Dr. Sharon Dirchx

Key Takeaways

Impact-Site-Verification: 75ba757b-d5dc-42a5-8dc5-9a04462c4b51

• Open dialogue and tolerance are essential in academia and society to foster understanding and respect for different beliefs.

• Humans are more than just their brains, and there is a distinction between the brain and the mind.

• The mind-brain problem raises questions about the nature of consciousness and the existence of a divine mind.

• The complexity of human beings challenges materialistic explanations and highlights the need for a holistic understanding of what it means to be human.

• Nurturing both thinking and feeling is important in our faith journey, and belief involves cognitive and conscious processes. The mind is essential to knowing God and exploring questions about the existence of God.

• Belief in God is both a decision and a result of God's pursuit of us.

• The presence of natural disasters and diseases raises questions about God's goodness and the existence of evil.

• The Christian faith provides a framework for understanding the brokenness of the world and the presence of suffering.

• The book 'Broken Planet' explores the theological and philosophical aspects of natural disasters and offers a holistic response to these questions.

• Personal stories of individuals who have experienced tragedy and still hold onto their faith are highlighted in the book.

• The incarnation of Jesus Christ is a reminder that God is with us in our suffering and that there is hope beyond this life.

Episode Transcript

Caleb Gray (00:29.876)

Welcome to the Upside Down People podcast, Sharon Derricks. Yeah, Dr. Sharon, you are very qualified in your field. As I've said in the introduction, you've done a lot of research and thinking in the area of the brain, and I'm excited to get into a conversation around. You've written extensively on that and you wrote a book.

called Am I Just My Brain? And then more recently Broken Planet as well. So I'm excited to have a conversation around some of the thoughts that you've sort of developed in those books. But before we do, welcome to the show firstly. And yeah, before we do, I usually like asking my guests to share a bit about themselves, just to add some flesh to our listeners.

Sharon Dirckx (01:17.741)

Bye.

Caleb Gray (01:28.885)

to the voice behind, I suppose, wherever they're listening through. So, yeah, maybe you can share a bit about what your interests are, maybe something people may find surprising about you, and then, yeah, we'll see where it goes from there.

Sharon Dirckx (01:46.541)

yeah, sure. Thanks for having me on your podcast. And I, so I live in Oxford. I've lived here 20 years. Live here with my husband, Conrad, and I have two teenagers. So loving, loving being in this city and raising kids.

I, well, for a long time, being an apologist and a speaker with young children, I didn't have any hobbies. You need to understand that. It's not something that is terribly easy to do with young. Yeah, yeah. But now that they're a bit older, I have time to. Well, I love running. I did my first half marathon last year. I also love skiing.

Caleb Gray (02:23.958)

It's a full -time gig.

Caleb Gray (02:36.565)

Awesome.

Sharon Dirckx (02:39.404)

which I've been able to do with the kids as well.

Caleb Gray (02:42.39)

Is that skiing behind a boat or skiing down a mountain?

Sharon Dirckx (02:46.444)

sorry, on snow. Yeah, yeah. Down a mountain with gravity on your sides. And yeah, so I love doing that in the winter. Obviously not every winter. It's a bit of a luxury sport. In fact, it's one of the few sports that doesn't seem to have any particular function in life other than for sheer pleasure. Anyway, so I.

Caleb Gray (02:48.055)

On snow, awesome.

Hehehe

Caleb Gray (02:57.686)

for Lens.

Sharon Dirckx (03:11.66)

occasionally do that and enjoy it very much. Love the mountains, love that kind of space.

Caleb Gray (03:17.815)

Yeah.

Sharon Dirckx (03:19.979)

Yeah. yeah.

Caleb Gray (03:20.824)

Awesome. That's, yeah, I mean, that's very, I find that surprising as well. I wouldn't have, wouldn't have guessed it at all. But yeah, skiing is something beautiful. I love being in the mountains. My wife's from America, so we've done a ski trip when we've gone and visited her family over there. And yeah, there's just something beautiful about being in the snow and

being pulled by gravity down a down a hill that sometimes you it's out of your control.

Sharon Dirckx (03:56.223)

Yeah, completely.

Caleb Gray (03:57.785)

Yeah, so another thing that I'm fascinated about is, or would love to know is, how did you come to know Jesus? And then how did, as well, if it's tied into your work and what you do, how do the two sort of come together?

Sharon Dirckx (04:21.644)

Well, yeah, so I grew up in a kind of religiously neutral home where kind of questions of faith weren't really talked about either way. And I began to kind of ask questions and meet people that were kind of vocal about their beliefs as a teenager, went to a youth group, but kind of paid lip service to it. I was more there for the social element. But there were kind of

committed Christians in that group. I went to university and arrived there really kind of agnostic, I guess. I didn't really have any strong beliefs either way, but I didn't really know anything about the Christian faith. I guess I didn't really know what I believed, but somehow, well, what I was there to study was biochemistry. I had already.

realized in my early teens that I loved the sciences and I wanted to be a scientist of some sort. But I had also assumed, absorbed the view that this was incompatible with belief in God. And that's interesting in and of itself, because I don't think I ever had an overt conversation with anyone about it, but I just somehow absorbed from.

