Evolution + Christianity, Part II: An Interview w/ Dr. Jim Stump

More Jim Stump!

We hope you loved Part I of our conversation with Dr. Jim Stump as much we did. Here's Part II! In this one, we talk about the problem of evil and more about AI. Also...aliens! 

Seriously.

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Transcript

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Randy 0:06

I'm Randy, the pastor half of the podcast, and my friend Kyle's a philosopher. This podcast hosts conversations at the intersection of philosophy, theology, and spirituality.

Kyle 0:15

We also invite experts to join us, making public a space that we've often enjoyed off-air around the proverbial table with a good drink at the back corner of a dark pub.

Randy 0:24

Thanks for joining us, and welcome to A Pastor and a Philosopher Walking to a Bar. Well, friends, we're here for our second part of our conversation with Jim Stump. Jim is the vice president of the Bio Logos Foundation. He is a philosopher of science and wrote this book called The Sacred Chain, How Understanding Evolution Leads to Deeper Faith. And really the we just kind of kept going. We weren't done with after an hour of talking, and Jim was gracious enough to spend a little more time with us. So we get more of that conversation.

Kyle 1:03

Yeah, and we get into some serious stuff. Like we talk a lot about suffering, we kind of cap off our discussion of AI. But then we talk about some kind of nerdy fun stuff too, like aliens and whatnot. So absolutely for a fun time.

Randy 1:41

Let's do it.

Jim 1:42

Alright. So we left. I'm wearing the same shirt as I did last year last episode.

Randy 1:47

If that's not a problem, I hope. Jim, you just gave away a ruin of work. Well done. Um, we we left off talking about well, we were talking about souls and the how a soul comes about, perhaps if it exists, if you're a you know, soulless weirdo like Kyle over here. But um but we're also talking about AI and some of the concepts you bring in, you bring a lot of theology in the back end of the book, which I really enjoyed. And part of that theology is the Imago Dei and reconciling and kind of trying to understand the concept or the doctrine of the Imago Dei in regard as it as it relates to evolution. And does that do anything to the Imago Dei? In my in my world, it does. I have to figure out how to think about and explain the Imago Dei if evolution is a reality, which I believe that it is. So, what are your thoughts on how to reconcile those two things, evolution and the Imago? The concept that I think is really important for us to see one another as we are, which is that we're all created in the image of God.

Jim 2:51

Yeah, I too think it's an important concept. It uh the first thing I'll say is that its importance in our theology today is outsized compared to its treatment in the Bible. There are, you know, a few places and they don't get a lot of explanation of what was meant by created in the image of God. But I agree that it's an important designation for us today. And in part of our theology, which I said back in the first half of this episode, first half of this conversation, um, is our attempt to make sense of the divine and things related to the divine. So we us being created in the image of the divine is an important concept. The evolutionary side of it, I think you can go two ways. I think you can go the way that has them fairly separate. So Kyle will like this separate, separate but equal treatment a little bit better, maybe. Of we can talk about the science and our evolution, our development. Here's these hominins that are coming along and acquiring the kind of capacities that are ultimately needed to bear God's image. So I'm not gonna say those capacities are sufficient to bear God's image, I'm gonna say they're necessary to bear God's image. Okay, yeah. But that there's something more, and that that something more in my book is God entering into relationships. So God choosing, God electing us as a species to bear the image of God. And you could so this is where I'm saying you go two ways. You could just talk about our evolutionary development, our biology, until one point where God snaps the divine fingers and breathes breath into these creatures, and now they're fully human. Now they bear God's image. So uh the way I like to talk about this is to say I affirm these two things. I affirm that God intentionally created human beings to be image bearers, and evolution is the best scientific explanation we have for how Homo sapiens became the way that we are. And I use those two different those two different languages, the two languages of discourse very intentionally to say Homo sapiens when I'm talking about the science-y stuff, and human when I'm talking about the theology stuff. I know sometimes those get used interchangeably, or sometimes you think that not all humans are Homo sapiens. Maybe Neanderthals were also bearing God's image and were also human. Scientists often use the genus Homo to be the designation of what's a human. I mean, that's what it means in Latin. In Latin, Homo means the per the man in the generic, non-gendered sense. So I want to affirm those two things and say there's two ways you can then understand them come together. And one of those would be at some point in time, God says poof, and now they're humans. Now they're image bears. I think you can defend that. And there's nothing scientifically that would make you say that's impossible. But I think you can also defend the uh this second way, which is that it's a gradual concept, it's a great, we gradually come to bear the image of God, and that perhaps it's not an either-or. Perhaps there are degrees of bearing God's image. There are degrees in the same way, and and I'm gonna bring up moral responsibility again because that's what I think sets us apart. We are the ones that are held morally responsible for our actions. And I think you can say the same thing about children growing up, that there are degrees of moral responsibility that we hold. My 20-year-olds are not held to the same, or my I I hold my 20-year-olds responsible for things that the teenagers are not held responsible for, that are not, you know, the five-year-olds are not held responsible for. So there's a gradual, and there's not some moment when you say, and now you're morally responsible. That you you grow into that. There might be some artificial moments where we say you're able to vote at age 18 and you're able to drink that Elijah Craig at age 21 or whatever. But those are pretty arbitrary, right? Those are pretty arbitrary. Just for those who keep us warm, I'm not drinking Elijah Craig.

