Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Today's conversation is with Dr. Mike Strauss, who is a tenured professor at the University of Oklahoma, and he works on the CERN atom smashing super collider in Geneva, Switzerland. And every time I sit down with Mike, I am so excited about his research and what he's discovered. It makes me realize how much he knows, how much I still have to learn, but how somehow faith and science and God are compatible. I hope you enjoy this conversation.
Well, it's not every day that I get to spend time with a world renowned particle physicist. So, Mike, thank you so much for being here with me today. I'm so excited about this conversation.
[00:00:38] Speaker B: Yeah, me too. Thanks for inviting me.
[00:00:40] Speaker A: I would love to talk about what an average day and week look like for you. I mean this. You live in Oklahoma, you're at the University of Oklahoma, you've been a physicist there for many years, tenured professor, but yet you have a daily zoom call or communication with Geneva, Switzerland, the CERN project. Let's talk about that. What does it look like?
[00:01:02] Speaker B: So I'm an experimental particle physicist and I do my research at CERN laboratory, which is in Virgin Geneva, Switzerland. It's the world's premier laboratory for experimental particle physics. And so because the laboratory is in Geneva and I'm in Oklahoma, I have to be able to communicate with people there. So. So I'm pretty much on zoom calls to people in Geneva most every day. The data from that collider, that detector is sent to Oklahoma so my graduate students, undergraduate students, can look at the data as well as me. So most of my day is spent analyzing data from the CERN Large Hadron Collider.
[00:01:39] Speaker A: Okay, so most of our audience has no idea what this super collider is. I read that it's 17 miles.
[00:01:47] Speaker B: The radius is 17 miles, circumference is 17 miles.
[00:01:49] Speaker A: Why would it be that large? And tell us what it does.
[00:01:52] Speaker B: So the goal of experimental particle physics is to understand the structure of the universe at the smallest level. So, you know, in high school you learn the universe is made of neutrons and protons and electrons.
Where do you boil down? How deep can you go? Are neutrons and protons made of things that are smaller than that? The answer is yes. They're made of things called quarks. And so the goal of elementary particle physics is to understand the structure of the universe at the smallest level. And to do that, we smash protons together at the speed of light. The analogy I give is, suppose you wanted to know what a car is made of, and you don't have any tools to look in the car and take it apart? Well, what do you do? If you're an experimental particle physicist? You get the car going really, really fast. You smash it against another car going really, really fast, and you see what comes out. And from that, you understand how the car is put together. So at CERN, we collide protons 40 million times a second, 24 hours a day, six months of the year, at the speed of light, and we see what comes out. To understand the structure of the universe, the reason it's so big is the faster something goes, the harder it is to turn. And the protons are going so fast that we need a 17 mile circumference circle to turn them.
[00:03:07] Speaker A: And so this is around the clock. It never stops for about six months.
[00:03:11] Speaker B: Of the year, but the other six months we do maintenance and other things on it. But yeah.
[00:03:15] Speaker A: Okay. How many people work at CERN?
[00:03:17] Speaker B: My experiment has 3,500 people. There are two experiments. There are four experiments close to that size. So 20,000. I don't know.
[00:03:27] Speaker A: Okay, so let's talk about some of the discoveries. How long has this been going on in CERN?
[00:03:31] Speaker B: Started in the 1950s. Particle physics probably started at about the 1950s, and CERN is going on since then and will probably go on another 40 years at least.
[00:03:43] Speaker A: And you've been working with CERN for how long?
[00:03:45] Speaker B: I've worked with cern for about 20 years. Before that, I worked at a collider near Chicago called Fermilab. Before that, I worked at one near Stanford called slac. So I've worked at a few different places, premier laboratories around the world.
[00:03:59] Speaker A: The big news I remember about cern, at least in the press, was the God particle.
[00:04:03] Speaker B: Yeah, the God particle. No scientist calls it the God particle. That was a marketing tool. A guy named Leon Lederman, a Nobel Prize winner, wrote a book on looking for this particle. And in order to sell books, he called it the God particle. Because you would never sell a book called the Search for the Higgs Boson. But a guy named Peter Higgs predicted this particle in the 1960s. We spent $20 billion and 50 years looking for it. And in 2012, it was discovered. So about 7,000 people were involved in its discovery. And so I'll take credit for 1/7,000th of the discovery.
[00:04:37] Speaker A: Okay, and what was discovered?
