through all things, and is round about all things; and all things are by him, and of him, even God, forever and ever." (D&C 88:41)

God is all of existence. Just as vision requires both light and darkness, God's creative force brings both life and death, joy and suffering, power and impotence. It's all part of God. He creates both things to act, and things to be acted upon. The things to act have freedom to choose their own fate -- joy or suffering, life or death, power or impotence -- whereas those things that are to be acted upon have little choice, they take what they are given. God not only creates them all, they are all part of Him. He gives them autonomy from Himself and lets them choose their own level of existence. No matter what level they choose, they remain part of Him. Just as a father with two children loves them both even though one is obedient and the other is not, God loves those who choose darkness just as much as those who choose light. In the body we have ten-trillion cells, each of which is independent of all the others. Cells make choices, but generally act in the tissue where they are planted. Some cells are not considered honorable, such as those that inhabit the intestines, whereas those that are the brain cells, that allow us to think, are very honorable. Yet, they are all important. They all serve an important function to the body. We need each one of them in order to function. The pristine and protected brain cells need the down-and-dirty intestinal cells in order to function. In like manner God needs each one of his "trillions" of children, both the children of light, and those of darkness. They are all part of Him.

Those of us imbued with the freedom to choose are in the process of deciding what kind of cell we are going to be in the body of God. Are we going to be a creative force, or destructive? Every minute of every day we make decisions to create or destroy. When we come to the end of our lives, our cumulative choices will determine where we fit in the "body of Christ." The food we eat either builds or destroys our body. The thoughts we think either build faith or doubt. The words we speak either inspire or discourage. We act either in selfishness to destroy those around us like a cancer, or we become self-sacrificing to build those around us. Each thought, word, and deed brings us to our place or function within the Kingdom, Sphere, or Body of God. We are not there yet. We're not yet fully mature. We are picked when we are ripe, when we have matured as far as we can. At this point we are no longer acted-upon, as children, but rather we become a force, either for good or evil. Good is growth, the power of God to give life, the creative force. Evil is the opposition to that creation -- entropy. The choice is ours.