#22 UNDERSTANDING SPACE AND THE UNIVERSE, Biblically + Dr. Leslie Wickman

Hello, hello.

Welcome to Biblically Speaking.

My name is Cassian Bellino, and I'm your host.

In this podcast, we talk about the Bible in simple terms with experts, PhDs, and scholarly theologians to

make understanding God easier.

These conversations have transformed my relationship with Christ and understanding of religion.

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On this podcast, we talk about the facts, the history, and the translations to make the Bible make sense so

we can get to know God, our creator, better.

Hey, so we are live with Biblically Speaking.

I am absolutely honored to have the first female on my guest, which is weird, 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.

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.

What is human factors?

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.

Human factors is looking at the user -friendliness aspect of

systems.

It's basically trying to make any human -created system user -friendly.

It goes by different names sometimes.

Ergonomics is another term you might have heard.

Ergonomics has to do with measurements of human capabilities to work, 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.

It covers a wide span of disciplines, including

engineering, typically, often industrial engineering because industrial engineering deals with the

human factor and worker productivity.

So productivity is a big part of it.

Health and safety is another big part of it, and like I say, the user -friendliness

aspect as well.

I mean, was that your core focus?

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

I mean, you also were an engineer for Lockheed Missiles and Space Company.

You were working on NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, the International Space Station, and you're

considered Lockheed's corporate astronaut.

Yes, I was.

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.

Back to your question, though.

I was considered a crew systems engineer, so most of what I did had to do with

crew systems for those programs, the 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.

So I did that.

I did human factors and biomechanics related to spacesuit design, 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.

For the space station, we looked at assembly techniques as well

as maintenance or repair activities.

So yeah, all of the things that I've just mentioned were within that realm

of human factors and biomechanics.

My gosh, big brain stuff.

How did Christianity fit into all of this?

Was it amidst it?

Was it before it?

Did you find it afterwards?

I mean, how does somebody so within the engineering and secular world of science,

kind of be a part of Reasons to Believe, an incredibly Christian organization?

Yeah.

Well, I have to kind of go back to my childhood for that story.

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

So they were Christians in STEM.

And my dad was an engineer in the forestry industry and my mom was a

dietician.

And so both of them were STEM people.

So I had strong role models in STEM to begin with.

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.

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

And that just inspired such awe and wonder in me that I was

just fascinated with space.

And growing up in a Christian home, I just always

believed that God was behind all of this amazing wonder and in the

creation.

And it didn't take too long though before I ran into my first

atheist science teacher in junior high.

Of course.

Right.

And he would go so far as to say, 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.

And even as a, whatever you are in junior high, 12, 13 year olds, I was like, that just

doesn't make sense to me.

I was like, if God really is the creator behind all of this amazing

display of the universe and animal life and all this,

how can studying what he created contradict the creator

himself?

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.

But looking back on that, I was like, 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.

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.

My parents were 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.

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.

And for 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.

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

Yeah.

But what I began to realize that is just kind of a misunderstanding of both fields

that leads to that perception of conflict.

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

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.

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?

What was the genre?

What was the original message?

What was the intended message of the first writers?

And, you know, how do we faithfully interpret this?

As opposed to what I think a lot of us do or grew up doing is, you know,

just kind of picking up your Bible that's written in English, translated into English, and

plopping it open and just going, 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.

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.

I think actually, when you look at both fields and really understand them

well, you see that there's a lot of commonality.

In fact, the scientific method uses evidence

and induction.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Yeah.

And I think on the faith side too, we use evidence, you know, we

want our faith to be reasonable, right?

And so again, you could say that, you know, an approach

to faith would be looking for the best explanation given the evidence that we

have, you know, and I think we do that in apologetics really for the Christian faith

and looking at how do we defend our faith, right?

And if the best explanation goes along with the evidence, then that

too gets us to a point where we think the best explanation is the God of the Bible

and the story of the gospel.

And then we take that step of faith based on that, right?

Yeah.

What do you feel like is the -.

Commonality.

Absolutely.

And I think that a lot of scientists that I've spoken with, I mean, they're all Christian, so they echo that, that science and theology

compliment one another rather than negate.

But when you're talking about testing a hypothesis and gathering evidence to either, you know, prove it or

negate it, what do you feel like is the question that the hypothesis is asking?

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, right?

And yeah, I mean, I think one very basic one is, you know, does God exist, right?

And what is the evidence for the existence of God?

And that's certainly a big, big question, a big fundamental question.

And that certainly might be part of someone's journey.

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

God of the Bible, right?

For me, that's kind of the next logical step is, you know,

does the evidence point to that?