[00:04:38] Speaker B: A particle that we call the Higgs boson. So we have a picture what the universe looks like. It's called the Standard Model of particle physics. Think of it like a big jigsaw puzzle. And like the picture on the box of a jigsaw puzzle, you know, what it should look like, but you have to find all the pieces. So over the course of the last 30 years or so, we found that various pieces, and the last piece we hadn't found was this thing called the Higgs boson. And so when it was discovered in 2012, it finished the puzzle of how we think the universe is put together. The problem is we know that the puzzle is incomplete. It's part of a bigger jigsaw puzzle, and we don't know what the bigger one looks like. So that's kind of the Holy Grail of what we're looking for. Now.
[00:05:19] Speaker A: It's fascinating. You know, some people struggle with reconciling, you know, faith and science, or science and God. And does science point to God's existence? And through your decades of research at the highest level, how would you answer that question if someone said, does science point to God's existence?
[00:05:40] Speaker B: Well, you know, as a scientist, what I find is the more I study nature, the more I actually find evidence that there is a deity, some kind of God, behind it all. And I think even the things I study about nature gives some understanding of what that deity might look like, what are some of the characteristics of the deity. So when I look at nature, I see design behind it. I see intelligence behind it. I see some kind of creator behind it.
[00:06:09] Speaker A: Would you say that the majority of people you've worked with for these many years, do they feel the same way, or have you had examples of those that maybe said they didn't believe in God, and then through the research and the discovery, change. Change their mind?
[00:06:21] Speaker B: Yeah. I think every individual is on a journey, and some of people on that journey, they look at certain things and they say they don't see evidence for God for one reason or another. And we can talk about why that might be. And then other people look at the same evidence and think it points directly to a God.
[00:06:40] Speaker A: Okay, so let's say I'm a skeptic. Maybe I'm spiritual or maybe even religious on some level, but I'm really just having doubts about this. So through your discoveries, through your research, could you give me maybe three or four reasons why, based on the evidence, God exists?
[00:06:59] Speaker B: I think the first thing I point to is that a hundred years ago, we had no understanding of the universe and its origin. Most scientists thought the universe was eternal and it always existed and it was infinite in size. But all the evidence now seems to point to the universe having a beginning in what we call the big bang about 13.8 billion years ago. And if the universe has a beginning, then it prompts the question, what started the universe? And there are possible answers, but I think a transcendent external God is a great answer.
If you had predicted 100 years ago that we would come to the conclusion that, that the universe most likely had a beginning, most scientists would have said, no, that's never going to happen. But that's exactly what has happened. And if the universe has a beginning, then it seems to point to the possibility, at least, that there is a beginner. You have to come up with some explanation for the beginning. The other thing that I see a lot in my research is the universe looks very much designed. I mean, there are parameters of the universe that if they were to change just slightly, there would be no universe at all or a universe inhospitable to life. One of the things I study in my research is called the strong nuclear force, or the strong force. It's the force that holds quarks together in the proton. I know this is really what you wanted to hear about, right? How the quarks are held together in the proton. But it turns out that if you were to take that strength of the strong nuclear force and just change it like 2%, then it would destroy the periodic table. We would not have a universe that could support life at all. And so there are hundreds of parameters, or dozens of parameters like that, that are balanced on a razor's edge. And if you were to just change them a little bit, there'd be no universe at all, or a universe inhospitable to life. So it looks designed. And maybe if it looks designed, there's a real designer behind it all. So there's a couple. I could give you a few more.
[00:08:57] Speaker A: Yeah, let's go with that for a moment. So here you have the Earth as one of however many planets in terms of our galaxy, the universe, in that. And I've heard it said, and I've read along the way, that supposedly Earth is the only planet or place that could sustain life. Is that true?