Kyle 7:39

But now I just want to talk about go ahead, Jim.

Jim 7:44

So I think you can go either way to say it could be a gradual process, it could be an instantaneous process. I myself am more attracted to the gradual process. Yeah, like that. So, in that sense, you can tell the theological story by saying these Homo sapiens are gradually becoming aware of God and God's call and God's expectations on their lives and how they ought to behave themselves and what they ought to do. And the ones a million years ago, we probably wouldn't hold morally responsible to the same degree that we would the ones a hundred thousand years ago. And the ones a hundred thousand years ago, I'm not gonna hold as morally responsible as I do the ones that came after the time of Christ. And I think even in recorded history, we see a progression of our moral maturity.

Randy 8:45

Even if you look at the Bible, right? I mean, Brian Zahn said on this podcast a long time ago, as we're talking through the issues with the Old Testament and the violence in the Old Testament and all the all the ugliness. I'm talking through in my church, the Book of the Covenant in Exodus, where there's you know elaborate instructions on what to do with your slaves and how your daughter's your property and what all this stuff. And it what makes sense to me, what I what resonates deeply with me was what he said. He said, I believe the Bible, and thereby he means the writers of the Bible and the people in the Bible, is on a journey of discovery towards Jesus along with us. And that what you're saying, I think really coincides with what Zan said there, which is we humans have been on this journey of uncovering, and we still are who God is. We believe that we have the most, you know, clear, understandable, beautiful picture of who God is in the person of Christ. But we've been on a journey, and you can see that happening in the Bible, even along the way, I would say. Would you agree?

Jim 9:45

And is there any reason to think we've reached the end of that? Correct. Correct.

Randy 9:51

I hope not. I do too.

Kyle 9:54

Yeah. So the glaring issue for a lot of people, a lot of Christians who aren't kind of grappling with evolutionary theory, even if they're not so concerned about the creation science stuff, maybe they fully admit that look, evolution is the the view of all the experts, and that's probably true for that reason. It creates a significant, well, it seems to a lot of people anyway, to create a significant theological problem or to make an existing theological problem a whole lot worse. And that is the problem of suffering. And you deal with this at the end of your book. So, what um, if any light, do you think that our evolutionary story can shed on that problem? How do you how do you tackle that as a person of faith who also makes a career talking about evolution?

Jim 10:37

Yeah, so the first thing I want to say is that I'm not convinced evolution makes it harder. Um, I am convinced that it's a problem. And that uh as long as we have records, human beings have been wondering about pain and suffering and why things are the way they are in that regard. And evolution, what is that? I mean, evolution itself needs what? Evolution needs for offspring to vary slightly from their parents, and that those characteristics are inheritable, are heritable so that offspring get some version of what their parents had. And then it says the ones that are best adapted and fitting into their environments will tend to have more kids. That's all evolution needs to work, it needs to have variation, heritable characteristics, and more, and some of them have more offspring than others that pass along their their characteristics. There's nothing in that that says evolution only works by lots of things dying. Now, if things didn't die, given the amount of time, we'd be pretty full. We'd be full up on a planet if nothing died.

