Does what we know about space and the universe confirm or deny God?

Biblically Speaking

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All right, so we are live with Biblically Speaking. I am absolutely honored to have the first female on my guest, which is weird.

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But I am so glad that you're here, Dr. Leslie Wickman. Dr. Leslie is a PhD and internationally renowned research scientist, engineering consultant, author, and inspirational speaker.

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I hope you inspire us today. You also hold a master's degree in aeronautical and astronautical engineering and a doctoral degree in human factors and biomechanics, both from Stanford.

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What is human factors? Well, that's a great question. I mean, I'm so close to it, I often forget that people don't necessarily know what that is.

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So human factors is looking at kind of the user friendliness aspect of systems.

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So it's basically trying to make any human created system user friendly.

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So it goes by different names. Sometimes ergonomics is another term you might have heard.

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But ergonomics has to do with measurements of human capabilities to work.

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And that's part of human factors. In the aerospace industry, we often refer to this as crew systems, which is basically helping the crew to get their job done.

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Got it. Wow. It covers a wide span of disciplines, including engineering, typically, often industrial engineering because industrial engineering deals with the kind of human factor and worker productivity and that sort of thing.

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So productivity is a big part of it. Health and safety is another big part of it.

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And like I say, the user friendliness aspect as well. Well, I mean, was that your core focus?

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Because I mean, I'm not even a third of the way through your biography, Dr. Wickman.

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I mean, you also were an engineer for Lockheed Missiles and Space Company. You were working on NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, the

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International Space Station. And you're considered Lockheed's corporate astronaut. Yes, I was.

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I'm no longer working with Lockheed anymore, so I can't claim that title. But yeah, I was their corporate astronaut while I was there.

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And yeah, so back to your question, though. Yeah, so I was considered a crew systems engineer.

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So most of what I did had to do with crew systems for those programs, the

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Hubble Space Telescope and International Space Station. I did my dissertation work for that PhD program in conjunction with NASA Ames Research Center on spacesuit design for Moon and Mars exploration, which, of course, is very relevant today.

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So I did that. I did human factors and biomechanics related to spacesuit design.

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And then I also did the human factors, crew systems, user friendliness for the space telescope in terms of what are the astronauts going to have to do either for the deployment mission or the repair missions.

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For the space station, we looked at assembly techniques as well as maintenance or repair activities.

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So yeah, all of the things that I've just mentioned were within that realm of human factors and biomechanics.

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Oh my gosh, big brain stuff. How did Christianity fit into all of this?

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Was it amidst it? Was it before it? Did you find it afterwards? I mean, how does somebody so, you know, within the engineering and secular world of science, you know, kind of be a part of Reasons to Believe, an incredibly

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Christian organization? Yeah. Well, I have to kind of go back to my childhood for that story.

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So I grew up in a Christian home and both of my parents were STEM people.

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So they were Christians in STEM. And my dad was an engineer in the forestry industry and my mom was a dietician.

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And so both of them were STEM people, you know, so I had strong role models in STEM to begin with.

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And really one of the big factors that persuaded me to go into the sciences was my dad had a telescope as I was growing up.

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And so he used to take us kids outside and look through the telescope at the stars and the moon and the planets.

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And that just inspired such awe and wonder in me that, you know,

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I was like just fascinated with space. And, you know, growing up in a

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Christian home, I just always, you know, believe that God was behind all of this amazing wonder and, you know, in the creation.

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And it didn't take too long, though, before I ran into my first atheist science teacher in junior high, right?

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And he would go so far as to say, you know, you might as well just leave your faith at the door because what we're going to be talking about in our biology class is going to almost certainly contradict what you've heard at church and Sunday school.

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And even as a, you know, whatever you are in junior high, 12, 13 year olds, I was like, that just doesn't make sense to me.

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You know, I was like, if God really is the creator behind all of this amazing display of the universe and, you know, animal life and all this, how can studying what he created contradict the creator himself?

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And it just didn't make logical sense to me even as a kid, but I didn't really know what to do with it.

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But looking back on that, I was like, you know, I'm really actually grateful to have had that experience so early on so that I could start investigating how science and faith fit together.

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So like as a junior high student, you heard this and you weren't deterred. There was no sense of like, oh, maybe he's right.

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My parents are wrong. It actually provoked you to jump further into the word. Yes. And figure it out, you know, because it's kind of flashing forward a bit.

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You know, I started to study really everything I could get my hands on that was written about, you know, the connections between science and faith or the possible compatibility.

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And over time, I started to realize that the apparent conflict that we hear about, you know, not just in my junior high biology class, but in our culture at large.

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I mean, there's this real perception that science and faith are at odds with each other. But what

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I began to realize is just kind of a misunderstanding of both fields that leads to that perception of conflict.

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And I had an experience when I was teaching at Azusa Pacific.

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One of my colleagues had asked me to come and speak to a senior seminar class about science and faith and the compatibility and whatnot.

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And one of the things that she said has just stuck with me over the years. She said, you know, we here in the class, meaning herself and her students, are very concerned about a faithful reading of scripture.

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And I said, oh, my gosh, you've just hit the nail on the head. A faithful reading of scripture requires study and figuring out, you know, what was the original audience?

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What was the genre? What was the original message? What was the intended message of the first writers?

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And, you know, how do we faithfully interpret this as opposed to what

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I think a lot of us do or grew up doing is, you know, just kind of picking up your

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Bible that's written in English, translated into English, and plopping it open and just going,

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I'm going to read this from a 21st century American perspective, you know, and just not think about the, you know, the history and the years and years of church tradition and very, very informed hermeneutics interpretation, you know, and looking at the original language and that sort of thing.

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And so I think this is not only from the side of scripture interpretation, but also looking at science and really understanding how science works.