[00:09:16] Speaker B: So this is actually the third thing I would have brought up. I brought up the origin of the universe and the design of the universe, the Earth. I mean, there's a lot of discussion about this, and we don't know, but it's very difficult to make a planet that's hospitable to higher life forms, not to bacteria. Bacteria can thrive anywhere. But if you want to get any more complex than bacteria, there are literally hundreds of parameters. You know, when Scientists say they found an Earth like planet. We think of something you'd see on Star Trek or Star wars where we could go live. But that's not what they mean. When you hear that they found an Earth like planet, they mean one of three things. The planet might be rocky and not gaseous. Well, Mercury's rocky and not gaseous. It might be the same size as the Earth. Well, Venus is the same size as the Earth. Or it might be in an orbit around its star that can support liquid water while Mars is in such an orbit. So when you hear that they found an Earth like planet, they haven't. And if you ask what does it take to build a planet like the Earth that can support any life more complex than bacteria, there's probably three to 500 parameters. And so when you do the math, it's highly unlikely. We don't know, but it's highly unlikely that there are any other planets out there in the visible universe that could support life like us. And so it seems to indicate that humans, rather than just being a usual planet, nothing special about us, was called the Copernican principle. We're just a normal, everyday mediocre planet. It doesn't seem to be the case. Now this isn't settled science, where there's still searches for life, other places mostly it searches for bacterial life. But when you do the math, it's highly possible that this planet is special. And if this planet is special or even unique, then does that say something about humans? Are humans special or unique? Or are we just an accident of nature?
[00:11:17] Speaker A: So go back to the fine tuning that you mentioned. And you said that that appears to be evidence of some type of grand designer or creator. Can you give us some examples of, you know, what you've discovered and how we could go, wow, okay, that does seem like there's an artist behind all of this.
[00:11:32] Speaker B: Well, again, you know, the strong force is one of the examples. There are other things that are, you know, finely tuned. I study something called quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics is the way the universe works at the smallest scales. And there are things like called the Pauli exclusion principle, that how electrons are put together in atoms. And again, if you change any of these parameters, you get a life or universe that's inhospitable to life.
[00:12:01] Speaker A: But let's back up and talk about how did you even end up in the field of physics to begin with?
[00:12:07] Speaker B: Yeah, you know, I grew up in a religious family. My dad was actually a pastor and I had no role models for physics. I just liked science. I grew up in the time when the US was going to the moon, and I used to make plastic models of all the spacecraft that went up into outer space. And many people my age got excited about science because of the great adventure of going to the moon.
I believe there is a God who has a purpose for my life. And whenever I would come to a decision as to what I wanted to do in life, what graduate school to go to or what school to go to, I just felt almost called to go into physics. And there's a lot of circumstances, but I ended up doing a PhD at UCLA in experimental particle physics. And the path is long. You get a bachelor's degree, you get your PhD, you do postdoc work. But for me, the short answer is, I feel like this is where I'm supposed to be. People are like that in life, right? They find a path, a calling that they're passionate about, and they feel that somehow they were directed into that.
[00:13:14] Speaker A: And so being on this trajectory. And you love what you do. And you mentioned growing up in a religious home. How has your research, your discoveries along the way, strengthened your belief in God or perhaps even changed it on some level?
[00:13:29] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, what I found is that when I study nature, I see evidence for God. I have a friend who's an artist, and he says when you look at a painting, you see the soul of the artist. And an art critic will see things in a painting that I will never see. I took an Intro to Art class in college, and I thought I'd hate it, and I loved it. They showed how, you know, the brush strokes tell you something about the painter's mindset. And if you do, you know, a way that you can actually see what's under the painting on the canvas. You get ideas about how their thought process evolved as they were painting. And the art critic, the art expert, sees these things that I would never see. So as a scientist, I get to look at what I think is the Creator's piece of art, the universe, the person that created this. And as the scientist, I get to explore aspects of that creation that give me insight into possibly what the Creator is like. And so as I've studied nature, it's strengthened my belief that there's a grand design behind it. In fact, it's even strengthened my belief that there's a personal God behind it. And that as I study it, I can see evidence of that in what I study in nature.
[00:14:45] Speaker A: You know, I don't know why the perception is such, but I've heard along the way, and I've I mean, my own journey sometimes with, from teachers and that, that it was hard sometimes to reconcile or prove that faith and science were compatible or somehow you had science over here and belief in God over here. And so I'm curious, based on just your decades of research and at the highest level as a particle physicist, with your colleagues and just those on the CERN project and you know, the people that the leaders in the field, what percentage, if you can even give us one, would you say of these Scientists believe in some form of higher power or creator?
[00:15:25] Speaker B: Research tends to show that the more education you have, the less likely you are to believe in God. And I think there's some evidence to support that, and that's what the research shows. But yet there are people in every profession that what they see leads them to God. And so, you know, I have colleagues who have the same faith as I do, but I also have colleagues who, you know, don't believe there is any God behind it all. So I think it's all over the map.
[00:15:52] Speaker A: And so. But in your research and in your own journey, your faith has increased or strengthened as a result of your work.