Well, there were no phones at that point, but iPhones, I should say, from the media, from magazines, from conversations, from my friends, from books. I'd been given a copy of The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins, by my biology teacher. And, you know, just sort of absorb the view that we're material beings and that's really all that there is to it.

Caleb Gray (05:52.762)

Mm.

Sharon Dirckx (06:09.932)

And so when I arrived at university, I was invited to an event called Guerrilla Christian, which was taking place in the very first week. And it was where there were four Christians in a room full of people. And the room was completely full. You know, a couple of hundred people there. This was taking place in my hall of residence where I was living.

And people were asking questions to these four Christians all evening, and I put my hand up and asked the science and God question. Surely you can't believe in God and be a scientist at the same time. And I was given the answer that actually, yes, you can. And, you know, asking someone to choose between God and science is a bit like asking someone to choose between Jeff Bezos and Amazon's processes and programs as the reason Amazon exists. And of course.

You don't need to choose between those two explanations. They actually both work together in a complementary way. And it's the same with God and science. You know, you don't need to choose between the mechanisms that a scientist might study and uncover and belief in the one who set it all in motion and continues to uphold it. So that opened up a whole horizon for me. I'd never thought about.

things like that before and it set me grilling a lot more Christians and asking a lot more questions, which I did for about a year and a half. And obviously some of those involved asking questions like who is Jesus? Did he even exist? Because at that point I literally didn't know enough to even know that he had existed and that that could be taken on trust. And so, yeah, you know, lots of questions around why did he die?

Caleb Gray (07:45.497)

Right.

Caleb Gray (07:50.521)

Wow.

Sharon Dirckx (08:00.78)

Did he rise? And I just got reached the point where I didn't have all of the answers to my questions, but I felt like I had enough to know that this was real, that God was real, that Jesus was who he said he was and that he had risen from the dead. And so at about Easter of my second year, I would say that I became a Christian. I changed my views. I can't really remember the precise moment, but.

Caleb Gray (08:24.059)

Wow.

Sharon Dirckx (08:27.979)

Definitely by summer of my second year I was a Christian and I was hanging out with other Christians and reading the Bible and yeah, enjoying this new phase of life, new stage of life.

Caleb Gray (08:39.194)

Wow.

Yeah, that's awesome. I find it so encouraging that you're able to or were able to engage in dialogue and questioning of faith because I'm noticing that less and less perhaps in the universities, say in Australia. I don't know what it's like over in the UK if that's a similar thing. You obviously have been a professor at

at them. But yeah, do you find that there's been a shift in that open dialogue between Christians and non -Christians?

Sharon Dirckx (09:26.988)

Yeah, just to say one thing, terminology probably differs between the UK and Australia. I haven't been a professor in the UK since I don't know if you I was a postdoctoral researcher in the area of brain imaging, but I didn't have like a tenured position, which is what a professor would mean over here. So just to be clear about be clear about that. But the. The yeah, the whole what what do we do with?

Caleb Gray (09:43.099)

Right.

Caleb Gray (09:47.226)

no worries.

Sharon Dirckx (09:56.907)

views that are different from us is something that we're really struggling with in the academy in general across the world. And I guess it's more heated in certain places than others. But, you know, the original word tolerance is rooted in an understanding that there is difference of opinion. If you need to tolerate someone, that's because you disagree.

Caleb Gray (10:05.755)

Mm.

Sharon Dirckx (10:24.811)

Otherwise, you don't need to tolerate somebody's view. And so religious tolerance or tolerance of any kind is actually ought to be about finding a way to disagree agreeably and to do that well and with mutual respect and also with the mindset and mean the very word university is actually, you know, comes from unity in diversity that you're gathered around, you know, the focus of learning.

Caleb Gray (10:27.162)

Right.

Sharon Dirckx (10:54.443)

but mindful that we have most to learn from those from whom we differ. You know, and that's why diversity in its original sense is absolutely essential to learning. You need the counter argument in order to understand the full breadth of the landscape of your subjects. And we've really lost that resilience to be able to cope with views that differ from ours. We interpret difference as hatred.

Caleb Gray (11:12.444)

Mm.

Sharon Dirckx (11:24.491)

And that's actually not at all what it is. And you can actually disagree with somebody that you are friends with and maintain a friendship. And I think we need to rediscover the art of debating with a robust ability to cope with difference and to discuss and for people to feel like they can bring their views without being labelled or cancelled.

Caleb Gray (11:44.475)

Mm.

Caleb Gray (11:52.507)

Mm.

Sharon Dirckx (11:53.003)

We really need to rediscover that and I think again at the heart of it lies the principle of freedom of speech and freedom of conscience, freedom of belief. I think these are essential not just to the academy but to society as a whole and we need to rediscover those and I really value those who are speaking up on behalf of these things because high things are at stake at the moment.

Caleb Gray (12:19.038)

Yeah, yeah, very, very much so. It's, yeah, it's, it can be quite frightening to see where that freedom of speech is sort of threatened in societies. You definitely see the ramifications of that and then the control that creeps in and yeah, people, society becomes a lot more divided and

Yeah, I mean, that's a that's a whole nother conversation. And I'm sure I'm sure you got plenty of thoughts on that. But just touching on something you said, so you mentioned that it. Yeah, the important like to protect freedom of speech, freedom of consciousness and freedom of belief, particularly with consciousness and and belief. There's there's a link there to.

like the thoughtful or the logical thinking process. And I'm curious to dive into some of your thoughts in your book or why you wrote your book, Am I Just My Brain? And in the introduction, you sort of go over what is the mind, brain problem or relationship. So maybe that's a good place to start is, yeah, helping us define what that problem is and also why.

why you wrote the book in the first place.