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I think actually, when you look at both fields and really understand them well, you see that there's a lot of commonality.

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In fact, the scientific method uses evidence and induction.

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And I think there's a common misunderstanding in our society that the scientific method uses more of a deductive process that's kind of more of an open and shut case on the evidence.

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And that's just not the way science works. You know, as I talk to my students, science basically is doing tests and experiments and observations to collect evidence, either to support or negate a hypothesis.

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And so then ultimately what science is trying to do is find the best explanation, given the current set of evidence that we have, always knowing that we could have new evidence that turns up even tomorrow that would change what the best explanation is.

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I mean, we see this throughout scientific history, right? I mean, everybody goes back to the case of Galileo in the church and Galileo's evidence that he collected through looking through a telescope to say that, you know, really the evidence affirms a heliocentric view of the solar system as opposed to a geocentric view.

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And so then science changes its paradigm or its best explanation, right?

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Yeah. And I think on the faith side, too, we use we use evidence.

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You know, we want our faith to be reasonable. Right. And so, again, you could you could say that, you know, an approach to faith would be looking for the best explanation, given the evidence that we have.

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You know, and I think we do that in in apologetics, really, for the Christian faith and looking at how do we defend our faith?

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Right. And if the best explanation goes along with the evidence, then that that, too, gets us to a point where we think the best explanation is the

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God of the Bible and the story of the gospel. And then we take that step of faith based on that.

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Right. What do you feel like is commonality? Absolutely. And I think that a lot of scientists that I've spoken with,

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I mean, they're all Christians, so they echo that that science and theology complement one another rather than negate.

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But when you're talking about testing a hypothesis and gathering evidence to either prove it or negate it, what do you feel like is the question that the hypothesis is asking?

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Would it be like, is God real? Is that like what you're thinking? I think everybody has their own questions in terms of their spiritual journey.

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Right. And yeah, I mean, I think one very basic one is, you know, does

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God exist? Right. And and what is the evidence for the existence of God?

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And that's certainly a big, big question, a big fundamental question. And that certainly might be part of someone's journey.

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And then another follow up question is, you know, is the God that exists the

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God of the Bible? Right. That's kind of for me, that's kind of the next logical step is, you know, does the evidence point to that?

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And, you know, we have to take kind of the full spectrum of evidence from every discipline and area.

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So, you know, scripture tells us that God reveals himself both in scripture and in nature.

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Right. Romans 1 .20 says the truth about God can be seen in what he's made so that no one has an excuse for not being able to see it or know it.

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Yes. And Psalm 19 is another great example of that. And Psalm 19 talks about how the heavens declare the glory, glory of God night after night, the orpheus sort of speech.

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And, you know, so the creation itself testifies to God.

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And then in that same chapter of Psalm 19, we see the latter part of that chapter talking about God's word and God's law and God's precepts being perfect.

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Right. And so it combines both of those, which I absolutely love because through the ages,

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Christians in science have used this kind of two books model, how

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God has revealed himself both through scripture as well as through nature. And, you know, it's been referred to the book of God's words and the book of God's works.

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Right. And I just think it's a beautiful thing, you know. And yeah, I think we need to take them both together.

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Absolutely. I love how you jumped right into the word. Yes. For me, Romans, where to go?

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Romans 120. Yes. Through him, we received grace. I'm in the NLV, I think.

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For since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities, his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen being understood from what has been made so that people are without excuse.

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That is, I mean, amazing verse. But what you said is kind of stuck out to me is like, is this like, does

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God exist and is it the God of the Bible or is it Allah or is it Buddha? You know, like is how how do we deduce that?

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What do we even need to look for to find the answers to that question? Right. So, yeah,

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I mean, again, I think everyone's on their own personal journey and has to figure out what what the evidence is that is sufficient.

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Right. To get to the point of making that step of faith. And for me,

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I mean, I I think for, you know, looking at scripture from beginning to end, the consistency that we see, you know, and comparing that with our lived experience and comparing that also with what we have, what we know through human history, through prophecies in the

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Old Testament that were fulfilled in the New Testament. Through the promise of a savior and the specific circumstances of Jesus's birth, as well as Jesus's crucifixion.

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We see that consistency and the prophecy that was fulfilled in Christ and how it all kind of hangs together in this end to end story and and how, you know, it resonates with our personal experience, you know, and the you know, the creation of of human beings in the image of God in a in a sense that is completely different from the rest of creation and is completely different from what we see with the angels.

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And a big part of that imago Dei being created in the image of God has to do with free will and rational thought and free will and being able to make your own mind up.

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Right. And I think that is such an essential part of the human experience, as well as God's plan for humanity, to be able to have a relationship with individuals who are at at freedom to make a decision of whether to relate to God and whether to connect with God and whether to follow

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God. Right. And so I see all these different pieces that we get from scripture, as well as the consistency with creation and the consistency we see within creation of a faithful God, you know, and we see, like I say, in Psalm 19, as well as other passages where we it talks about, you know, the heavens declaring the glory of God and and how, you know, what we can see in nature is obvious that the creator must have had just amazing intelligence as well as amazing power to create these things.

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Right. And most people, I think, would agree with that part of it. But if you look deeper, you see this coordination of details and this synergy and this intricacy of how everything fits together so beautifully.

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That what the result is for our home planet is not just a place where humans can barely survive, but a place where humans can flourish and thrive.

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You know, it's not like we've got just barely enough oxygen in the atmosphere to suck in a breath and be

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OK for a few seconds. You know, God has provided everything we need and more.

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And to me, that speaks to a God of love. Yes. And I think that you especially have a unique view on the intricacies and the capacity for God to create something so complex because you're familiar with what's on Earth, but also what's not on Earth.