Randy 12:02

And you're saying this immediately you're saying this because a lot of Christians say, oh, evolution starts with death, and so that can't be Christian.

Jim 12:09

That death is inherent in the evolutionary process. Lots of people say that all the time. So the first thing I'm saying is that the problem is no harder for old earth creationists than it is for evolutionary creation, right? If you've got a lot of time, stuff dies, some of it fairly horrifically. So that's the first thing I want to say that pain and death and suffering are not inherent in evolution in some way that it's not just a fact of life, if I can say it that way. Things die. Things die, and things compete for resources. Um, the next thing I want to say is that somehow solving the problem of evil seems to put the bar a little too high of what should be expected of me, given so, really, what I'm trying to do is to say, does evolution offer any pointers, any insights that can maybe help us try to make sense of some otherwise perplexing things? So that's what I try to do at the end of this. And it comes again with this issue of moral responsibility. So I'm asking, how do you get creatures to be morally responsible? Is that something you can gift them? Can they be created as morally mature beings in the blink of an eye? Well, when you do the sort of conceptual analysis that philosophers are fond of, I think moral maturity means that you have an established record of responding wisely to challenging circumstances. You have a proven track record of responding well in circumstances like that. And can that be gifted? And I try to make a comparison. Would that be the same as creating the earth with the appearance of age? You know, if God's gonna create oak trees that look like they're 100 years old or redwoods that look like they're 500 years old, wouldn't God put the rings inside them even if they didn't really have because you want to Adam and Eve to have trees that already have shade. You don't want to have to wait for 500 years for a tree to grow that tall, right? Well, I think that breaks down pretty quickly, that created with the appearance of age business. And in the same way, I think it breaks down to say that God could create species. Now, here's this will tie into the image of God business too. I think image of God is primarily a species designation more than an individual designation. I think there are aspects of both, but I want to say that we as a species image God, we as a people image God. So if God is intending to create people or a people, the way the biblical language is, if God wants to create a people for himself or God's self that is morally mature, how do you do that? Well, I don't think it can just be gifted. So that means you have to go through a process so that you establish a track record of responding wisely to challenging circumstances. Now, that doesn't, again, I'm not solving every gratuitous evil, every violent thing that has ever happened. But it does start to make more sense to me to say if you want to uh become a caring, if you want a species to be caring, you there there has to be something to care about. So back to these fossils that have all this evidence of being kept alive when they had seriously broken limbs that didn't heal right, or or even congenital deformities we have fossils of that these these people, these individuals couldn't have taken care of themselves. So there was a community that took care of them. And what I think that ought to point us toward is the importance for the community of caring for individuals like that. More so than isn't it nice that they cared for this person? So even think of something like the Good Samaritan story. Wouldn't it be better if we could just design robots that could care for the people that get beat up on the side of the road and get you know stole their money stolen and they're all beat up, and that way we don't have to mess with them. There's a robot that goes out and does it. Yeah, boy, what does that do to us? Or Iceland was in the news several years back for making an announcement that we have now eradicated Down syndrome from the island of Iceland because they do genetic testing in utero, and those fetuses are aborted when they're found to have Down syndrome. So we don't have to take care of them. What does that do to us as a species? And so when I say the image of God may be this species, this collective concept, we need to bear God's image properly. We need people like that, we need people that need to be cared for because that does something to me. So the good Samaritan, when you know Jesus tells the story in answer to the question, well, who's my neighbor? When Jesus says, Love your neighbor as yourself. Well, who is my neighbor? Well, here's the story. The Good Samaritan is in some sense loving himself, he's loving his neighbor, but that's good for him too. To care for people like that is good for us for what it makes us into, for how it develops our character, for how it gives us this record of responding wisely. So again, that doesn't solve here's why little kids get cancer, but it shows here are these processes that are at work that we can respond to in ways that help us bear the image more properly that we were intended to bear.

Randy 18:13

Yep. I like that that it's honest and isn't saying this is going this is the best theodicy and it's gonna end all this discussion. And it's just more of what do we do with suffering and what has that done to us.

Jim 18:27

The best theodicy is like saying the fastest turtle. It's not that it's not that impressive. It's not that impressive.