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

discipline and area.

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

scripture and in nature, right?

Romans 1 .20, 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.

And Psalm 19 is another great example of that.

And Psalm 19 talks about how the heavens declare the glory of God night after night

before first sort of speech.

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

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, right?

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

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

you know, 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, right?

And I just think it's a beautiful thing, you know, and yeah, I think we need to.

Take them both together.

Absolutely.

I love how you jumped right into the word.

Yes.

For me, Romans, where'd it go?

Romans 1 .20.

Yes.

Through him, we received grace.

I'm in the NLV, I think.

Okay.

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.

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

does God exist?

And is it the God of the Bible or is it Allah or is it Buddha?

You know, how do we deduce that?

What do we even need to look for to find the answers to that question?

Right.

So yeah, I mean, again, I think everyone's on their own personal journey and has to figure

out what the evidence is that is sufficient, right?

To get to the point of making that step of faith.

And for me, I mean, I think from, 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

old Testament that were fulfilled in the new Testament, um, through the

promise of a savior and the specific circumstances of

Jesus's birth, as well as Jesus's crucifixion.

Um, we see that consistency and the prophecy that it 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, um, 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.

And a big part of that, uh, 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.

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,

uh, relate to God and whether to connect with God and whether to follow God.

Right.

And so I see all these different pieces that we get from scripture,

as well as the consistency with, uh, creation and the consistency we

see within creation of a faithful God, you know, and we see, like I say, in, in Psalm

19, as well as other passages where we, where 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've had just amazing

intelligence, as well as amazing power to create these things.

Right.

And, 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 that,

um, what the, 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.

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

in a breath and be okay for, you know, a few seconds, you know, we, we, God has

provided everything we need and more.

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, you know, you, you've studied the stars.

Yeah.

And I think that, you know, I, I can't even wrap my head around like a black hole.

I can't even wrap my head around gravity.

And yet you have, you have studied the solar system.

Yeah.

I mean, quite honestly, Cassian,.

It's my study of the solar system and the rest of the universe as well, but

just, 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.

It's like, Oh my gosh, this, this planet that we live on is so perfectly suited

to support intelligent life.

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.

One of the examples that I love to talk about is the fact that earth's gravity is just

exactly right to hold onto huge amounts of water vapor.

If you go back to your high school chemistry class, 18 grams per mole.

Gosh, would not have guessed that.

Okay.

And water, water vapor as part of the water cycle is essential for our

environment.

And so earth's gravity is just right to hold on to lots of that stuff, but not quite

strong enough to hold onto the slightly lighter poisonous gases of methane and

ammonia at 16 and 17 grams per mole.

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 onto in large amounts in the atmosphere is the difference

between a life -friendly planet and not right.

A hostile planet.

So even in the, I look at, you know, NASA's exploration for

planets around other stars and you know, right now, because of our detection methods

you know, it's, it's very difficult to detect small planets.

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

typically 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.

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.

Right?

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 and you can 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.

I mean, 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.

Are you ruling out the possibility that there is another habitable planet out there?

So that is a great question.

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.

And so, but yet there is.

And the reason I believe firmly that there is in defying the odds

is that God created that.

So if that's the case, then God could have certainly

done something like.

This elsewhere.

Okay.

Absolutely.

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

Exactly.

If you look at the natural.

Probabilities of just by random chance, getting even one planet like this, I mean, a

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 planet itself together

to port 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, 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.

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?

The luckiest guy on earth,.

Right?

Or the system is rigged.

Yeah.

That's right.

And we can say the same thing about the universe.

The universe is rigged for life.

It defies the odds, right?

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.

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.

And if, and here's another thing, if, if you imagine, I know, right?

If you imagine that the multiverse theory is correct, or the multiverse

hypothesis, 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.

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, right?

My mind is blown by all that.

I'm going to take a walk.

Oh my gosh.

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.

Yeah.

Than it does to believe that an intelligent creator put it all together.

And that's what 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.

Yeah.

Right.

So yeah.

I mean, you've talked about a.

Lot of stuff 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.

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.

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

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

Christian, how do you find God in the big bang in the multiverse?

Absolutely.

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.

Let's see, let's start with the big bang, shall we?

Okay.

Okay.

So, so yeah, the big bang is actually the big bang model of the

universe of the beginning of the universe is one of the most, I

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

just that all the evidence that we see coming in has to do with,

like, for example, I mean, initially, I was looking at the redshift of

distant galaxies that we'd see in space and 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 a, an emergency vehicle comes

towards you, because of the fact that the sound waves are coming towards you on a mini

moving vehicle, it compresses the sound rate waves so that they come closer

together and you hear a higher frequency.