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You know, you've studied the stars. Yeah. And I think that, you know, I can't even wrap my head around like a black hole.

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I can't wrap my head around gravity. And yet you have studied the solar system.

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Yeah. I mean, quite honestly, Cassian, it's my study of the solar system and the rest of the universe as well.

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But just sticking to the local neighborhood in our solar system, just looking at the other planets and how incredibly hostile to life they are, is just such an eye opener.

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It's like, oh, my gosh, this this planet that we live on is so perfectly suited to support intelligent life.

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I mean, it's just the perfect distance from the sun. It's just the perfect size to give us the right mass and gravity to hold on to the right atmosphere, the gases in our atmosphere.

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One of the examples that I love to talk about is the fact that Earth's gravity is just exactly right to hold on to huge amounts of water vapor.

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If you go back to your high school chemistry class, 18 grams per mole. Gosh, would not have guessed that.

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OK. And water vapor as part of the water cycle is essential for our environment.

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And so Earth's gravity is just right to hold on to lots of that stuff. But not quite strong enough to hold on to the slightly lighter poisonous gases of methane and ammonia at 16 and 17 grams per mole.

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So that that division between life giving water vapor at 18 grams per mole and poisonous methane and ammonia at 16 and 17 grams per mole, just light enough to not be held on to in large amounts in the atmosphere, is the difference between a life friendly planet and not.

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Right. A hostile planet. So even in the I look at, you know, NASA's exploration for planets around other stars.

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And, you know, right now, because of our detection methods, you know, it's very difficult to detect small planets.

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And so the planets that are easier to detect at those distances around other stars are typically

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Jupiter size or bigger. However, we you know, everybody gets excited when we find something that's, quote unquote, a super Earth that maybe is, you know, several times the size of Earth, so much smaller than Jupiter.

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But the fact remains that if it's even a little bit bigger than Earth, it's not a life friendly planet because of the fact of if it's bigger and has more mass, then it's going to have stronger gravity and it's going to hold on to more methane and ammonia.

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Right. So, I mean, I didn't know that. Yeah. And that's just one factor among you just, you know, hundreds that I mean, throughout the universe that make the universe life friendly.

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And you change any one of these factors by the tiniest amount, like the value for gravity, the gravitational attraction between masses, the electromagnetic force of, you know, attraction or repulsion between charged particles, the strong nuclear force that holds the nucleus of an atom together.

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I mean, if you change any one of these things by the smallest amount and the possibility of life in our universe, not just in the solar system or on our planet, but life in the universe, the possibility goes just down the tubes.

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Are you ruling out the possibility that there is another habitable planet out there? So that is a great question.

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I'm so glad you brought it up because I love talking about this. I mean, so it's unlikely that we'd have even one planet like Earth in the entire universe.

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And so but yet there is. And the reason I believe firmly that there is in defying the odds is that God created that.

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So if that's the case, then God could have certainly done something like this, this elsewhere.

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Absolutely. I was about to say I wouldn't limit our God to just one planet capable of humanity.

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Exactly. If you look at the natural probabilities of just by random chance, getting even one planet like this,

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I mean, crazy, you know, odds. Right. And so so just to get all of the factors that we need throughout the universe and within our solar system, within our galaxy, within our our planet itself together to support life would be like approximately one chance in 10 to the 280th power, which is not it's a you know, it's a number that you can't

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I mean, nobody can really get your head around it. But actually, someone at Reasons to Believe came up with the analogy of it being like one person buying just one lottery ticket each time they play and winning on the one ticket that they buy every time they play twice a week, every week for 50 years in a row.

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And I'll often just say to my students, if you read a news story saying that that had happened, what would your first reaction be?

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That guy's the luckiest guy on earth. Right. Or the system is rigged. Yeah, that's right.

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And we can say the same thing about the universe. The universe is rigged for life. It defies the odds.

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Yeah. I mean, statisticians will tell you that once something goes beyond one chance in 10 to the 50th power, it moves from a category of statistically improbable to statistically impossible because just too many things have to line up to get that thing to happen.

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Whoa, whoa, that's insane. Yeah. And and just for another reference point with that, there are only an estimated 10 to the 80th atoms in the entire universe.

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And if and here's another thing, if you imagine, I know, right, if you imagine that the multiverse theory is correct or the multiverse hypothesis,

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I should call it, if you imagine that the multiverse hypothesis is correct, and let's say that there are 10 to the 80th universes out there, each with 10 to the 80th atoms, then the odds of picking just one specific atom out of 10 to the 80th universes is still only one chance in 10 to the 160th.

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So we're not even close to how remote the odds are of getting all of these factors exactly what they are to get life in the universe.

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Right. My mind is blown by all that. I'm going to take a walk. Oh, my gosh.

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I mean, yeah, it's just it's incredible. Yeah. You know, it it takes more faith to think that this would all fall together just by random chance.

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Yeah. Then it does to believe that an intelligent creator put it all together. And that's what

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I'm talking about, you know, in terms of kind of the similarities in some sense between science and faith, because we look at the evidence and the most logical, most rational explanation is that there's an intelligence behind all this.

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Yeah. Right. So, yeah, I mean, you've talked about a lot of stuff.

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And I think, like, you've really, really driven home the point that it's just so intentional, the life that we have and the earth that is inhabitable.

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But I guess I'm just curious, like, I don't think this was probably a common belief amongst you and your colleagues when you were studying the stars.

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So I am curious, you know, this podcast is meant for people to kind of ask the like the entry level questions of like,

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OK, Christians, how do you explain the Big Bang? You know, like how would you defend that being, you know, so deeply in that while also being a

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Christian? How do you find God in the Big Bang, in the multiverse? Absolutely.

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And in alien life, I would say those are the three main things. Oh, my goodness. That's a lot to put on the table at once.