Sharon Dirckx (13:49.661)

Yeah, thank you. Well, I think that in the sciences in the current climate, even though it has its roots in a very different viewpoint, currently the presumed landscape for the scientists is materialism, the philosophical view that matter is all that there is and that physical explanations can answer the vast majority of our questions, including questions of what a human being is.

And so I wrote the book Am I Just My Brain in response to the view that we are our brains, essentially, that we are, that human beings are driven by chemical and electrical processes inside of their skull and that, you know, the materialist view that seeks to look at a person purely through the lens of the chemical activity in their brain. And I, I,

I wanted to show that firstly, this is not an adequate way of describing a human being and that actually there are much more holistic ways of doing that, which don't require us to sacrifice any intellectual credibility. In fact, you know, where I go with it is to make the argument for where the mind comes from itself makes more sense.

if there's a divine mind behind the universe than if there's no divine mind. And that's really where the argument kind of heads towards and goes. But also that actually you don't need to leave neuroscience to argue that we are more than just our brains.

Caleb Gray (15:19.007)

Right.

Sharon Dirckx (15:36.778)

because actually there are many neuroscientists and philosophers who are not theists. They might be atheists or agnostics, but they agree that actually we don't just have a brain, we have a mind and mental processes and brain processes are two very different things. If we wanted to find out what it's like for you to run this podcast day after day, week after week.

And we thought that you were just your brain. Well, we would want to capture that by measuring things from your brain. And so we would put an EG cap on you and measure electrical signal from your brain. Maybe we put you in an MRI scanner and take some structural scans and some functional scans. And those could be, you know, we could collect a lot of very interesting data from your brain. But would that tell us what it is like for you to run this podcast?

Caleb Gray (16:26.782)

Mm.

Sharon Dirckx (16:35.082)

Well, it wouldn't. In order to access that, we need to ask you. We can measure things from your brain, whether you want us to or not, but we can't access your mind unless you choose to reveal it to us. And for that reason, many neuroscientists and philosophers agree that mind and brain are not the same thing. There's something that it is to be you. You are a conscious being. How do we get from non -conscious neurons?

to the conscious being that is you. And of course that is the mind brain problem or the body soul problem as it was referred to in the ancient world that I spend a few chapters unpacking in Am I Just My Brain?

Caleb Gray (17:18.208)

Right, so I know you used a quote in your book, I came across it in my studies as well by Rene Descartes, I think therefore I am, which I suppose alludes to the fact that there's consciousness involved. How do you define that? What is the difference between the mind and the soul? Or...

the mind and the brain or consciousness and yeah.

Sharon Dirckx (17:50.058)

Yeah, well, so the brain is the physical thing that's sitting in your skull with its neurons and chemicals and hormones and electrical activity. And your mind is your internal thoughts and feelings, emotions, memories. There was the philosopher Thomas Nagel said there is something that it is like to be you. And that is essentially the capturing of.

you know, there's a you, that you have an inner life, a self. And that is the mind is kind of referring to that. And some people say that consciousness is a property of the mind. You know, consciousness is one of the parts of the mind. As for how it relates to the soul in terms of the kind of neuroscientific discussion, in some ways, mind, soul,

conscious awareness are kind of overlapping in the sense that they all refer to something a little bit intangible that's internal and more subjective. Theologians might kind of describe the soul as the umbrella under which the mind sits, that the mind is part of the soul.

Caleb Gray (18:59.327)

Right.

Sharon Dirckx (19:10.921)

But then again, a neuroscientist might just say, well, these are synonymous really. And some people say that those things are material, the same as the brain. And some say that they are non -physical and are very different entities, but that interact very closely with the brain. And of course then there's a whole set of views in between those two extremes. So.

Yeah, so brain is the physical thing. Mind is your internal thoughts, feelings, memories, emotions. Yeah.

Caleb Gray (19:44.546)

Right. And obviously that's a really important, I think, distinguishing factor when I think of humanity and what gives us dignity. I sort of relate, I don't have the PhD or anything like that, so I relate it to what I know in the scripture, like we're made in God's image, the Amargo day, and...

we have his imprint on our lives and that's what gives us dignity, that's what separates us from other classes of animals. So I think it's an important distinguishing thing to understand, like we're not just our brains and we are more than that because if I think of like an elderly person who might have dementia or even a baby who

hasn't got really any experiences, they've got neurons firing in their brain. How do you reconcile that question of what makes us human, what gives us dignity from a scientific biblical perspective?