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

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, the frequency decreases because the waves are stretched out and you hear

lower frequency.

And so you hear lower pitch as it goes away, higher pitch as it's coming towards you.

Same thing happens with starlight.

Okay.

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'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 a typical star.

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.

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

would expect.

So if 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.

Got it.

And so people started seeing this red shift in galaxies every

direction that they looked.

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

shift.

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

And the further away things are, the faster they're moving, which gives us

this insight into what the universe is doing.

And if those things are moving away from us, then you kind of rewind

the tape, so to speak, or rewind the videos, so to speak.

And it means that everything was closer to, you know, eons ago.

I see it.

I see it.

So that's where the 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 red shifted they are.

And so this acceleration as things get further away from us.

And then recently, actually, about 10 years ago, I guess, there started to

be some evidence for what 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 Big Bang model is correct.

Okay.

And so we've started to see evidence for what Einstein predicted as these gravity waves.

And it's kind of ripples in the space -time fabric that basically were

caused, 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.

And maybe the towel isn't the best example, but if you had a sheet of something, let's just say, you're

stretching it out and you abruptly stop, you get these ripples in it

because of the abrupt stopping or slowing down.

And yeah, 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.

Okay, good.

And so you should be able to see these ripples in space -time because the

Big Bang model basically says that there was this rapid inflationary period right

after the moment of expansion in the Big Bang that rapidly expanded the

universe and then it abruptly slowed down.

And so we should -.

What would have caused that slowdown?

Great question.

I mean, that's one of the mysteries, right?

Got it.

Yeah.

And the Big Bang itself is just so interesting because in some ways it's very

counterintuitive.

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.

If you look, you can't look at the Big Bang as just 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.

And basically entropy would cause the energy to be less

ordered and it would just kind of peter out.

But with the Big Bang, what we see is, yeah, we had this rapid inflationary period early on

and then a slowdown.

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.

And so we came up with this idea of dark energy to describe the

energy that is causing this accelerating expansion.

And unlike almost anything that we're familiar with in our day -to -day experience,

so for example, when you stretch a rubber band, you feel resistance.

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

Dark energy is kind of the opposite of that.

The more you stretch it, the.

More energy it has to stretch more.

That's a pretty hard concept to swallow.

Yeah.

So yeah, I was just, how do you find God in that?

Because that's kind of secular.

I don't know.

It's pretty ice cold.

That's the only way I can explain it.

Okay.

So where you find God in it though is, okay, let's go to the

model of the origin of the universe that was commonly accepted before the Big Bang model.

And that was called the.

Steady -State Model.

Okay.

I'm not too familiar.

Sorry?

I'm not too familiar with that.

Yeah.

Okay.

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.

Got it.

So basically what the Steady -State Theory of the universe was

that the universe has always existed.

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

And the cosmological argument basically says that anything that

begins to exist must have a cause for its existence.

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

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

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.

So you can see how the shift from the Steady -State Theory, which

basically says that the universe always existed, to the Big Bang Theory,

basically is this 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.

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

gravitation 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.

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, 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.

So those things are also fine -tuned.

And so you see this intelligence behind that too.

Okay.

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 God's will in letting all of that happen?

Because it seems so not Imago Dei.

It seems so cold.

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.

It's hard to find the intention behind that.

Well, yes, but you have to then also...

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 clumping of matter, let alone

this dark energy that comes into play?

And the dark matter too, which we haven't really mentioned, which basically says that

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.

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.

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 I mean, I think

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

I mean, I know when I was working more in the aerospace industry,

people kind of, I think they tend to maybe compartmentalize things and

not consider as big of questions necessarily.

Okay.

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.

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.

So you're not necessarily thinking about what the implications of some of the latest discoveries

in astrophysics are.

I think in some ways, people are wired to

focus on what they need to do to get through the day.

What do I need to do to accomplish my task at hand and not

necessarily think as deeply as the background science, so to speak.

I don't think that's any kind of a

diss to anybody.

It's just human nature.

I mean, and

the progress that we've made in science as well as other areas through the

eons of time.

It's kind of like Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right?

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.

So 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?

And so I think people have the capacity to

consider those things, but they might not have the time.

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?

And do I have the luxury to sit and think about these really deep

questions that maybe don't interest everyone, but at the same

time, they're fascinating to consider, but they might

not be part of my daily life.

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, I wonder if this is actually God explaining this, but it seems like you could.

Yeah.

I mean, I think it was definitely a journey for me and a process.