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Let's see. Let's start with the Big Bang, shall we? OK. OK, so. So, yeah, the

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Big Bang is actually the Big Bang model of the universe, of the beginning of the universe, is one of the most,

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I should say, one of the best supported scientific models that there is.

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Just that all the evidence that we see coming in has to do with, like, for example,

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I mean, initially was looking at the redshift of distant galaxies that we'd see in space and.

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The redshift? Yes, the redshift. So think about the Doppler effect that you hear when you have a siren coming towards you and then going away from you as the as a siren on an emergency vehicle comes towards you because of the fact that the sound waves are coming towards you on a moving vehicle.

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It compresses the sound wave so that they come closer together and you hear a higher frequency.

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And so the pitch is increased from what it would be if you were if both you and the siren were staying still.

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You hear a higher pitch as it comes towards you. Got it. As it goes away from you because those sound waves are coming from a vehicle that's moving away from you.

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The frequency decreases because the waves are stretched out and you hear a lower frequency.

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And so you hear a lower pitch as it goes away. Higher pitches are coming towards you. Same thing happens with starlight.

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OK, so if we look at light that is coming to us from a distant galaxy and it appears to be shifted to the red end of the spectrum where, you know, we we'd kind of expect that light coming from a galaxy would be pretty well distributed across the spectrum in terms of what we would expect from from a typical star.

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And if we see that it's shifted towards the red end of the spectrum, that indicates that those wavelengths as they're going away from us are stretched out.

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So we see a lower frequency, longer wavelength of light than what we would expect.

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So that light is red shifted. That means that just like the siren that's going away from us, that star or the galaxy is moving away from us.

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Got it. And so people started seeing this redshift in galaxies every direction that they looked.

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And the other thing that they saw was that the farther away the galaxy was from us, the greater the redshift.

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So basically what that meant is that everything is moving away from us in the universe.

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And the further away things are, the faster they're moving. Oh, which gives us this insight into what the universe is doing.

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And if those things are moving away from us, then then you kind of rewind the tape, so to speak, or rewind the videos, so to speak.

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And it means that everything was closer to, you know, eons ago. I see it. I see it. So that's where the

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Big Bang model came from. And just as time has gone on, we've seen more and more evidence for this, for the red shift of distant galaxies, the consistency of the further away the galaxies are, the more redshifted they are.

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And so this acceleration as things get further away from us. And then recently, actually, about 10 years ago,

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I guess, there started to be some evidence for what

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Einstein predicted as gravity waves, that we should discover these gravity waves in the time space fabric of the universe that should be observable if the

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Big Bang model is correct. And so we've started to see evidence for what

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Einstein predicted as these gravity waves. And it's kind of ripples in the space time fabric that basically were caused.

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If you imagine a sheet or a towel, it's easier maybe to imagine. But if you have a towel that's wadded up and you stretch it out, you start gradually stretching it out and then you suddenly stop.

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And maybe the towel isn't the best example, but if you had a sheet of something, let's just say, stretching it out and you abruptly stop, you get these ripples in it because of the abrupt stopping or slowing down.

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And I'm just trying to think of something that would be more maybe easier. No, no, no. I'm following the sheet. I'm following it.

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OK, good. So, yeah, so and so you should be able to see these ripples in space time because the

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Big Bang model basically says that there was this rapid inflationary period right after the moment of expansion in the

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Big Bang that rapidly expanded the universe and then it abruptly slowed down.

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And so what would have caused that slowdown? Great question. I mean, that's one of the mysteries, right?

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Got it. Yeah. And and it's the Big Bang itself is just so interesting because in some ways it's very counterintuitive.

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And that's actually I mean, we're getting so off on tangents, which is fine, but it's kind of where the idea of dark energy came from, too, is this weirdness of the expansion.

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If you if you look, you can't look at the Big Bang as just some what we would consider an ordinary explosion, because with any ordinary explosion that we're familiar with, you would see initial velocity is really high, but then it would slow down and lose energy.

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And basically, entropy would cause the energy to be less ordered and it would just kind of peter out.

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But with the Big Bang, what we see is, yeah, we had this rapid inflationary period early on and then a slowdown.

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But what we're seeing now with this, like I say, greater red shifts on more distant galaxies, we see that something is causing the universe to expand at an accelerating rate.

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And so we came up with this idea of dark energy to describe the energy that is causing this accelerating expansion.

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And unlike almost anything that we're familiar with in our day to day experience, like so, for example, when you stretch a rubber band, you feel resistance.

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The more you stretch it, you're going to feel more resistance if you want to snap back to the original position.

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Right. Dark energy is kind of the opposite of that. The more you stretch it, the more energy it has to stretch more.

35:05

That's a pretty hard concept to swallow. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, sorry.

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Yeah, I was just how do you find God in that? Because that's kind of secular.

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I don't know. It's pretty ice cold. That's the only way I can explain it. OK, so where you find

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God in it, though, is OK, let's go to the the the model of the origin of the universe that was commonly accepted before the

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Big Bang model. Yeah. And that was called the Steady State Model. OK, I'm not too familiar.

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Sorry, I'm not too familiar with that. The Steady State Model basically is reflected by Carl Sagan's old saying of the universe is all that is, all that ever was and all that ever will be.

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Got it. So so basically what the Steady State Theory of the universe was that the universe has always existed.

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And if the universe always existed, there is no need to explain a beginning.

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And by, you know, the cosmological argument basically says that anything that begins to exist must have a cause for its existence.

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But if something has always existed, then there's no need to explain its beginning.

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So similar to, you know, our our belief in God is that he has always existed.

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So there's no need to explain his beginning. But if something comes into existence, then there is a need to provide or at least acknowledge there had to be a cause.