[00:16:00] Speaker B: Yeah, it was interesting. There was this article in the Wall Street Journal that was encouraging scientists to not have awe when we look at nature. Scientists tend to look at nature and it's amazing, it's beautiful, it's awe inspiring. And this author, the writer of the op ed piece, was saying we need to not have awe because that tends to lead to a belief in a higher power. And so he was arguing against it. But you can't help but look at nature and have awe. And the question is, what do you do with that? And the explanation could be a higher power, a creator, a designer God, or you could go to other options and look for other explanations.
[00:16:41] Speaker A: So have you found from your personal experience to believing a God, a designer behind this has just given you more peace and joy. And it just what is it about that you think has chosen you to. I mean, the evidence has led you to that belief.
[00:16:57] Speaker B: But to be honest, one of the things that drives me is a search for truth, passionate about truth. And the way you discover truth is by looking at all the alternatives to me.
So the alternative to the universe is either there's a desire behind it all or it's some kind of process of nature with no designer behind it all. And when I look at the evidence, I ask myself, what's the most likely explanation and the explanation that answers the questions of life better and the questions I study in science better is the answer, that there's a designer, a creator behind it all. I just think it's a better explanation than the alternatives.
[00:17:40] Speaker A: So would you say it would take, from your perspective, more faith to not believe in a grand designer than to believe.
[00:17:47] Speaker B: Well, first you have to define faith, which. There's lots of definitions.
Richard Dawkins defines faith as believing something without evidence. I think that's stupidity. If a Nigerian prince sends you an email and wants money from you and you have no evidence that that person is trustworthy, don't send them money. That's not faith, that's stupidity. So to me, believing something without evidence is stupidity. It's not faith. Most people think that's what's faith. Oh, I don't have any evidence. So it's a blind leap in the dark. Right. So I don't define faith like that. That's certainly not how my Christian biblical belief defines faith. In the Bible, faith is always trusting based on the evidence that the person is trustworthy. And so, you know, I wouldn't say it takes more faith to not believe in a God. What I would say is there are people who look at the evidence and don't think God is the best explanation. And we can talk about why that would be the case. Well, I think part of the reason is because, you know, there's this misconception of something we call God of the gaps. God of the gaps is if I don't understand it, God must have done it. So the ancient people didn't understand lightning. So there must be a God of lightning and thunder, Thor.
And so when we fill in the gaps, there's no need for God. If that's your perception of God, then, yeah, we will eventually fill in all the gaps. And this is, I think, where most of my colleagues come from. Science has explained the gaps and the few gaps we don't yet understand. Science will eventually explain the problem with that thinking. Again, I'm not just a religious person, I'm also a Christian. And the problem with that thinking is the Christian God is not a God of the gaps. According to the Bible, God primarily works through nature. The Bible says that God causes the God feeds the lions. Well, did ancient people know how lions were fed? Of course they did. They knew that they hunted, the lions hunted. But yet they ascribed the actions of nature to the God who created nature. So the biblical idea of God is not a God of the gaps, but a God who created nature that works. So if I look at a machine that works wonderfully, my computer mostly works most of the time. Right. And so there must be a designer behind it. There's no gap in saying there's a designer. There's a gap. If I was to say, well, it shouldn't work that way, but it does.
So according to a Christian viewpoint, how should I see God in nature? Not by the things I don't understand, but by the things I do understand. It works so well. It looks like there's a designer and a creator. So my colleagues say, well, that can be explained by the laws of physics, therefore we don't need a God. I say, that can be explained by the laws of physics. Therefore, we need a designer who set up those laws because they work so well.
[00:20:42] Speaker A: Okay, so if you say I walk into a room and I see an alarm clock and I take it apart and I'm thinking, someone designed this. Now take that thought along with the Big Bang theory, because I've heard people have. They can't get their mind around this concept of there being some. A Big Bang, whatever that was. And I want you to elaborate on that and how things could then somehow, through this explosion or whatever it was, form things that make sense, like the alarm clock to say, oh, it was designed.
[00:21:14] Speaker B: Well, you know, we understand the Big Bang. Well, the Big Bang has multiple meanings. Most people don't know this. The Big Bang originally meant the very beginning of the universe, but we don't know what happened at the very beginning. We know what happened about a trillionth of a trillionth of a second after the beginning. And so now most people who say the Big Bang, most scientists define that about a trillionth of a second after the origin of the universe, because at that point we understand the laws of physics.
