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Broken Planet with Sharon Dirckx

Dr. Sharon Dirckx

Broken Planet is the title of a new book by Sharon Dirckx (PhD, Cambridge) with InterVarsity Press (2023). The subtitle describes the question she hopes to address: If There’s a God, Then Why Are There Natural Disasters and Diseases?  She joins David Capes on The Stone Chapel Podcast to talk about her most recent book.

To hear the podcast (approx 20 minutes) click here.

Who is Sharon Dirckx, author of Broken Planet?

Sharon Dirckx is a freelance speaker and author who occasionally teaches courses for OCCA, The Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics.  She has been with us before on this podcast and has lectured at the Lanier Theological Library in Houston in November 2022. Links to those episodes and to her other books are below.

While her PhD from Cambridge is in brain imaging, Dr. Dirckx has turned her attention to our broken planet. She and her husband live in Oxford, UK.

Are we living on a Broken Planet? 

A great deal of suffering is caused by natural disasters: tsunamis, earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, pandemics, and other catastrophes. How do we account for such disasters if there is a God who is all powerful?  Is our planet broken or is this the best of all possible worlds as some regard it?

It is one thing to make a case for the origin and impact of moral evil or “man’s inhumanity to man.”  But it’s quite another to talk about the planet itself as being our home and our nemesis.

Dirckx mixes her own style of apologetic argument with stories of people who suffered and survived to create a compelling book. This podcast captures a bit of her book and aims to help readers deal with those tragedies not caused by humans.

Click here to watch Sharon Dirckx’s lecture at the Lanier Theological library, on her second book, Am I Just My Brain.

Watch a short video here of Sharon discussing the topic, Can you be a credible scientist and believe in God.

For Sharon’s Podcast’s on her book, Am I Just My Brain, click here.

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Am I Just My Brain? with Sharon Dirckx

To hear the podcast (22 minutes), click here.

Am I Just My Brain? (2019) is a book by Sharon Dirckx dealing with an ancient and modern question.  Are we more than our brains? 

Are humans self-aware only because of neuro-chemical reactions or electrical activity or are we something more?

Dr. Dirckx lives in Oxford with her husband and two children.  She is a speaker, author, and adjunct lecturer for OCCA (The Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics). 

She earned her PhD in brain imaging at Cambridge University and spent more than a decade researching brain function. 

She joins David Capes on “The Stone Chapel Podcasts” to talk about her book and to summarize her upcoming lecture.

To see and hear the lecture that took place in fall 2022, click here. 

The question of human identity is an ancient one, but it is one that fascinates modern minds as well. 

At the heart of it is a question: what exactly is a human being?  Are we advanced apes? Are we machines?  Are we brains on sticks?

In fact, we can address those questions without having to leave the realm of neuroscience.  But we are more than our brains.


We have a brain.  But we also have a mind.  We have thoughts, feelings, and memories and a sense of self that appears unique in the world. 

Human consciousness remains a mystery but there are aspects of it that neuroscience can address. 

Dr. Capes and Dr. Dirckx talk about human experience, functional MRIs, data analysis, the question of soul and consciousness among animals, and the data sets from near death experiences.  

If you want more information about Dr. Sharon Dirckx as a speaker and author follow her on Twitter @sharondirckx or you can email her at sharon@dirckx.org. 

In an earlier book, Why?, she addressed the question of evil and suffering.  Her next book, entitled Broken Planet, deals with  natural disasters and finding a way through them.