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So you can see how the shift from the Steady State Theory, which basically says that the universe always existed, to the

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Big Bang Theory basically is the shift in, is a very fundamental shift in philosophy to going from know that the universe is self -existent because it's always existed to know the universe had a beginning, therefore there had to be a cause for it.

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And so and then when we start looking at the details of the expansion rate of the universe and the mass density of the universe, how much stuff is it and how much gravitational pull is there between all the stuff in the universe so that it doesn't collapse back on itself because of gravitational attraction, expand too fast so that you don't have any gravitational clumping to create stars, galaxies and planets.

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And so that in itself is fine -tuned also in terms of how fast the universe is expanding, that it allows some gravitational attraction and clumping of matter to get stars, galaxies and planets versus it's expanding too fast or has too much or too little stuff in it so that it expands so fast that nothing's close enough to each other to clump into stars, galaxies and planets.

38:26

So those things are also fine -tuned. And so you see this intelligence behind that, too.

38:34

OK, I was about to say, so how do you not see that as just so much of physics working accordingly? How do you see that that's

38:41

God's will in letting all of that happen? Because it seems so not a

38:46

Mago day. It seems so cold, you know, it doesn't seem like there's a hand of a creator there because it seems like that's the laws of physics and that's how things work.

38:56

It's hard to find the intention behind that. Well, yes, but you have to then also,

39:03

I mean, there's so many things we could talk about, but fundamentally, where do the laws of physics even come from to cause the, you know, the clumping of matter, let alone this, you know, this dark energy that comes into play and the dark matter, too, which we haven't really mentioned, which basically says that there's based on our observations of the universe and the way galaxies move, there has to be some invisible, so to speak, matter out there because of the gravitational movement that we see in galaxies is not adequately explained by the amount of visible matter that we see.

39:46

See, that is so amazing. I'm so curious, what is the attitude in the room of these astronauts, these astrophysicists, these scientists, when you guys are in that field and you guys are so educated, but then you have that invisible force.

40:02

Are you guys like, oh, I think it's God. I think we just proved God. Yeah, so it's super interesting, all this, because,

40:12

I mean, I think sometimes people just don't think about all of this stuff.

40:18

I mean, I know when I was working more in the aerospace industry, you know, people kind of,

40:26

I think they tend to maybe compartmentalize things and not consider as big of questions necessarily.

40:33

I'm not trying to dismiss anything, but I think that it takes some studious effort to kind of see how all the pieces fit together.

40:45

I think oftentimes when you're working on a specific project, especially when you're looking, using science in a kind of more practical application sort of way to get something done, you're only looking really at the applicable factors to your project.

41:04

So you're not necessarily thinking about what the implications of some of the latest discoveries in astrophysics are.

41:14

And so, you know, I think in some ways people are wired to focus on what they need to do to get through the day.

41:26

You know, what do I need to do to kind of accomplish my task at hand and not necessarily think as deeply as the background science, so to speak, right?

41:39

So, you know, and that's, I don't think that's any kind of a diss to anybody.

41:49

It's just human nature. I mean, you kind of focus on what you need to do, right?

41:54

And, you know, I mean, you can, you look at kind of civilization and the progress that we've made, you know, in science as well as other areas through the eons of time, right?

42:08

And, you know, I mean, people, you know, it's kind of like Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right?

42:17

It's kind of like, you know, you have to meet people's physical survival needs first, and then you can move up the pyramid to some of the things that are not life -threatening, but important.

42:30

So, you know, security and safety, and then ultimately you get to a point where if you've still got time left in your life and in your day, then you can consider some of these more kind of metaphysical questions, right?

42:43

And so, you know, I think people have the capacity to consider those things, but they might not have the time.

42:53

Yeah, I think that's a fair explanation. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and I really do think it kind of has to do with, it's like, well, how much time is there in the day?

43:02

And do I have the luxury to sit and think about these really deep questions that are, you know, don't, you know, maybe don't interest everyone, but at the same time, you know, they're fascinating to consider, but they might not be, you know, part of my daily life.

43:23

Interesting. Do you feel like you fell into that category or do you feel like you were holding both beliefs at the same time and kind of watching others be caught up in their work and caught up in their discoveries and not having that capacity to be like, oh,

43:36

I wonder if this was actually God explaining this, but it seems like you could. Yeah, you know,

43:41

I mean, I think it was definitely a journey for me. And a process, you know, as a kid, as I mentioned back in junior high school,

43:51

I didn't know what to do with this kind of apparent conflict, you know, and, but I knew that I wanted to figure it out.

43:59

That much I knew. But at the same time, by the time I was finishing high school, you know, and I'd gone to secular schools all through, you know, all the way from grade school on through grad school.

44:13

But I didn't, by the time I was graduating from high school,

44:19

I didn't really know. I didn't, I guess I didn't feel confident enough about how to address the relationship between science and faith to, to boldly go into a

44:35

STEM field in college. So I, my undergraduate degree, I took a lot of math and science along the way, but I, I majored in political science.

44:45

And I think, yeah, a big part of that was because I just didn't know how to reconcile science and faith yet.

44:53

And so I shied away from it. I mean, I looking back on that, I know that's what that was about, because people all, all through, you know, high school had told me, you're really good in this math and science stuff.

45:07

You really want to pursue it, you know, and, and I just, like I said, a big part of me was just not sure how to reconcile that perceived conflict.

45:18

And so in, it was really in grad school that I started having the ability to really interact with people that were, had similar interests in terms of kind of getting into the bigger questions.

45:34

And, and so I started finding resources and in fact, Reasons to Believe was one of the first organizations that I drew resources from and you know, had conversations with people that were, like I said, had similar interest.