[00:21:41] Speaker A: So it wasn't that God. Did God use, from your perspective, the Big Bang to set things into motion, or he had created God.
[00:21:48] Speaker B: I think God's method of creation was what we call the Big Bang. I think that's clear from science. I think it's also clear from the Bible, but that's a whole other discussion.
So I understand my colleagues understand the laws of physics, and we can put those into a computer program and see what happens. So if I put the laws of physics into a computer program and start it 10 to the minus 12 seconds after the origin and run the computer program, we basically get the universe we see. So if the laws of physics give us the universe we see, then why do I need a God? But see, to me, that doesn't answer the question, because the laws of physics are something. They describe the universe, their description. They're not Prescription, right? If I tell you how laws work, if I tell you the laws that build this building, that doesn't build the building, you need something beyond that. And so my colleagues will look at the laws of physics. In fact, I just had a discussion with an atheistic theoretical physicist about this. They'll look at the laws of physics and say, if I could write the equation down, I don't need God. But the equation doesn't build anything. The equation describes how it all works. And if the equation is wonderful itself, what does that tell you? In fact, one of the other reasons I believe in God from science is the fact that mathematics is the language of the universe. Physicists don't think we understand something until we can write a mathematical equation that describes it. If I tell you that such and such is true for how the universe works, nobody will take you seriously until you can write the math that describes it. Math is the language of the universe.
[00:23:32] Speaker A: I wouldn't be a very good scientist.
[00:23:33] Speaker B: Well, we joke about this, right? Some people learn French, other people learn math, right? But math is the language of the universe. Well, this is how an engineer works. Before they build the airplane, they do the math to see if the wings will support the structure. So, again, it looks like a designer. Now, some physicists, some scientists will say, well, if I have the math, that's all I need. That, to me, doesn't seem like it should end there. If you have the math, does that build the universe itself? In fact, Stephen Hawking in his book A Brief history of Time says, paraphrasing him, the math doesn't give you the fire in the equations, it's just the equations. He later changed his mind, by the way, and said, the math is all you need. But when he wrote the Brief history of your time, he recognized that the math is not all you need, that you needed something to bring fire into the equation. So I think this is the two sides of the equation. And, you know, we talked about that. We wanted to discuss ideas and let the viewer decide which ideas are best. You know, these are the two ideas. Either the universe is fully explained by the laws of physics, and you just end there. If I was to write the laws of the universe on the blackboard that completely described it, that's all I can do. And there are physicists who believe that, or you can say, what's behind those laws? These things themselves are so beautiful, and they describe the universe. They don't prescribe the universe. So what's behind it? And if you take that next step, it leads to Some kind of creator, some kind of intelligent designer behind it all. But most physicists won't take that next step.
[00:25:08] Speaker A: Okay, fascinating. Okay. Something I think, that perplexes many people is, so this God of creation 2000 years ago decides to enter into his creation to be born of a virgin, you know, in the form of Jesus of Nazareth, a historical figure. And I can see, I mean, that is problematic for many people. It just seems strange. Can you describe that A little bit?
[00:25:33] Speaker B: So what's problematic about it?
[00:25:34] Speaker A: Well, so you have a God that created and then enters into the creation. And I mean, it's hard, I guess, in the west or Judeo, Christian environment or cultural upbringing, myself included, of how to even stop and ponder that, to how a non Christian could look at that and go, that just seems really strange.
[00:25:55] Speaker B: Yeah. So, I mean, again, you're talking. So when I give talks on how I think science points to God, I often get the question, why do you believe in the Christian God? Why not a different God? And when I answer that question, what does the Christian God mean? Well, it starts with the word Christ. It boils down to, who was Jesus?
So I'm a scientist. I want evidence for everything I believe. Why do I believe that Jesus was more than a man? It has to do with history. Did Jesus rise from the dead or not?
My dad died in 1993. I haven't seen him since, amazingly. So everybody I know who's died, nobody sees later. Right. But according to the first followers of Jesus, he was alive.
He was alive three days later.
If that event happened, then Jesus is not just a man, he is more. And if that event happened, it should radically affect our lives. Now, historians can study whether events happen or not. Most historians say the resurrection didn't happen because there's a preconceived notion that you cannot show miracles happen, because they don't.