Sharon Dirckx (21:00.553)

Well, it's another area that highlights the importance of this question and the answer that you give to the question, am I just my brain? Has implications not just for neuroscientists and philosophers, but for everybody. And you're right to raise the question of ethics, actually, what is a human being? Because if we are just our brains, then if the brain degenerates as it does very tragically in...

things like Alzheimer's and dementia, then as your brain fades, you gradually fade away. But if there's more to you than just your brain, even if your kind of physical brain is incredibly degenerate compared with its healthy state, there is still a you that remains. And actually, I'm hearing more and more stories of people in very advanced

stages of dementia and Alzheimer's that have these moments of lucidity that seem to be disproportionate to what's happening in their brain. You know, abilities to momentarily recognise people or speak in ways that they've not been able to for many years because the coherent speech had evaded them.

or be able to pray and relate to God and recite parts of a service when actually the rest of the time they're confused and incoherent. There's something about human beings when you start to look at people that require us to have a more complex explanation of what a human being is, because when you look at actual people, you see some extraordinary things. And even in those with, you know, severe

Caleb Gray (22:31.813)

Well...

Sharon Dirckx (22:55.784)

mental disability. You know, there are all kinds of stories showing their ability, their advanced abilities in other things, in particular of being able to sort of, you know, engage with God and have extraordinary theological understanding and so on. There are, I think human beings are fascinating and I don't think they allow us to simply box.

Caleb Gray (23:07.174)

Mm.

Sharon Dirckx (23:22.408)

a person down to the neurons inside of their skull. I think if you look into the clinic and meet people, you see a very different story. Another example is of there are a small proportion of adults that have recovered from childhood water on the brain, hydrocephaly, and 95 % of their brain tissue is gone. If you look at an MRI of their brain, it's mostly black space and they are normal functioning adults.

Caleb Gray (23:46.436)

Well.

Sharon Dirckx (23:52.712)

So what's going on there, you know, if you are just your brain. And then there are also near death experiences where people have been in a state of clinical death where there's no detectable brain signal. And of course, if you are just your brain, then when the brain dies, that ought to be the end of the person. But 50 years of studying patients that have been resuscitated in a clinical setting have indicated that.

Caleb Gray (23:55.11)

That's crazy.

Sharon Dirckx (24:23.016)

when the even when the brain is dead, there are the person appears to be conscious. This is a whole vast area. There are there's lots I could say about it, but it's fascinating because if you are just your brain when the brain dies, that ought to be the end of you. But if people are reporting being conscious even upon the death of their brain, then that suggests that there's more to us than meets the eye.

Caleb Gray (24:49.894)

Right. Yeah. And so obviously you do have your PhD in, is it brain imaging? So you're very familiar with MRIs and that space. Have you seen with what you're saying? I'm curious, like, has there been a shift in the scientific community in that space to being more open to the less material answer?

Sharon Dirckx (25:17.969)

My experience, and I haven't been in neuroscience for 15 years, but my experience is that a scientist in general is not thinking philosophically about their work. They are simply studying the area that they love to study. Their bread and butter is physics and chemistry, material processes, brain networks.

psychological understanding. They are not necessarily thinking philosophically. They are just thinking about their area of study. I think that's why I arrived at university assuming that science and God were not compatible because I'd just been engaged in the science and had presumed that materialism was the, you know, the landscape that I had.

under which it all sat, but hadn't been taught to think critically about that, to think about what the best explanation is for why we even attempt scientific study in the first place. And so most scientists are not thinking about that. I think that still materialism is the presumed backdrop. But of course, there are some that challenge that.

Caleb Gray (26:16.964)

Right.

Caleb Gray (26:34.277)

Right.

Sharon Dirckx (26:44.552)

from within, but very often they are philosophers that are engaging with scientists rather than scientists themselves who are kind of thinking, what's the best philosophy that I could bring to this data?

Caleb Gray (26:50.503)

Right.

Caleb Gray (26:56.967)

Yeah.

Yeah, fascinating. I was just curious just in terms of if they're coming through with these examples like you're saying people who have been brain dead actually experiencing things that yeah that would sort of put a question mark as to that question that you ask in your book, am I just my brain?

Sharon Dirckx (27:24.552)

Yeah, well, they would obviously posit an alternative explanation that although there's no detectable brain signal, this clearly is still due to some residual brain activity. There are counter arguments for all of these things that, you know, they would say that often when there's oxygen deprivation, there's a rush of activity and that might account for some of the visual things that people report.

Caleb Gray (27:37.736)

Right.

Sharon Dirckx (27:53.288)

But of course, we have our responses to those as well, which is that there seems to be a disproportionality to the level of lucidity that these near -death experiences contain, the level of detail, people recounting like whole vistas and landscapes and meeting people that had died and describing them. We hear stories of people who were congenitally blind.

Caleb Gray (28:15.753)

Well...

Sharon Dirckx (28:22.856)

being able to see and describe the scene in the operating theatre in extraordinary detail, things like that that don't seem to match up to a brain in shutdown, even if there were residual activity. The last vestiges of a dying brain don't seem to be enough to account for the quality of testimony that's coming from these experiences. So that the naturalist and the physicalist have their

Caleb Gray (28:27.433)

Well...

Sharon Dirckx (28:52.648)

critiques. And so one of the things that I do in my work is look at those, try and understand them and try and respond to them as well.

Caleb Gray (28:53.736)

Right.

Caleb Gray (29:03.785)

Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, super, super fascinating. Slightly sort of shifting. I don't know, there might still be a science answer to this, but you hear in the church a lot and in Christian circles, people talk about this thing, how there's your head and your heart and you're either following your head or you're following your heart and they separate things and...