45:51

You know, I, so it was always in the back of my mind and I guess I left something out too. So, so from my, my undergrad degree in political science, my senior year as an undergrad,

46:03

I did an internship at the State Department in DC. And I realized during that time that I, I needed to get some sort of an advanced degree in order to get anywhere in the

46:15

State Department because they have such a huge bureaucracy and you have to stand out somehow. And so because of the fact that a lot of the kind of discussions that were happening through the

46:28

State Department and other countries meant had to do with technology and possibly military systems and space systems and whatnot,

46:38

I thought, you know, it'd be really good if I could bring a STEM discipline to the table in this.

46:44

And so, you know, here, like I say, all I have is my bachelor's degree in political science and you know, some, some math and science along the way.

46:55

And you know, I applied to Stanford and I did my

47:01

GRE at a time when I was doing a lot of tutoring for high school kids in math.

47:08

And so the GRE math is pretty much high school math. And so I just whizzed through this, the math section.

47:16

And that was one of the things that they cited. They said, you just, you were off the charts in terms of your scores on the

47:21

GRE. And so in spite of the fact that I had this poli -sci undergrad degree, you know, they admitted me directly to a master's program in aerospace engineering.

47:32

Wow. Yeah. I mean, to me, in my mind, that is nothing short of a miracle.

47:38

They should have said, go back and finish an undergrad engineering degree before you decide to do this.

47:45

And it was in fact, probably one of the hardest things I've ever done was, you know, sitting in classes with other students at Stanford who had had four years of engineering already, you know.

47:55

Yeah. But I got through it by the grace of God. And and so from there, then

48:02

I was able to go into the aerospace arena. Got it.

48:07

Got it. But it was interesting. You know, just like I say, you're talking about how, you know, some people seem not to address a lot of these questions.

48:15

And I think it was just in me from a really early age. Yeah. How do I figure this out?

48:21

It was something that. And you were apt to see it as well. I mean, do you have any moments within the scientific world that you experienced

48:30

God, maybe like a vision or just irrefutable proof that you're like, yes, like God did create the solar system.

48:36

I love stories like this. Do you have any? I wouldn't say I have any irrefutable proof kind of things.

48:45

In fact, I that word proof is kind of one of my pet peeves because of the whole thing that we talked about with kind of evidence and the inductive process.

48:56

I have had students from the get go. And when I was teaching, you know, undergrad science classes that would say, oh, it's been scientifically proven that blah, blah, blah.

49:07

And I'm like, that just tells me you don't understand the scientific method because the scientific method does not claim to prove things.

49:17

You can disprove things, but you don't make an open and shut case. I mean, again, this inductive process is a moving target.

49:25

Right. And so so I kind of I don't like the word proof and I know I've got a lot of baggage with it.

49:32

So forgive me, but it's OK. But I will say, in fact, there was a story that I kind of left out in my kind of growing up years when

49:42

I was really young. I was like nine years old. I went to this Bible camp and during the week that I was there, there were missionaries that were speaking.

49:52

And I felt this just really profound sense that God was calling me to the mission field.

49:58

And here I am, nine years old. You know, it was the worst thing I could possibly imagine. I mean,

50:04

I go away from my family, go overseas, you know, live in a grass hut with a dirt floor.

50:10

I mean, that was part of the thing, you know. And I was just like, oh, my gosh, this is just frightening.

50:16

And so I went to bed and just, you know, night after night that that week and just cried myself to sleep because I was so distraught about this was such a powerful feeling.

50:28

And after a few nights of that, I finally just fully surrendered.

50:33

And I said, OK, Lord, that's what you want me to do. I'll do it. And I can remember it like it was yesterday.

50:39

I was just overwhelmed with this amazing sense of peace and just,

50:46

I mean, it was just a night and day shift, you know. And from then, you know, there are numerous times that I've gone on short term mission trips and my takeaway from it is there's there's a lot more to the story.

51:02

I can tell you a lot more about it. But, you know, just in the interest of time, I'll just kind of summarize and say that I look back on it as kind of Abraham and Isaac experience, not to be too dramatic, but just, you know, are you willing to sacrifice everything and follow me no matter what

51:20

I call you to? And that was really the takeaway. And and so from that point forward, every fork in the road,

51:28

I was just like, OK, Lord, what do you want me to do? And just waiting for his guidance and his direction.

51:34

And so what I've come to find is my real mission field is this reconciliation between science and faith.

51:42

And that is my true calling, you know. Anyway, you're sharing it, you're doing it.

51:48

This is what we need to hear. I think we're so caught up in the black and white. And I mean, you're living proof. Sorry that that it's possible that you can live with both things being equally real.

51:59

Yes. Yes. And in fact, that's honestly that's one of my my motivations for doing this is to help people realize they don't have to choose between science and faith, you know.

52:13

Yeah. Wow. Well, one of the things and I'm almost afraid to ask this because and I don't want you to hold back the answer because it might go another hour and that's

52:23

OK. But how do we come to terms with the multiverse, with the complexities of the

52:28

Lord and, you know, having a planet that's only surviving within margins of destruction?

52:36

But there could be parallel universes out there. I mean, how do I wrap my Christian mind around that?

52:42

Well, you know, here's the thing. For me, my explorations through science, as well as on the theology side, have just so expanded my view of who

52:54

God is and what he's capable of. I'm just I literally say, bring on the multiverse.

53:00

My God is big enough for the multiverse. Yeah, absolutely. Amen. Yeah. And the thing is,

53:07

I mean, I feel like we're just barely beginning to glimpse how amazing

53:12

God is. And I love that. Yeah. And you just look at this amazing synergy and connection of details that God has built into this universe.

53:25

And we're discovering new things all the time. And and these things that, you know, we we look at as miraculous, even just the fact that the universe does support life is miraculous.