But if you look at the evidence from the first century as to what happened that first Easter, which I've looked at from every angle, there's only one explanation that explains the facts. And the explanation is that this person, Jesus of Nazareth, came back from the dead. And if he came back from the dead, it validates his claims of who he was. How does God become a man? I have a clue. It's another thing about God I don't understand, but a true resurrection. And, you know, if you want to determine whether Christianity has any validity or not, you can look at all the scientific evidence for God. I think it's abundant. But you have to see whether Jesus rose from the dead. I can name a half dozen people off the top of my head who went to the historical evidence to prove that Jesus did not rise from the dead so they could wipe out Christianity once and for all and became Christians because of that evidence. And so I don't have all the answers. God is much bigger than me. I don't know how God could become a man. I don't know how a virgin could have a child. I don't know how somebody could rise from the dead. But I can look at the evidence from history and see if it happened.
[00:28:41] Speaker A: Well, it seems like this has changed your life and your belief in this. So with all the research, the evidence that points to the Creator you're describing in that, and if I was just curious to say, hey, okay, Mike, I don't believe in this. Jesus you're talking about is the one that created the world, entered the creation, died, and rose again. In that, I mean, what would be the best way to convince me? Would it be to point to the science? Or would there be something else you could say to me?
[00:29:08] Speaker B: You know, I don't know, Everybody's an individual. Everybody's different. What are your hangups with God? Were you hurt by the church? Do you just think it's a bunch of crock, right?
Were you hurt by a circumstance in life that you think a loving, caring God would never allow? I don't know everybody's circumstance, but I would say start with your biggest questions about God. If your biggest questions are intellectual, then look at the intellectual answers. Does the signs point to God? Did Jesus historically rise from the dead? If your questions are emotional, how could a loving God allow this to happen? Then you need to wrestle with what God might be like and why a loving God might allow that to happen. If your questions are volitional, you just don't want to follow a God who might want you to live differently. Then wrestle with why. I mean, everybody is different. And I don't know people's biggest questions. But I will tell you this. If the message of Christianity is true, if the followers of Jesus are correct, and that Jesus is who he is, God who came to earth, he claimed to be the way, the truth, the life, the only way to God, if that's true, then he has the answers to those questions. He has the answers to your hurt and your pain and your willful disobedience and your intellectual questions. And if it's not true, don't follow it. It's ridiculous. And if it is true, the answers are there.
[00:30:41] Speaker A: How would I search for those Answers like, if I really want to know, where would you even point me? Well, in your case, science points to God, that. Are there some other things I should explore or read about?
[00:30:52] Speaker B: I mean, if God is real, he can hear prayer. So if God is real, ask him to show you himself somehow. I don't know what it's going to take. As a Christian, I believe the Bible is God's word. So I believe that when I was dating my wife, she would write me a letter and I would pore over every word and I would read between the lines. She really liked me or not. If the Bible is God's love letter to us, then it's got words for you. Go read it for yourself. Don't just believe what other people told you about and go read the Gospel of Luke. Luke is a great gospel. So there are four pictures of Jesus, four different perspectives in the Bible called Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Luke was written by a physician. He's the educated guy. I love reading Luke because I'm the educated guy. Right. So if you're an educated person and you want to read some answers, go read the Gospel of Luke and see who Jesus really was, not just what you've heard about him. If I want to know who you really are, I don't know why I'd ever want to do that. But suppose I did, right? I would not ask your friends, just I would get to know you. I would read what you wrote, your books, right?
[00:31:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:31:58] Speaker B: So go read about Jesus.
[00:32:00] Speaker A: So spend time with people. Spend time with people who believe. Listen well. Prayer.
[00:32:06] Speaker B: Go to a church that believes that Jesus is who he claimed to be and hear what they say. And go to a church that lets you ask tough questions. If it's true, then the questions I've answered.
[00:32:17] Speaker A: You know, Michael, at several moments during this conversation, you've gotten emotional. I mean, this obviously means a lot to you. Your faith is such a big part of your life. And even just the foundation of, I would say, the way you're living and how you're even approaching science in your job and your work. And I think sometimes, I'm sure some of the listeners, you've got facts, you've got things that happen and that you can prove through science and that. And then you've got these things that happen that we can't explain, that it just causes us to struggle. And you think about the disciples of Jesus. You mentioned these 12 and how they spent three plus years with him and yet they still had doubts. And I think about one of them named Thomas, who Even after the resurrection, you described that Jesus died and then three days later, he rose again. And yet this one named Thomas had to touch him, touch the scars, and feel all that. And so has that happened in your life? I mean, have there been things that have come up or happened that you just go, wow, I believe, but help me with my unbelief.