As a kid, as I mentioned back in junior high school, I didn't know what to do with this

kind of apparent conflict, but I knew that I wanted to figure it out, that much I

knew.

But at the same time, by the time I was finishing high school, and I'd gone to

secular schools all the way from grade school on through grad school.

By the time I was graduating from high school, I guess

I didn't feel confident enough about how to address the

relationship between science and faith to boldly go into

a STEM field in college.

So my undergraduate degree, I took a lot of math and science along the way, but I

majored in political science.

And I think a big part of that was because I just didn't know how to

reconcile science and faith yet.

So I shied away from it.

I mean, looking back on that, I know that's what that was about because people all through

high school had told me, you're really good in this math and science stuff.

You really want to pursue it.

Like I said, a big part of me was just not sure how to reconcile that perceived

conflict.

And so it was really in grad school that I started having

the ability to really interact with people that had similar interests

in terms of getting into the bigger questions.

And so I started finding resources.

And in fact, Reasons to Believe was one of the first organizations that I drew resources

from and had conversations with people that were, like I said, had

similar interests.

So it was always in the back of my mind, and I guess I left something out too.

So from my undergrad degree in political science, my

senior year as an undergrad, I did an internship at the State Department in DC.

And I realized during that time that I needed to get some sort of an

advanced degree in order to get anywhere in the 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 discussions that

were happening through the State Department and other countries had to do with

technology and possibly military systems and space systems and whatnot,

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

And so here, like I say, all I have is my bachelor's degree in political

science and some math and science along the way.

And I applied to Stanford and I did my

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

math.

And so the GRE math is pretty much high school math.

And so I just whizzed through the math section.

And that was one of the things that they cited.

They said, you were off the charts in terms of your scores on the GRE.

And so in spite of the fact that I had this poli -sci undergrad degree, they admitted me directly to

a master's program in aerospace engineering.

Wow.

Yeah.

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

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

And it was in fact, probably one of the hardest things I've ever done was sitting in classes with

other students at Stanford who had had four years of engineering already.

But I got through it by the grace of God.

And so from there, then I was able to go into

the aerospace arena.

Got it.

Got it.

But it was interesting, just like I say, you were talking about how some people seem not to

address a lot of these questions.

And I think it was just in me from a really early age.

How do I figure this out?

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 God?

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

I love stories like this.

Do you have any?

I wouldn't say I have any irrefutable proof kind of things.

In fact, 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.

I have had students from the get -go when I was teaching undergrad science

classes that would say, oh, it's been scientifically proven that blah, blah, blah.

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.

You can disprove things, but you don't make an open and shut case.

I mean, again, this inductive process is a moving target, right?

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

So forgive me, but I will say, in fact, there was a

story that I kind of left out in my kind of growing up years.

When 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.

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

And here I am nine years old.

It was the worst thing I could possibly imagine.

I mean, I go away from my family, go overseas, live in a grass hut with a

dirt floor.

I mean, that was part of the thing.

And I was just like, oh my gosh, this is just frightening.

And so I went to bed and just night after night that week and

just cried myself to sleep because I was so distraught about this.

It was such a powerful feeling.

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

And I said, okay, Lord, if that's what you want me to do, I'll do it.

And I can remember it like it was yesterday.

I was just overwhelmed with this amazing sense of peace.

It was just a night and day shift.

And from then, there are numerous times that I've gone on short term mission trips and

my takeaway from it is, there's a lot more to the story.

I can tell you a lot more about it, but just in the interest of time, I'll just kind of summarize

and say that I look back on it as kind of the Abraham and Isaac experience, not to be too dramatic,

but just, are you willing to sacrifice everything and follow me no

matter what I call you to?

And that was really the takeaway.

And so from that point forward, every fork in the road, I was just like, okay, Lord, what do

you want me to do?

And just waiting for his guidance and his direction.

And so what I've come to find is my real mission field is this reconciliation

between science and faith.

And that is my true calling.

And you're sharing it, you're doing it.

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.

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?

And yeah.

Wow.

Well, one of the things, and I'm almost afraid to ask this because, and I don't want you hold back the answer because it might

go another hour and that's okay.

But how do we come to terms with the multiverse with the complexities of the Lord and,

you know, having a planet that's only surviving within margins of destruction, but

there could be parallel universes out there.

I mean, how do I wrap my Christian mind around that?

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 God is and what he's capable of.

I'm just, I literally say, bring on the multiverse.

My God is big enough for the multiverse.

Yeah, absolutely.

Amen.

Yeah.

And the, the thing is, I mean, I feel we're just barely beginning to

glimpse how amazing God is.

I love that.