It's almost like thinking and feeling or cognitive choice and emotional choice are these separate things. So do you think that these are separate parts of who we are? Do they act independently of one another? Yeah, and then just in terms of relating to following Jesus, how do you find we're able to follow Him with our head or with our heart?

Sharon Dirckx (30:05.192)

I think that this is a different issue from what we've been talking about in the sense of they all come in terms of what we've been talking about, head and heart, all refer to the inner life, but they're different aspects of that inner life. And I think thinking and feeling are two distinct things. We have an intellectual life and we have an emotional life. And I think that...

Caleb Gray (30:11.624)

Yeah.

Sharon Dirckx (30:35.72)

to be whole as people, I think it does mean to be in touch with both sides of those. I think there are people, some people naturally think first and feel second and others naturally feel first and think second. That doesn't mean that, yeah. And I think that to kind of grow as a person means to recognize what your natural tendencies are.

Caleb Gray (30:46.664)

Mm.

Sharon Dirckx (31:03.496)

and to grow the kind of weaker part, the thing that you do second and learn to kind of bring that in alongside the stronger, more natural tendency. And I guess that this happens in life, in all of our relationships and friendships and also in our relationship with God. And, you know, some people might have been drawn to faith by the intellectual arguments.

Caleb Gray (31:06.153)

Right.

Sharon Dirckx (31:28.712)

and make a decision to follow Jesus and actually the emotional side kind of follows, it kind of comes in. And other people actually might encounter God in a very kind of powerful, dramatic way and then actually go on to be persuaded that, you know, God's real and then go on to look at the intellectual reasons for why God is credible and historical and so on. And I think that both elements are needed.

Caleb Gray (31:46.378)

Mm.

Sharon Dirckx (31:59.592)

And I think we need to nurture both of those in order to have a holistic faith that helps us engage with reality and engage with ourselves and other people.

Caleb Gray (32:11.083)

Awesome. Yeah. And in terms of when you talk about belief, is that something that is that cognitive? Yeah, like that decision or is it something else? Or how would you define belief in relation to the mind and conscience?

Sharon Dirckx (32:36.2)

you mean consciousness as opposed to conscience. Consciousness as in the sense of self, which is distinct from, I guess, conscience, which is the kind of a moral awareness. I mean, I think that we use our minds to think about big questions and whether God is real or not, which is another reason why we want to defend the integrity.

Caleb Gray (32:38.284)

Consciousness, yes, yeah. Consciousness.

Caleb Gray (32:48.394)

Right, yes.

Sharon Dirckx (33:05.992)

of the mind. If we are just our brains, then our very thoughts and actions and words, in a sense, are not coming from us, they're just coming from forces beyond our control, sitting inside our skull. But if there's a you that has agency, then we can actually say that, no, those are my thoughts, those are my beliefs. I'm not just the vessel of them, I'm actually the bearer of them. And...

we think about all kinds of things. And it's actually because we have this capacity for higher thought that we're able to think about questions like does God exist? Is he real or not? And so the mind is actually essential to knowing God. It's not the only part we can know God around us as well in the world. And of course, I think, you know,

The Bible talks a lot about our physical expression as well, you know, the use of our hands, of dance, of music, and so on. But there is something unique, I think, about homo sapiens in that we do have this capacity to ask questions about life that we're not sure that other members of the animal kingdom are necessarily doing. And those lead us to, ought to be able to lead us to God himself. And so...

Caleb Gray (34:11.565)

Mm.

Sharon Dirckx (34:32.424)

The mind is a really vital part of our journey to God, but it's obviously not the only part. And I guess belief in God is, man, I mean, it's a huge question that you ask there. It's both a decision, but it's also a God who goes after us and who leaves the 99 and goes after the one. And so we're both searching for God and choosing him, but being drawn by him at the same time. And so.

Caleb Gray (34:46.734)

Right.

Sharon Dirckx (35:02.632)

We see both our choice and God's sovereignty at work in bringing someone to belief in Him. What I wouldn't wanna say is, we don't just wanna think of it as just this inwards kind of subjective thing. Ultimately, experiences come and go, but what it all comes down to is did Jesus rise from the dead? And that's an event that is historical.

Caleb Gray (35:11.278)

That's beautiful.

Sharon Dirckx (35:30.152)

and that you can look at objectively and make a decision. Am I persuaded that Jesus rose from the dead? If he did, then that means he's still alive today and he loves me and I can choose him. And feelings may come and go, but that's an objective reality that rests on history rather than experience.

Caleb Gray (35:39.151)

Mm.

Caleb Gray (35:43.79)

That's awesome.

Caleb Gray (35:52.08)

That's brilliant. I love that. Yeah, it's almost a direct quote from Romans 10, 9 where Paul says, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that He raised him from the dead or God raised him from the dead, you'll be saved. So I love how you brought it back to God's sovereignty and our choice in amidst that.

Yeah, thanks for that answer, beautiful. So just moving along to your recent work, Broken Planet, because I'd love to chat a bit about that. You talk about some big questions in that book, questions like are natural disasters judgment from God? And if there is a God, then why are there natural disasters and why are there diseases? And...

These are questions that I think lots of people are wrestling with. So, yeah, maybe you could share a bit about what your response is to those questions.