53:40

But we look at this coordination of details and we're like, oh, my gosh, how did God coordinate all of this stuff within a specific place in time?

53:52

But as soon as we start to kind of try to get our brains around what it would be like to live outside of the physical dimensions that we live inside of, you know, the three dimensions of space and one of time that we experience.

54:11

But imagine God outside of all that, making all of these things come together at one place in time is child's play for him because he's outside of the dimensions that we live in.

54:26

And one of the examples that I use with my students is to just imagine if we were able to experience two dimensions of time instead of just one dimension of time.

54:36

So we experience time as a line that moves one direction, right?

54:44

Past behind us, the future in front of us. We're in the present, but it's a timeline. OK, imagine that we have a two dimension, two dimensions of time.

54:55

So it's a it's a plane instead of just a line. Yeah. What comes to mind for me immediately is, oh, my gosh, that means we can be we can have entities within that plane of two dimensions of time that can be everywhere at once.

55:12

And doesn't that kind of remind you of omnipresence of God, right? And so so that's just one small thing.

55:21

But we're talking about a God who's outside of dimensions, not even just captured within two dimensions of time and, you know, 10 dimensions of space.

55:30

But those examples of being able to think about what would it be like if we had these extra dimensions give us a bit of a glimpse of of the, you know, the place that God lives in, you know, where he's not constrained by these dimensions.

55:47

And so things that seem impossible to us in our three dimensions of space and one of time are child's play for God outside of all this.

55:56

Yes, I love how great you're painting God to be. I mean, especially from a scientific perspective.

56:01

I'm curious, how did you like what were the words that worked when you were evangelizing your colleagues who were secular?

56:10

Like, how did you how did you help them see what you just said? How did you explain it? So I would say that the best experiences that I've had with explaining things like this are experiences

56:24

I've had in in classrooms with students where it's not just a one time encounter, but it's you're building a relationship, you know, and they're getting to know you and trust you.

56:39

And so there's that relational piece before they listen to what you say, they listen to who you are, right?

56:47

And so relationally, you get you develop a relationship with them to where it's like, yeah,

56:53

I, I've seen, you know, her consistency, I've seen how she practices what she preaches.

57:02

And she's, you know, kind and, you know, has good character and all this sort of thing. I mean, I hope that all these things are true and observe these things.

57:11

But, but the other thing I try to do is to just be so respectful of anyone, whether it's a student or, you know, colleague, is, you know, we're all made in God's image, whether we're believers or not, we were made in God's image, and he gave us rational minds and free will.

57:31

And, and so, so what I, I tend to do is be really gentle about things.

57:37

And I, I kind of give people what if scenarios to kind of try things out, do thought experiments before, before they decide, you know?

57:48

And so, for example, I mean, just the, the thing about, you know,

57:54

God gave us, gave us free will, we have rational minds, we choose to be in relationship with God.

58:01

If we pray and ask God for something, he doesn't necessarily snap his fingers and give it to us overnight, right?

58:11

He might take us through a process to develop whatever that thing is that we've asked for, you know, patience or, or, you know, whatever, whatever virtue you might be interested in, but it isn't usually a thing where he snaps his fingers and it's like, okay, you asked,

58:28

I'm giving it to you right now. Um, and so we see that God uses processes in our own lives.

58:35

So what if God used, used processes in his creation as well?

58:41

Right. And what if God started with the big bang that was highly coordinated?

58:47

I mean, sometimes it's portrayed as this chaotic explosion, but it's anything but it's, it's very finely coordinated, very orchestrated, had to be exactly what it was.

58:58

And the, like we've talked about already, the expansion rate had to be just exactly what it is.

59:04

The mass density had to be exactly what it is. And so very finely tuned the inflation acceleration had to be what it is, all these things.

59:15

Um, and so we see this coordination of details that defies probabilities. Uh, so, um, anyway, so like I say, that's a thought experiment.

59:24

What if God worked through processes in creation, just like he works through processes in your life?

59:31

Um, and what if, you know, God worked through these processes to bring about a place for us to live and thrive and flourish that took longer than what maybe you learned, uh, you know, in your church, maybe, maybe your church says that it happened in seven literal days.

59:52

Well, let's look at the scriptures, you know, let's look at Genesis one and understand that even the word that's translated as day in Genesis one in our

01:00:02

Bible is the Hebrew word Yom, which can be literally translated as a 24 hour period or as an indefinite era.

01:00:13

So, I mean, just getting past that hurdle helps a lot, you know, and another thing

01:00:19

I, I try to emphasize is this, you know, two books idea of God's revelation of himself, both in scripture as well as in creation.

01:00:28

And I just, like I say, just try to give them suggestions in terms of possibly a different way of looking at things, you know, and, and also, again, the kind of the, um, the interpretation of scripture,

01:00:42

I think people that maybe rejected faith as, as, as a young person might have this idea that, oh, unless you believe that the earth is only, you know, several thousand years old, you can't be a

01:00:56

Christian. And it's like, no, that's, that's, that's a misunderstanding of what scripture is telling us and just kind of showing them some of those connecting points.

01:01:06

And I think, um, also the, this thing I talked to you about, about the odds of getting everything just right is another powerful tool.

01:01:15

And that's referred to as the fine tuning argument or the Goldilocks principle, you know, everything has to be just right.

01:01:23

And when you kind of dig into some of those things, it certainly gives people things to think about and just go, do you, did you realize that getting one planet within the entire universe is, it defies the odds dramatically.

01:01:38

Yeah. Um, so, and, you know, so when you consider the evidence that really the best explanation is the

01:01:46

God of the Bible. Do you feel like the Bible should be used as a scientific book to tell people when and how the earth was created?

01:01:55

Yeah. No, I really don't. I mean, the Bible, the Bible's primary message is to tell us about who

01:02:01

God is and kind of the story, uh, from beginning to end of his plan for, for humans.