Yeah.

And you just look at this amazing synergy and connection of

details that God has built into this universe 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, the fact that the universe does support life is miraculous, 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?

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, the physical dimensions that we

live inside of, you know, the three dimensions of space and one of time that we

experienced.

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.

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.

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

right?

Yeah.

Past behind us, the future in front of us, we're at the present, but it's a timeline.

Okay.

Imagine that we have a two dimension, two dimensions of time.

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.

And doesn't that kind of remind you of omnipresence of God, right?

Yeah.

And so that's just one small thing, but we're talking about a God who's

outside of dimensions, not even just captured within two dimensions of time and 10 dimensions of

space.

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 the place that God lives in,

where he's not constrained by these dimensions.

And so things that seem impossible to us in our three dimensions of space and one of time, our

child's play for God outside of all this.

Yes.

I love how great.

You're painting God to be.

I mean, especially from a scientific perspective, I'm curious, how did you like, what were the words that

worked when you were evangelizing your colleagues who were secular?

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 I've had 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.

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

listen to who you are.

Right.

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

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

preaches.

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, 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.

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

things.

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?

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

God gave us, gave us free will.

We have rational minds.

We choose to be in relationship with God.

If we pray and ask God for something, he doesn't necessarily

snap his fingers and give it to us overnight, right?

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, I'm giving it to you right now.

And so we see that God uses processes in our own lives.

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

Right.

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

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.

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

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.

And so we see this coordination of details that defies probabilities.

So anyway, so like I say, that's a thought experiment.

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

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, you know, in your church, maybe, maybe your church says that it happened in

seven literal days.

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 Bible is the Hebrew

word yom, which can be literally translated as a 24 hour period or

as an indefinite era.

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

try to emphasize is this, you know, two books idea, God's revelation of himself, both

in scripture, as well as in creation.

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,

the interpretation of scripture, 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 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.

And I think also the, this thing I talked to you about, about the odds of

getting everything just right is another powerful tool.

And that's referred to as the fine -tuning argument or the Goldilocks principle, you

know, everything has to be just right.

And once 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.

So, and, you know, so when you consider the evidence that really.

The best explanation is the 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?

Yeah.

No, I really don't.

I.

Mean, the Bible, the Bible's primary message is to tell us about who God is and kind of the

story from beginning to end of his plan for, for humans.

Yeah.

It's not a scientific textbook.

Exactly.

It is not, it never was meant to be that.

And in fact, 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.

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

worse.

Right.

And the original readers would have been.

Dark magic or they would have said it was magic and we would have taken that literally.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And, and that's the thing.

So, you know, we have to look at, 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, 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.

And even 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.

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 God we could fathom.

We can't even fathom dark energy and.

Wormholes and God created that.

And multiverse, the possibility of a multiverse and, you know, again, like I say,

my view of who God is and how capable he is, and just the awe and

wonder with which I experience when I look at this

amazing creation that he gave us, you know, it's just, it's, yeah, 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 took God out of a box many, many years

ago, and he's not going back in.

Yeah, 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.

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.

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?

How can we stay connected with.

You and keep up with you?

Yes, absolutely.

Thank you so much for asking.

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

WISH program.

WISH stands for Women in Science and Humanities because we need women from both the

sciences, all the STEM fields, as well as humanities to really kind of have

a full discussion about the connections between science and faith.

So this grant is all about supporting women to be involved in this science and

faith conversation and exploration.

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

context of this conversation 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?

How do we deal with the possible cognitive dissonance that may come up for

individuals through psychology?

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

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

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 glass ceiling in STEM

fields that has been pretty historic, as well as the glass ceiling within some

religious institutions for women.

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?

So we're currently running a survey.

I've got a website at wishprogram .org.

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.

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.

Awesome.

Anything else, any written works,.

Any speaking engagements?

Yeah.

Actually, my book, 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.

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

Yeah, I'm constantly doing talks at churches and schools and

other groups, community groups, and love to do that kind of thing.

So yeah, get in touch with me through my email, lwickman213 at

gmail .com.

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

That's starryknightsaltogether .me.

And like I say, you can also go to the wishprogram .org website and see what we're up

to there.

Okay, awesome.

Well, Dr. Wickman, this was amazing.

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 God.

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

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

or the Big Bang, or the stars, we can still encounter.

God because our God is that big.

Absolutely.

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.

We absolutely have to.

Absolutely.

There's still so much left to talk about.

I will be in touch.

Okay, awesome.

Sounds good.

Thanks so much, Cassian.

Thank you so much. I'll see you soon.

Okay. Take care. God bless.