Sharon Dirckx (37:08.679)

Well, you asked a lot of questions there, but I mean, I. I mean, essentially, I wrote Broken Planet, which I have here, Broken Planet, if you're interested, should be available in Australia if you are interested. The question of why there are earthquakes and cancers and even bizarre parasites that do.

Caleb Gray (37:10.481)

I did. I've got a bad habit of doing that. I apologize.

Sharon Dirckx (37:38.6)

you know, strange things requires a slightly different answer to the question of moral evil, you know, why humans do horrible things to each other. To an extent, we can say that, you know, God has given human beings freedom because that means they can live meaningfully and that means love is possible. But the flip side of that is they can be cruel to each other as well as very kind.

and compassionate, and that partly explains some of the suffering in the world. But suffering within nature itself requires a slightly different kind of response because it seems to be that, well, if God exists, that's the world that he's made. And so the free will defense doesn't seem to work here. And of course, it's a multilayered thing, which is why I took a whole book to look at the question of.

Caleb Gray (38:08.337)

Right.

Sharon Dirckx (38:34.951)

natural evil, as some might call it. And I interwove arguments with stories of people who have encountered earthquakes and tsunamis and hurricanes and pandemics firsthand and yet continue to believe in a loving, all -powerful God. It's a vast question. There's so much we could say.

Caleb Gray (38:59.954)

Maybe...

Sharon Dirckx (39:00.359)

I guess the starting point is to say that if God doesn't exist, then this is just the way the world is. In a way, it's kind of, these are just events, then there's nothing right or wrong about them. And also there's a life -sustaining role to some of these mechanisms. So tectonic plate movement is necessary to recycle nutrients.

Caleb Gray (39:06.418)

Alright.

Sharon Dirckx (39:25.415)

beneath the Earth's crust back to the surface. Volcanoes are necessary to release pressure and actually bring incredibly fertile soil and minerals. Even flooding is vital in some areas. And so these are just the flip side of being on a planet that has been built to sustain life. But there's nothing right or wrong. You're just in the wrong place.

the wrong time, it's the luck of the draw, a genetic accident as it were, this is just the way the world is. But if we want to call them a disaster, we are actually making a moral judgement. And it's actually the Christian faith that makes sense of that, that rawness, that anger, that kind of frustration that we feel when we encounter cancer or we have a loved one die in the pandemic or...

Caleb Gray (40:15.41)

Mm.

Sharon Dirckx (40:19.559)

We see people swept away by a tsunami. When we call something a disaster, we're saying there's something wrong with the world. We're saying that it ought to be different than it is. And it's actually the Christian faith that makes sense of that uniquely because it says that God is good and has made a good world, but a world with the potential for evil. And somehow that potential has become actual.

Caleb Gray (40:28.562)

Mm.

Sharon Dirckx (40:50.215)

In other words, God is good and has made a good world, but evil also exists. And so we can make sense of our rawness much more effectively if we bring God into the equation than if we leave him out of it. So that's the starting point.

Caleb Gray (41:04.659)

Right.

That's brilliant. I think that's a really great place to start just in terms of like how Christianity or that morality gives a great explanation. It sort of expounds on something that's happening in the human heart. Like you're saying that this is a great injustice. Why do we feel that this is so wrong or shouldn't happen or unfair?

that same reason of like we live with brokenness. And in your book you sort of make a distinction between good and perfect and you mention that God created a good world. What is like that distinction between the good world and the perfect world?

Sharon Dirckx (42:05.191)

Well, so in terms of the different layers of argument, I break it down into there are natural factors, the way the natural world has been made. There are human factors that humans have a capacity to actually make a natural event worse, much worse in fact. There's a lot I could say about that.

But then there are spiritual factors, even when you take into account the natural factors and the human factors, it still seems to be that there's a brokenness that's just sort of woven in. And that's where I kind of argue that there are spiritual factors, there are spiritual reasons for the brokenness. And of course, I argue, I talk about some that some

Christians would kind of anchor things around a human fall that part of that brokenness is due to human beings having turned their back on God. And it might be that that did definitely introduce something and we are told that, you know, the ground becomes cursed as a result of those actions in Eden. But there's also a problem there because for those that take an old Earth view.

Caleb Gray (43:23.445)

Mm.

Sharon Dirckx (43:30.408)

that it seems that there have been earthquakes and volcanic eruptions and so on for many billions of years before humans even entered the scene. So how do we make sense of that before humanity? And of course, that's where there is the possibility that some theologians might take the view that nature became broken before people did.

And the basis for that partly is to say that the serpent is in the garden already and the author of Genesis doesn't say how long he's been there and what kind of havoc has been wreaked all the while. And because Satan is a created being and he is limited to the created realm in his influence, could it be that nature itself became kind of broken or corrupted before human beings did? And that's not something.

I think that fits within, you know, kind of mainstream thinking about how we navigate this question. But there, of course, people that take that view then have to answer the question that you've raised. How do we measure that up against Genesis one where why would God use that process where nature is already broken as part of his kind of creative process? And that's where some theologians say that God created.

Caleb Gray (44:50.197)

Mm.