Kyle 18:35

What do you think about the fall? Uh, because what you're just saying reminded me a lot of John Hicks' use of Irenaeus to kind of argue against Augustine reading a fall into soul making Genesis. Yeah, but I think you could divorce it from that, the basic point about there just not being a fall in the creation story. Like, so how do you think about that?

Jim 18:53

I think about the fall the way I think about schematic diagrams of electrical components. Back in the old days, you used to get a VCR or something, and it would come with a book that you'd open up, and here's a diagram of the wiring charts that tells you something really important. But if I took that and thought that that was a picture of the way things looked on the inside of the VCR, I'd be grossly mistaken. I'd be I'd be trying to press something into service to answer a question that it wasn't designed to answer. So uh I I really like Bethany Solleretter as a theologian that that she used, I don't think it's original to her either, but she talks about theology as maps, as a as a kind of map. And if you think of a city, and here's the the map of all the water mains, and here's the topographical map, and here's the map of all the roads and the street signs. All of those are abstracting something from reality for particular purpose that's useful in a way. So I think the theology of the fall is a really useful abstraction from reality to talk about something, namely the fact that all of us sin and understanding that we need redeeming. My guess is, and I can be talked out of this um with good arguments, but I can be my guess is that when we press Genesis three and four into history mode, that we're forcing it to answer questions that were not that it's wasn't designed to answer. So to say, are we fallen? If by that you mean do we all sin and we need saving, absolutely. If you say are we fallen in the sense that one of us ate a piece of fruit one time and that led cougars to grow fangs and mosquitoes to come out and earthquakes to start happening, I'm skeptical of that answer.

Kyle 21:13

That's such a fascinating answer. I loved it. Thank you.

Randy 21:16

Good.

Kyle 21:17

The schematic thing's gonna stick with me.

Randy 21:19

So just a little bit more on this problem of suffering and evil. You spend a whole chapter centered around the writings of and wisdom of Simone Vey, which we've spoken about a bit with Brad Dersak. He's a huge Simone Vey fan. You quote Simone where she said this, and I'm quoting her the extreme greatness of Christianity lies in the fact that it does not seek a supernatural remedy for suffering, but a supernatural use for it. That's good enough that I'm gonna say that again. And Simone Vey was what, uh a Jewish uh woman who was a kind a quasi philosopher, culturally Jewish Jewish, did philosophy, um was a

Jim 22:00

Attracted to Catholicism in the around World War II in France. I was never officially converted to Catholicism, but definitely was in on the Jesus story.

Randy 22:09

So I was blown away to learn that she died at 33 or 34. How do people get that wise in such a short amount of time? That's incredible. But here's the quote again. She said the extreme greatness of Christianity lies in the fact that it does not seek a supernatural remedy for suffering, but a supernatural use for it. So, Jim, what is that? Why did you include that in your book? What does that mean to you? And do you think that is hinting at a legitimate, albeit of course, unorthodox theodicy?

Jim 22:37

You say, of course, unorthodox. I'm not sure it's unorthodox.

Randy 22:42

Okay, all right. It seems to me to be a little bit unorthodox. It's kind of changing the definition of uh changing the question to me.

Jim 22:49

So think about the beginning of the book of James. Consider it pure joy whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Consider this is a I think this is a really interesting word. Lots of things come back to language here. Um see it as reckon that it is, think about it in this way. Consider it pure joy when you face trials of many kinds. It doesn't sound like James, and I'm not so sure that you're gonna find many convincing passages of anybody else in scripture that says when you're facing these hard things, God's gonna make them just go away. They'll just go away. Instead, you find how do you how should you understand them? What do they do for you? Not just do they do to you, but do they do for you? So can I consider it joy when I face trials only because I know so something else that I know lets me see these trials, these pain and suffering as a joyful experience. What is it that I know that allows me to do that? Because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance, and you can find other passages, particularly in the New Testament writers, of this leads to this, which leads to this, which leads to this. Difficulties and trials are often included in those. And nowhere into those do I see, and God just takes them away. Paul famously says, I prayed that God would take away this thorn in my flesh, whatever it was, and God wouldn't do it. God didn't do that. Instead, we find uh so instead of uh a supernatural exempting us from difficulties, we find a supernatural use for them. Supernatural, I don't know, maybe that's uh blending the languages here again, but if there's if there's something to this evolutionary story that it develops in us the capacities for moral responsibility, then maybe you want to call that a natural use, but uh I I I'll I'll give Simone V a little leeway there to say a supernatural use in the sense that God uses those things to develop us into what God wanted us to be. And I don't think that's unorthodox. When you say unorthodox, do you mean like heretical or just non-standard?