[00:33:19] Speaker B: Truth is a high value for me. How do you determine truth? Well, truth has to align with reality, and there are facts that you have to align with. And if you're. If your beliefs don't align with the facts, then there's something missing. But life is more than facts, right? And so I want the facts of nature, the things I study in science. If what I believe is true, they should support that. But that's not all there is to life. You know, the crux of Christianity is that Jesus rose from the dead and he's alive, and therefore you can have relationship with him. You cannot have a relationship with a dead person. I mean, I guess you could try, but it won't be very fulfilling. Probably. But if Jesus is alive, you can have a relationship with him. So think about the good relationships in your life. Have you ever had doubts about them? Have you ever wondered, what am I doing in this relationship? This is not working out like I thought. My wife and I have been married for 34 years, but believe me, there were times I hope she's not watching when I go, what did I get into? I'm sure she said that a lot more than me.
So if Christianity is real, if it's a dynamic, living relationship with a living person, Jesus, then of course you have doubts. Of course you have ups and downs.
So let me tell you how my science fits in with that.
On those days when God doesn't do what I want him to do, which is often, when God doesn't act in my life the way I think he should, and when God seems distant, how many times do I pray and my prayers seem like they're bouncing off the ceiling and going nowhere? Those days I go back to the facts. Who did create the universe? Why is it so well designed? What happened on that first Easter morning when it appears Jesus rose from the dead? Why is it that math describes the universe? It's like, you know, the days when my marriage doesn't seem very good, which are fewer and far between than when we were first married. I got this little fact. It's called a marriage certificate. It says right there, I'm married. I'm sure everyone in the armed services. I've never Been in the armed services. I'm sure you don't wake up every morning going, man, I really want to do that 20 mile hike with 50 pounds on my back. But you go, oh, I got this little contract, here's the fact. And the fact helps support me when the emotions aren't there, when things aren't going how I want. That's how my science supports my faith. On those days when God is distant, is silent, you go back to the facts and you say, he's real. He created the universe, it's real. And so life is complex, humans are complex. There's not facts or emotions this or that. If it doesn't give you a holistic approach to life, is it true?
[00:36:09] Speaker A: So we. So science. And if I ask the question, does you know, as I started, does science point to the existence of God? And you would say, clearly, yes. But it seems that it's for you, it's the evidence within the Bible as well as just, well, the personal relationship.
[00:36:27] Speaker B: Right. So when you're getting. When I got to know my wife, you know, at first it was just a bunch of facts. Where do you work? What do you like? What kind of food do you like? We still joke about the fact that the first date she bought these ribs that got messy all over her fingers. Would you do that on a first date? Now I don't go to the facts to tell you who my wife is. I go to the deep personal relationship.
So if Christianity is true, it's based on facts, but ultimately, how do you know it's true apart from just those facts?
[00:37:03] Speaker A: The relationship.
[00:37:04] Speaker B: Relationship.
I have an ex student who was an atheist and he heard one of my talks on scientific evidence for God and we got to know each other real well after that. And I said that, he said to me, he said, when I was investigating whether Christianity was true or not, those facts about the evidence for God and about who Jesus was were so powerful. He says, but now I have a relationship with Jesus, I know him personally. Those facts are still relevant, but they're not the main foundation. If the main foundation for my relationship with my wife was who she was and what she did for a living and what day her birthday was, it wouldn't be much of a relationship.
[00:37:44] Speaker A: No, I mean, that does make perfect sense. And it sounds like with the student that you're describing, it was the relationship he had with you, him observing your relationship with God or just being willing to listen to him and providing a space in which he could ask tough questions or even express doubts.
[00:38:03] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, again I ask tough questions about everything in my research. I ask tough questions about how the universe works. That's the goal, is to understand something, that's what's cool about it. We're trying to answer questions nobody knows the answer to. And if you're investigating whether something is real or true or not, you better be able to ask tough questions. The worst thing that a person can say is just believe, just have faith, don't ask those tough questions because that's not a way to find truth.
[00:38:29] Speaker A: So it sounds like it is very important to take those doubts which we all have and really just investigate them and just go wherever the evidence leads us.
[00:38:40] Speaker B: That's what I would do in a science.
[00:38:42] Speaker A: That's what you're doing and you have done.