Sharon Dirckx (44:56.839)

a good world, not necessarily a perfect world. If nature has already had brokenness part of the system, even in the kind of kind of some of the descriptions in Genesis one, then then good doesn't necessarily mean perfect. Good could also mean the context that Genesis was being written into.

is one where kind of Greek polytheism and also Greek Gnosticism and in Greek Gnosticism the material world is seen as secondary or even evil. You know, the physical material world was seen as evil and so maybe the author of Genesis was also saying, no, the material world is good. It's actually good. It's part of what we're supposed to embrace. We live in a...

Caleb Gray (45:37.494)

Mm. Mm.

Caleb Gray (45:45.622)

Right.

Sharon Dirckx (45:50.439)

a physical and a spiritual world where physical and spiritual beings, the physical part of us isn't something to ignore. It's actually really important. So there could be an element of that in writing about good and God declaring that it was good. There's a lot in there and I think it's a difficult, a difficult question, a difficult topic. And I don't.

Caleb Gray (46:07.158)

Well...

Sharon Dirckx (46:16.071)

Obviously, in writing Broken Planet, I'm not attempting to like solve this and bottom out this massive question, but just to try and dig into it a bit more and bring together explanations from geophysics, from philosophy, from biology and from the sciences and try and put together a kind of a picture of how we might navigate it.

Caleb Gray (46:26.295)

Mm.

Caleb Gray (46:41.817)

Yeah. And was there any particular thing that you found really surprising in your research of writing this book?

Sharon Dirckx (46:56.424)

Well, the thing that's most surprising to me is probably not, is not to do with the arguments, it's to do with the people that I interviewed who, you know, when they're in the midst of what they're in the midst of, they have no idea what God might be doing. They have no idea why God would allow that tsunami to sweep in.

and they have no idea why the person next to them died and they didn't and they're left with survivor's guilt. In a way, there isn't a way to fathom those kind of questions, but nevertheless, they knew the reality of God in the midst of it. They knew they could see him at work, see his presence at work, even in the midst of tragedy and deep loss.

And I guess that's the kind of tension that we're always, always holding. Many of the people that I interviewed, no one had ever asked them to share their stories before. And so I counted it a real privilege to be able to do that and give them opportunity to share what it's actually been like. And so that for me was actually a really vital part of the story. I think in our arguments for God,

Caleb Gray (48:06.17)

Really? Wow.

Sharon Dirckx (48:23.463)

today I think we need story, I think we need narrative, I think we need to hear from people on the ground in the gritty messiness of life and what it's like to journey through a tragedy and still be able to hold on to God or have God hold on to them or probably both.

Caleb Gray (48:27.289)

Mm.

Caleb Gray (48:41.666)

That's brilliant. I agree 100 percent. I think it's a great image to look at the Bible and see that that's like God's story and he uses story to share with us parts of his character and attributes and uses people's personal stories and narratives like you're saying. So how much more important is that for us than to

apply to our everyday lives in actually entering into people's suffering or pain and allowing them to share is so important, I think. How was that experience for yourself? Did you have to travel to a bunch of different places and just being able to sit there? Was it awkward at times?

or yeah, how was that experience for yourself?

Sharon Dirckx (49:43.399)

yeah. So it was the project was done during Covid. So travel wasn't an option. So we recorded the conversations over Zoom. But actually, that served the purpose of the book very well, because it meant we could interview people in a very straightforward way that didn't have a high carbon footprint. Actually, because one of the other arguments that comes into the book is the influence of climate change.

Caleb Gray (49:47.963)

Okay.

Sharon Dirckx (50:10.023)

on some forms of natural disaster, which obviously has a partly human element to it. And so to be able to produce the book with a low carbon footprint felt like the way of integrity, I guess, for a book of this kind, or at least an attempt to do that. So yeah, so we interviewed people and then transcribed them and then.

Caleb Gray (50:15.003)

right.

Caleb Gray (50:24.348)

Awesome. Yeah.

Caleb Gray (50:33.948)

Yeah.

Sharon Dirckx (50:38.503)

edited the conversation and sent it back for that person's consent and agreement for their suggested changes. So the stories that are in there are, it's the voice of the person that had the experience.

Caleb Gray (50:52.636)

Yeah, and was that quite encouraging for you to do? Like, I could imagine it being quite a privilege to hear them unpack a really, which could be potentially a vulnerable place or experience that they've had.

Sharon Dirckx (51:09.543)

It was a huge privilege. I really. I felt hugely privileged to be able to do that. I don't know if enjoy is the right word in the sense that many of them were sharing, as I say, things I haven't shared before that were quite quite heavy in nature. You know, some were humanitarian aid workers, doctors, you know, that have had.

been on the front line, people that had been in Haiti 2010 earthquake and had seen loved ones, friends lose loved ones and so on. So we're talking about real life. But I did count it a huge privilege to be able to sit with each person and hear their story, even just to be able to do that.

even if I'd just published the stories I think the book would have been worth it. Yeah, yeah, thank you.

Caleb Gray (52:14.095)

Awesome. Yeah, brilliant. And if there's something that you wish people knew more about Broken Planet, your book, what would that be?

Sharon Dirckx (52:28.486)

if something that I wish they knew more about it.

Caleb Gray (52:32.445)

Yeah, more, yeah.