Randy 25:38

No, I mean not heretical at all, but I mean it doesn't really explain to me, it's not good enough at kind of saying why suffering and why evil is a thing. I I don't know if that's is that good enough for you, Kyle?

Kyle 25:52

No, I'll come to the defense of the unorthodox claim a little bit, actually, because like this idea that Christianity doesn't provide a remedy but uses it. I mean, God is behind it in some sense, yes. And if God is not behind it in some sense, but is greater greater enough than us that God can use it in some way that we can't, but not great enough to actually fix it, make it make it better that it happened, then are we still talking about classical Christianity? You know, like there's it seems like there's a different conception of God going on here, which I'm fine with. I'm not orthodox, but it does seem unorthodox.

Jim 26:30

So I I guess it depends on so when she says what a supernatural remedy for suffering.

Kyle 26:38

Yeah.

Jim 26:39

Is what I mean, is what Jesus did talking about pain and suffering an evil at the biggest, or are we talking about the thorn in my flesh? Are we talking about my ingrown toenail that God won't just miraculously heal? My sense is that on that scale between those two things, evil as a whole versus my ingrown, I don't really have an ingrown toenail, but praise the Lord. My ingrown toenail that God won't heal. Um she was a little closer to that of talking about I'm talking about these things that each of us encounter individually that man, we wish that we would just be exempted from, that doesn't seem to be God's style. So somewhere in the conclusion, I think I I used the phrase the cruciform view of the cosmos. It seems to me that the Christian story is about pain and suffering leading to better things, that pain and suffering is used to produce something more. That's the story of Christ on the cross. And that doesn't mean that we somehow say, Oh, I'm so glad then that Christ suffered and died and was beat up. The the history of that is not that the disciples were standing around clapping when Jesus got crucified and said, Oh, thank God, now we're now we're saved from our sins. No, the the reality of the pain and suffering was awful, was awful. And somehow in the economy of the universe, God says, Yeah, that's that's what I use to bring about what I want to come about. And in these in the microcosm of the own difficulties that I go through, that's what I'm saying, and what I'm think Simone Vay is pointing to. Yeah, that's God saying, Yeah, that's what I use to turn you into what I want you to be.

Kyle 28:40

Yeah. We've we've mentioned her enough on the podcast, I'm gonna have to go read her. Yeah, seriously. Gaping hole in my education that I've never read her. Interesting. Yeah. Um, can I change gears or do you have more questions about that? Nope. Go ahead. So my background is epistemology. Um, and so I have one one epistemological question. Oh, there it is. Um, so you at one point cite a Pew study that found that something like 46% of white American evangelicals. Not it's not the question was not, um, do you believe in evolution? It was what do scientists think? And about 46% of white American evangelicals believe that scientists agree about evolution, which means most of them believe that scientists do not agree about evolution. Um what do you think that indicates?

Jim 29:37

Yeah, so I always use that in conjunction with the exact same question that was asked of the scientists themselves. And when you ask scientists as a whole, 98% agree that human beings evolved. When you ask just the scientists that have a PhD or an MD PhD working in biology, it's 99%. So 99% of the professionals in a discipline think one thing, and more than half of white evangelicals think they are wildly different than that. So I use that as a way to say our understanding of science and of what's going on is radically off. It's not just that we disagree about the conclusions, but that we radically misunderstand the overwhelming consensus among the experts on this, right? And I don't say that to say that the majority rules, and if 99% of experts think something, that means it's true. But I'm saying that the way, and and I was part of this culture, the the way that white evangelicalism conditioned us to think about evolution, it was well, that can't be true. 99, no, because I can find these people, this person over here that has a PhD that says evolution is wrong. There was a really funny, there was a really funny experiment done after, I think it was the Discovery Institute, after uh the intelligent design community produced a list of 500 PhD scientists who disagreed with the conclusions of evolutionary biology. Somebody started one that said, Yeah, let's see how many scientists named Brian I can find who agree with it. And instantly there are thousands and thousands of scientists named Brian who agree with it. So the that was that was done to show that you found 500, but do you know the percentage we're talking about here? This is an infinitesimal percentage of the working professionals who think that, and you've pulled it out, try to show look, I have the professionals on my side. Yeah, and there's you know something the way news is done, investigative news, you always have to find the other side of the story, and it's always presented in ways that maybe it sounds like, well, here's one view and here's another view, and they're both equally plausible because I found an expert on both sides of the issue. Where in this in this uh example of evolutionary biology, it's overwhelming, overwhelming majority of experts agree that the evolution that the evidence points one direction.