[00:38:44] Speaker B: And it's not just what I do in my science. Right. You know, I have this passion for discovering truth and everything. Again, Jesus claimed to be the truth, right. So I don't just, you know, go do my science on Monday through Friday. No science job is a five day a week job. But anyway, I don't do my job on Monday through Friday and just go to church on Sunday. Right.
In all my pursuits in life, I'm asking what is real, what is true. I don't even care if it works for me. If it's not true and it works, I'm going to discard it. I mean, if it, if it works, yeah, if it's true, it's going to work. But just because something works doesn't even mean it's true. And to me this is not something a lot of people understand is, you know, the truth is going to be what I pursue. We were talking earlier with someone else about the fact that facts are not necessarily truth. And that's correct. But I do believe that facts can lead to truth and if you have truth, they should correlate with the facts. So I think there's an interplay between the two.
[00:39:53] Speaker A: So when the doubts do come, because we obviously have them, what bridges that gap or helps you to continue to believe?
[00:40:01] Speaker B: More investigation, continuing the journey. Sometimes it's facts I don't know, things I don't understand. Sometimes it's a deeper relationship with God. There are times when God seems to disappoint me and I think if God was really like this, then he can't do that. But where do I think God tells me about himself in the Bible? So I go back to the Bible and I say, maybe I misunderstood what this God is really like. Or maybe I find something out about the universe that Seems to challenge my belief about who God is. In fact, that has happened at times. So then I'm going to go investigate it more and see. I mean, I want to know what is real. And the only way to do that is to take those doubts and investigate and continue the journey and see where it leads.
[00:40:47] Speaker A: And what role does faith play in that journey?
[00:40:51] Speaker B: Well, again, faith being trusting somebody or something because it's shown itself to be trustworthy. If that's the definition of faith and not blind belief in something with no evidence, then faith becomes a part of the journey. Because as the evidence that God is trustworthy grows, I can trust him more. So there have been times in my life when I didn't think God was trustworthy, when he didn't live up to my expectations of what he should do. I can point to specific examples and what has happened in those times. As I said, either God's not real or I don't understand him well enough. And so what I've done is I've gone back to what I believe is God's word to me, the Bible, and said, maybe I misunderstood something. And time after time, what I find is my God is God is different than my perception, and he describes himself differently. And when I conform my idea of God not to what I think he should be like, but what he's really like, many times those doubts go away. That's a very hard process.
Because I want God to be what I want him to be. I want him to do in my life what I want him to do. And God is not like that, or he wouldn't be God. He's got a much bigger perspective. And so it is very difficult as a human being to say, I'm willing to believe God for who he says he is, not for who I want him to be. But isn't that what you want of any relationship? If someone comes to you and says, you know, Todd, I don't like that you play the guitar a little bit. So I'm gonna pretend you don't. That's not part of who you are. You go, well, you're not accepting who I am. You're making up your idea of who you want me to be. That's not who I am. And this is what people do with God. Let's make up an idea of who he is. And then when he disappoints me, I blame him. But if I want to know who God is, I can't decide what I think he is. I have to go to the source of who he says. He is. And that's going to require me changing my mind, not him changing who he is.
[00:43:01] Speaker A: And it's based on the journey. It's the science, it's the discovery, it's working through the doubts, it's asking questions, listening. And then there's the element of faith, obviously there as well. That's been. That grows. It sounds like.
[00:43:13] Speaker B: Again, I like the word trust better. Trust.
[00:43:16] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:43:17] Speaker B: Yeah.
You know, back to this.
Accepting someone for who he is. One of my good friends who's passed away recently when he wanted to date the person who became his wife. He tells the story so I can tell him, she didn't like who he was. She didn't like the kind of person he was, so she would not date him. And she said to him, as long as you're this kind of person, I'm not going to date you. So would you say to him, well, you need to tell her to change so that she will date you? No, he needs the change. You don't tell the other person, you can't be who you are. And this is what we do with God. Oh, you can't be that, because that's not what I like. And God says, this is who I am. You're the one who has to change your understanding of who I am.
[00:43:59] Speaker A: And I think we have to be open to that.
[00:44:01] Speaker B: If you want to know God, you got to be open to who he.
[00:44:03] Speaker A: Is as opposed to just as most of us are. We want to do things our way.
[00:44:08] Speaker B: And put that in our box.
[00:44:09] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, this has been so helpful and encouraging. Thank you so much. Mike. Time, and what a great conversation.
[00:44:17] Speaker B: My pleasure. Thank you.