Sharon Dirckx (52:34.855)

Well, firstly that it exists and it's available to buy. No, but I mean, there's a very practical element at the end about what should my response be to a natural disaster, which is often not a question that we ask and a way to kind of figure out.

Caleb Gray (52:55.325)

Mm.

Sharon Dirckx (53:02.855)

you know, what it means for us to live on this earth and play our part in kind of, you know, looking after nature and so on. Also, it's a book that's written for with a tone that is a book you can give to someone that doesn't know what they believe. So it doesn't have Christian jargon in it. And there are kind of different moments where the reader is asked, you know.

how they're getting on what they think about this, but without presuming anything. So it is a book that you can give to a seeker or a friend or family member if that's of interest to it. But it's also something that might be helpful to a Christian that just wants to know how to respond to this question in a more holistic way.

Caleb Gray (53:53.342)

Awesome. Yeah, I think it's definitely a huge issue, the issue of climate and just natural disasters that are unfolding around us seems to be on the forefront of people's minds. And I think it's a timely book as well for those reasons. So yeah, thanks for unpacking your thoughts and...

putting a lot of time and effort into tackling some really difficult questions. So yeah, appreciate that. Just before we close, a couple last questions. One being, is there anything that you have in the back of your mind that you're just thinking, I just want to share this part or I wish he had asked this question?

Do you have any of those thoughts or do you have that desire to share anything additional that I haven't maybe unpacked or asked you?

Sharon Dirckx (55:06.311)

Well, I think just briefly, how does it all marry up with the person of Jesus, I guess. You know, towards the end, I asked the question, what kind of God would allow suffering and natural disasters like this? And whatever the reasons are for the particular world that we happen to have, it was one that God himself was willing to walk its streets himself.

Caleb Gray (55:15.486)

Beautiful.

Sharon Dirckx (55:36.774)

that ultimately, you know, God hasn't left us alone in our suffering, but has come to be with us in the person of Jesus Christ. And it's actually the incarnation that is the basis of humanitarian aid that that we go to help others because God himself came to us and he didn't wait for us to sort out our beliefs and get ourselves all sorted and and put together. Nor did he say.

This is actually happening because it's punishment from me and I'm trying to teach you a lesson. He actually came to be with broken hearted people and we read that the Lord is close to the broken hearted and there's something really important to say about how we respond to a person in pain based on the incarnation. God hasn't left us alone. He continues to intervene today. It forms a base of humanitarian aid, of social care.

Caleb Gray (56:08.542)

Mm.

Sharon Dirckx (56:34.214)

of modern medicine, of modern science, why we develop vaccines as well to immunize people when a pandemic sweeps through and so on. And of course, he has intervened decisively on the cross so that whatever we go through, we don't need to go through it alone. We can know the peace of God made.

Caleb Gray (56:59.935)

Hmm.

Sharon Dirckx (57:01.67)

possible through the death of Jesus. So that whatever we face, it doesn't need to sink us or end us. And ultimately that he's not finished doing what he's doing in this world as well. That one day, God will wipe every tear from our eyes. Whatever heaven is, it's also physical. It's not just spiritual and ghostly floaty. It's a physical realm.

Caleb Gray (57:23.006)

Mm.

Caleb Gray (57:27.934)

Mm.

Sharon Dirckx (57:30.31)

Who knows whether there'll be earthquakes and if there are, we will no longer be hurt by them. There'll be something that we can know about but not be hurt by and it'll be a kind of a majestic thing. Or they'll be gone altogether. But one way or another, God will wipe every tear from our eyes, which is an extraordinary thing to remember that God is not finished.

There is more to come. This life is not all that there is.

Caleb Gray (58:06.272)

Beautiful. Thanks for that. It reminds me of Psalm 23, how David writes, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, you are with me. And just that reminder that Jesus incarnate is and has entered into our pain and into our suffering. And it's just such a beautiful reminder because everywhere we look, there's brokenness, whether it's mental health issues or environmental issues or

societal, cultural issues, there's these breakdowns and I think it's important for people to remember that they're not isolated, they're not alone, that there is this creator God who isn't distant, but is so near. So I love that, who is walking with us through our darkest times.

So thanks so much for sharing that. What a beautiful thought. And last question, obviously if people are wanting to find out more about you, grab a copy of your book, where would you direct them to?

Sharon Dirckx (59:21.671)

Yeah, I have a website, Dirix .org. So that's Dirckx for x -ray .org. And details of my I've actually got three books. I've got my first book was called Why? Also Unsuffering, but more a broad treatment of it. Details of my books and some of my talks are on there. And it's available on Amazon, World of Books.

Good Book Company for Am I Just My Brain? And then IVP Books also for Broken Planet and Why? So just wherever you like to shop for your books, basically you should be able to find it.

Caleb Gray (01:00:06.432)

Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for carving out the time to have this conversation, Sharon. I found it really helpful and encouraging and you've just made some really great points which I think people are able to chew on and yeah, just that reminder how the gospel shapes these issues, whether it's we're thinking, are we just our brains or whether it's this...

planet that we live on, how that gospel narrative and that gospel perspective really brings clarity and peace into some of these deep questions that we have. So thanks so much for your insights and wisdom. Appreciate it.

Sharon Dirckx (01:00:53.509)

Thank you.