Kyle 32:26

Yeah, that list of 500 may well have been the majority of the people who think that it might have been most of them they might have found every one of them. Yeah, I wonder how many of them were actual PhD biologists.

Randy 32:36

Amazing how you know young earth creationists, fundamentalists, maybe even evangelicals are not very good at science, but they're pretty good at persuasion and maybe even say manipulation. You said it, man, not me.

Jim 32:54

Um, so now that I am talking about this again, I think it was scientists named Steve. Because it was after Steve and J. Steve is better than Brian.

Kyle 33:04

Yes. Comes back to your guy.

Randy 33:07

Good. Um, can I take us all the way back to the end of the book? Do you it was named Project Steve? Sorry. I love it. Project Steve, good. So I'm just gonna bring us back to the end of the book then. I found your proposal of evolution and in particular your thought on another big bang, possibly in creation's future, being a way of understanding eschatology and afterlife with along with evolutionary science. I found it super interesting and actually kind of compelling. Um I'd love for you to kind of bring our listeners into that theory or that you know concept and tell us what's that what that has done for the way you see a potential or possibility of afterlife.

Jim 33:53

Well, I'm glad you like it, because I really like it too, and I haven't heard that very many other people do this. Don't ask Kyle what he thought of it. We can exist in bliss here. So I read a book, I don't know, 10 or 15 years ago by Holmes Ralston called The Three Big Bangs. And so I it was he was uh he was a uh pretty popular science and religion writer. Um and so his book, The Three Big Bangs, the first one is the so each of the Big Bangs is essentially this transition, this massive trip phase transition, some sort of shift from one state of things to another that would not be predicted, probably from only the the prior standpoint. So the first is when there's nothing and then the big bang that we normally talk about, the big bang is and now there's matter and energy, and it through gravity becomes stars and planets and and things, so you've got a very different state of uh reality from one side of that to the other side. But I know talking about before the big bang gets you into all kinds of problems because of time, but there's a big bang, there was there's nothing, now there's something. Well, the second big bang is when some of that matter and energy becomes alive. So, again, this is a massive difference from if you just have lifeless matter to now some of it is living. That's a very so I said clear back at the beginning of our of our conversation something about the the ontological difference that life makes. And there I don't mean it in uh a substance dualism kind of way, as much as just that there are very, very different emergent capacities of what is there when some of it's alive and some of it isn't. So then the third big bang is self-consciousness or aware, self-awareness or sentience, sentience, sentience. Um the third big bang. So again, so you've got living stuff, but now you've got stuff that makes podcasts, that flies rocket ships to the moon, that writes poetry, that you know, these are very, very different. This world of language, this world that we live in because of language, I think, is because of our self-awareness. So the hypothesis was at the end, and it's just total conjecture, how in the world are we supposed to make sense of any of this? But is it are we done? Or could there be another? Could there be a fourth big bang? And I don't know if you how if you push me very hard, how much I would say I'm speaking literally here as opposed to poetically or metaphorically. But is there a fourth big bang that something happens to some of this matter that's not just matter and it's not just alive and it's not just sentient, but I am happy to use the word spirit that becomes spirit? So the the big resurrection chapter in in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul says there's different kinds of flesh, there's different kinds of bodies, there's spiritual bodies, the soma pneumatica, right? What is that resurrected stuff? And does it have very different capacities and abilities than just regular old human self-aware bodies have? And could that be the development, the the phase shift, the transition into something different? Because this uh universe isn't eternal. I mean, our sun's got a few good billion years left on it, but after that, we're gonna have to find another star, and that star is only temporary, and all the stars are only temporary. Stars are gonna quit forming after, I forget the numbers now, something like 10 to the 15 years, and and then the our understanding of of particle physics is that all the neutrons and protons decay after something like 10 to the 43 years, and there's nothing left, there's nothing there anymore. And 10 to the 43 years is a really long time, but that's a blink of an eye compared to eternity. Is the Christian story that the kingdom of God is eternal? If so, it's gonna have to be different stuff than the current stuff. There's gonna have to be a phase transformation of some sort in order for that to exist forever and ever. So it's wild speculation, but I like the I like the idea of a fourth big bang. Yeah. So not just matter and energy, not just life, not just self-awareness or consciousness, but spirit. There's something that we're ultimately, ultimately designed and created to be.