01:02:08

Yeah. It's not a scientific textbook. Exactly. It is not, it never was meant to be that. And in fact,

01:02:13

I mean, even just looking back on it in the human history that we've experienced so far, even if we say, well, you know, if it's a scientific textbook, it should talk about, you know, dark matter and dark energy in Genesis.

01:02:28

And it's like, that would have just been perceived as, you know, magic or something even worse.

01:02:35

Right. And the original readers have been like dark magic or they would have said it was magic and we would have taken that literally.

01:02:42

Yeah. Yeah. And, and that's the thing. So, you know, we have to look at, um, you know, what, as we've talked about before, what is a proper hermeneutic, you know, how can we fully understand and, you know, from a well -informed standpoint, you know, with a rational mind, what is the intention of, of all of these books and, um, and seeing that consistent thread in terms of God's plan for humanity, you know, and the theological message that God wanted relationship with humans who had the free will ability to choose whether to relate to him or not.

01:03:22

And given that we have free will as part of that desired relationship, you know, it was inevitable that we would use it poorly and necessitate a reconciliation with a savior.

01:03:35

Right. And so, so it all hangs together so well. And within the complexities of a world we have yet to fathom, let alone a

01:03:44

God, we could fathom. We can't even fathom dark energy and wormholes and God created that.

01:03:51

And multiverse, the possibility of a multiverse. And, you know, again, like I say, my view of who

01:03:58

God is and how capable he is, and just the awe and wonder with which

01:04:04

I experience when I look at this amazing creation that he gave us, you know, it's just, it's, yeah.

01:04:12

My view of who God is, is like, bring on the multiverse, bring on alien life. You know, it's like, as far as I, I, I took

01:04:21

God out of a box many, many years ago, and he's not going back in. Yeah.

01:04:27

How could he? Right. Wow. I love how your scientific studies and background just illuminates the expansiveness of God and just shows how great he is rather than cast doubt and finds holes and tries to poke, you know, excuses and doubts into who he is.

01:04:47

I just, this is such a refreshing perspective to come from somebody who has spent their life in science and, you know, something so secular.

01:04:55

I, I really appreciate the wisdom, Dr. Wickman. I was curious, do you have anything within your current workload that you want to plug or you want to showcase?

01:05:04

How can we stay connected with you and keep up with you? Yes, absolutely. Thank you so much for asking.

01:05:11

Yeah, I've, I'm working on this Templeton -funded grant project now called the

01:05:17

WISH program. Okay. WISH stands for Women in Science and Humanities because we need women from both the sciences, all the

01:05:26

STEM fields, as well as humanities to really kind of have a, a full discussion about the connections between science and faith.

01:05:35

So this grant is all about supporting women to be involved in this science and faith conversation and exploration.

01:05:45

And like I say, the humanities play a vital role in this in terms of kind of the context of this conversation.

01:05:53

And what's, what's the history of this dialogue? You know, how do we put this within a cultural context to, you know, social sciences and sociology?

01:06:05

How do we deal with the possible cognitive dissonance that may come up for individuals through psychology?

01:06:13

And so we want to bring the humanities into it as well as the STEM fields.

01:06:19

But the grant is basically geared toward, like I say, supporting

01:06:24

Christian women in this space and helping them to have the resources they need to either engage with science and faith initially, or to be sustained in their work in science and faith.

01:06:39

Because it's, it's, it's still a male -dominated field. And it's kind of interesting because one article that I read was, was basically calling this a double glass ceiling for women because there's the, the glass ceiling in STEM fields that has been pretty historic, as well as the glass ceiling within some religious institutions for women.

01:07:03

And so this kind of double glass ceiling that women in the science and faith space might encounter, and how can we support more women to get involved in that area and be resourced appropriately?

01:07:16

So we're currently running a survey. We've got a website at wishprogram .org.

01:07:22

And if your listeners go to wishprogram .org forward slash community, they will see a link where they can take our survey and speak into this project in terms of what their experiences have been and what their felt needs are, how they'd like to be supported and better resourced in this area.

01:07:45

Okay. I will definitely link that in the show notes for anybody that wants to listen on Spotify or YouTube, everyone can have access to that.

01:07:54

Awesome. Anything else, any written works, any speaking engagements? Yeah. Actually, my book,

01:08:01

God of the Big Bang, How Modern Science Affirms a Creator is available on Amazon. And yeah, so love to have you get that book.

01:08:12

I am open for speaking engagements, either live or virtual.

01:08:19

Yeah. I'm constantly doing talks at churches and schools and other groups, community groups, and love to do that kind of thing.

01:08:29

So yeah. Get in touch with me through my email, lwickman213 at gmail .com,

01:08:36

or you can go to my website, which is starryknights .me.

01:08:42

That's starryknightsaltogether .me. And like I say, you can also go to the wishprogram .org

01:08:50

website and see what we're up to there. Okay. Awesome. Well, Dr. Wickman, this was amazing.

01:08:56

Thank you for spreading some good vibes and some truth and word, especially in a time of scientific community and just an unlikely space to find

01:09:06

God. I think that starting this podcast, it was like, okay, let's dissect every verse of the

01:09:11

Bible. But I think it's grown into something so much more where the ways that we don't think we'll encounter God, like UFOs or the

01:09:18

Big Bang or the stars, we can still encounter God because our God is that big. Absolutely.

01:09:24

Maybe we'll have to do another one where we address some of the things that we weren't able to kind of dive into.

01:09:31

We absolutely have to. Absolutely. There's still so much left to talk about. I will be in touch.

01:09:38

Okay. Awesome. Sounds good. Thanks so much, Cassian. Thank you so much. I'll see you soon.