Randy 39:00

Yeah. Would you I'm interested in what your thoughts were on that, Kyle. Do you think that's just useless speculation or is it kind of fun?

Kyle 39:06

Oh, that would be rude of me. Yes, you would never do. I would never say that to a guest. No, I um I'm curious if you think you know a lot more about evolution than I do. Do you think that's in keeping with the spirit of evolution as you understand it?

Jim 39:23

It's not a bio, it's not a strictly biological process, it wouldn't be.

Kyle 39:26

Well, neither's evolution.

Jim 39:29

What do you mean?

Kyle 39:30

They're different, they're non-biological forms of evolution.

Jim 39:33

Oh, if you oh, if you're just talking about change over time, then it could be, it could be so the I want to not mix up my discourses here between science and theology. And I mean, when I'm talking this way, I am not at all claiming that if you just look at the science the right way, you'll see that this is the way things are headed. I'm not making any sort of claim like that. I'm making a theological claim that I think isn't consistent with what we know about science and making some fairly wild speculation to say, why couldn't there be something beyond consciousness, something more than I mean? Yes. Don't I say somewhere I didn't reread this part of the book, but don't I say something like the scientists that would have been living before life evolved, which you know is ridiculous, but you wouldn't have predicted that life was gonna come about just by knowing how the matter and energy interacts. There's something remarkably different that happens. Yeah, and maybe consciousness is a little bit more of a spectrum of a degree than life is, though I actually co-wrote a paper about how life itself comes in degrees. It's not quite as clear, clear cut when you're talking about abiogenesis and how life could have first formed. But maybe consciousness and self-awareness is there are some that have it more than others, but it's still remarkably different. The kind of experience we have compared to the way single-celled amoeba have is remarkably, remarkably different. And so the speculation is why couldn't there be something else? Why couldn't there be another stage that's even is just as different to our current self-awareness as self-awareness is to single-celled amoebas?

Randy 41:39

Yeah, it sounds to me potentially like what Christians refer to as new creation. And again, I'm not saying I totally agree with it, I just think it's a really fun way to speculate about what's next and what I'll take that eternity could look like. I'll take that. Absolutely really fun, really cool.

Kyle 41:59

Yeah. I read a Wikipedia article one time, probably late at night when I couldn't fall asleep, and it was just like the timeline of the universe. Okay. Sounds sounds like material to put you to see. You know, predictions for how long things will take, you know, black holes to all fizzle out eventually, and all that stuff. Super pretty middle of the night reading. Yeah, highly recommended. Yeah, I don't know. Something about the spirit of I don't know, Darwinian evolution at least, is that it's all continuous, and that's kind of how I see these things. I don't I don't want to say there's no such thing as emergent properties. Maybe consciousness is one of those things. Um, but like discontinuous breaks are hard for me to square with the spirit of the city.

Jim 42:40

And you're the Stephen J. Gould guy, punctuated equilibrium.

Kyle 42:43

I didn't say he was right about everything, man. Just the nome thing. So I don't know. I I I tend to see those as all differences of degree.

Jim 42:54

I I referred to this paper. I am not an expert in abiogenesis, how life formed to begin with, but I co-wrote a paper with somebody who is an expert in that. That the thesis of it is we're we're missing something when we try to say, here's the moment that life began, that it too is a much longer process of developing. But there are some of those processes that once that process is done result in something radically different than you had before that process started.

Kyle 43:26

That's fair. So what this is gonna sound unrelated, but I promise it's connected. Um, what do you what do you think of the Fairme paradox?

Jim 43:34

Of why we haven't heard from extraterrestrials or why they're is that what you're talking about?

Kyle 43:40

Do you have a do you have a thought about that?

Jim 43:44

I'm I hope there are. I hope there are intelligent beings elsewhere in the universe. I think we're drawing conclusions based on such a tiny sample set of. Data right now that we can't help but be. I mean, so all of the assumptions that have to get packed into that, we've we we don't know enough. We've we've seen civilization develop one time. I mean, maybe slightly different versions of it in slightly different places here, but we've seen evolution happen once. And so to say this must be the way it always happens everywhere in the universe seems a little bit like overreaching. So I'm not uh I'm not totally convinced that they can't be out there a really long ways away, and that wormholes aren't really practical for zipping from one side of the universe to the other, the way some physicists think they might be, or that time travel is really I mean, who knows? Who knows?

Kyle 44:53

It just seems like if it turned out that um life is really common, that the chemical processes that exist everywhere in the universe will always give it enough time, produce life, and that life will almost always somewhere result in some kind of intelligence eventually, right? Just based on the sheer numbers is what generates the paradox, right? Based on the sheer numbers, seems like it should be really plentiful, then that epical view of things would seem to be in tension with that. And so I was wondering if you had a a different take on why we have an encounter.

Jim 45:28

I don't, uh other than again to say to generalize from the example of one that we have right now.

Kyle 45:35

Yeah, I heard uh, sis whose name is not coming to me right now, say if we could find on our own planet a second development of life, then that would pretty much clinch it. Because so far we only know that it happened one time. But if we could find evidence that on our own planet it happened independently. No, on our planet that it happened independently more than once. Even in the same ocean.

Jim 46:01

Um, then well, it's gonna be really interesting the next two decades with the the telescope technology that we'll be able to analyze atmospheres and such of exoplanets that maybe they are. Maybe, maybe we're going to find that. And maybe there's just no getting around the enormous distances between us that we'll find that there are a whole lot of people.

Randy 46:27

When you say you hope there is life elsewhere. What do you mean by that, Jim?

Jim 46:32

I I mean I like science fiction movies. You're not freaked out by that. I would love for that to happen in my lifetime. I'd love for us to discover life somewhere else in my lifetime. That's maybe slightly more plausible, but to find that there are creatures somewhere else in the universe would would be, man, I just think it's another step in the lavishness of creation that has been a process that that's the the history of scientific discovery, of thinking that it's only civilization nestled around the Mediterranean Sea to discovering people on the other side of the earth, to you know, discovering we're still discovering the numbers of creatures deep down in the ocean that we've never seen, to discovering all those stars out there are or are other suns, and now that they all have other planets around them, and maybe there are even multiple universes. I mean, that's that's just a progression of us seeing creation is much more lavish, much more lavish than we had thought before. Well, when that discovery happened, finding life on other planets would be another stage in that, I think.

Randy 47:53

It'd be another stage for Bio Logos, too. I mean, that'd be a big deal for you guys. We need you, Jim.

Jim 48:01

Sign me up to uh establish the branch office on Alpha Center.

Randy 48:06

So let's go.

Jim 48:07

You want to ask your Jamie Smith?

Kyle 48:08

Oh, yeah, yeah. Um, my last question is simply have you ever read How to Inhabit Time by Jamie Smith?

Jim 48:16

I have not. I saw it when it came out, and I've read a couple other Jamie Smith books, but I have not like that.

Kyle 48:21

I think you will love it. I think you should snatch it up and love it. Just based on some of the stuff you said in the book about time. I think it's right up your alley.

Randy 48:27

Yeah, I agree. Put it on the stack. Another philosopher as well. Jim Stump, the book is The Sacred Chain How Understanding Evolution Leads to Deeper Faith. This has been really delightful. Both conversations, one conversation, whatever you want to say. It's been a good time. Thanks for sharing yourself with us, Jim.

Jim 48:47

My pleasure. I like talking about it.

Randy 48:59

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Kyle 49:15

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Randy 49:23

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Kyle 49:31

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