The Wedge of Truth: Splitting the Foundations of Naturalism (Hardcover)

by Phillip E. Johnson (Author), Dallas Willard (Foreword) "In 1932 the Atlantic Monthly published Philip Wentworth's essay "What College Did to My Religion..." (more)
Key Phrases: new complex organs, complex genetic information, theological modernists, Richard Dawkins, Philip Wentworth, Kenneth Miller (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Johnson (UC-Berkeley law professor and author of Darwin on Trial) has a reputation as a relentless critic of Darwinism, armed with a shrewd and engaging rhetoric comparable to that of evolution defenders Richard Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gould. Here, he addresses evolution-creation questions but also has a broader focus, looking at the often confused and confusing relationship between science itself and the naturalistic worldview prevalent among individual scientists and scientific organizations. Johnson takes issue with the way naturalistic allegiances come into play when Darwinian interpretations of evolution are defended with orthodox zeal in the name of science. A case in point, in Johnson's view, is the 1999 controversy surrounding Kansas state edu-cation standards for teaching evolution. Johnson argues that despite the high profile given to the dispute, the media generally missed the real story by indulging in "Inherit the Wind" stereotypes of heartland funda-mentalists, rather than dealing with the considerably more nuanced facts of the debate. Readers who are interested in the nuances, especially touching on the social, political and theological implications of evolution debates, should find this to be a helpful, or challenging, resourceAdepending on their own persuasion. Johnson makes no claims to be unbiased, and does not conceal his Christian agenda. But his appeal for both sides to see the "religious" commitments involved in the debate should have credibility even for readers outside his primarily Christian audience. (Aug.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
A helpful, challenging resource . . . should have credibility even for readers outside his primarily Christian audience. -- Publishers Weekly, July 24, 2000

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: InterVarsity Press; 1st edition (July 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0830822674
• ISBN-13: 978-0830822676
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (57 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #175,326 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

44 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The survival of the fittest: Darwinism won't survive, May 9, 2001

By	Jonatas Machado (Coimbra Portugal) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

As a law professor in Portugal, I have been deeply inspired by Phillip Johnson's life and work. He has made it clear to me that lawyers should take part in this debate and give their own contributions. Phillip Johnson's contribution has been outstanding, as even his adversaries concede. In this particular work, Phillip Johnson shows clearly that Darwinism (in a broad sense) cannot aspire to become a "total theory" or a "metanarrative" of reality. It's flaws on the methodological and scientific levels are more than enough to render it's metaphysical extrapolations as nothing less than a philosophical fraud. Richard Dawkins obsession with chance explanations for natural events, for instance, reminds me of someone who tries desperately to cause the "appearence of an accident" (planting, faking and explaining away the relevant evidence), just to collect the money from the insurance company. Men like Phillip Johnson, William Dembski and Michael Behe, among others, just won't let him get away with it. The Wedge of Truth allows us to see the "ideological design" (not a very intelligent one, by the way) that lies behind the whole naturalist project. Needless to say that this project has devastating effects on the realms of politics, law, human dignity, human rights, freedom and responsability,and so on. Everything would be about the purposeless life of amoral and selfish genes. This form of materialistic rationality, certainly a kind of absolutism or fundamentalism, would mean the end of reason as we know it. Fortunately this is too stupid to be true. The fact is that Darwinism tends to run away form competing ideias, maybe because it fears becoming a standard case of extinction as a result of competition. Phillip Johnson and Wedge show clearly that human reason is ultimately founded on some form of absolute Reason. The nature of this Reason seems to be far beyond the scope of scientific inquiry, but it's presence is palpable and overwhelming in nature's huge amounts of information, something both as immaterial and as real as "intellectual property" (original work of authorship in a tangible form). Information is detectable and measurable by falsefiable and scientifically sound criteria. Nature and life are not just about matter, mutations and selection. They are also about intelligence and information. Thus, the design argument has nothing (and I mean nothing!) to do with "miracles" of the "God of the Gaps", but with the intrinsic form and substance of nature (much like the original work of authorship in tangible form), something that we, as intelligent beeings have a natural capacity to recognize (v.g. intellectual property is not a monkey business)and to study. This explains the misterious continuity between the objective structure of reality and the working of our subjective reason (Darwinists just take it for granted, that which makes science both possible and meaningful. Please read The Wedge of Truth. As Immanuel Kant would put it: "Sapere aude!" (sorry for my "depleted" english)

127 of 163 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars On the money, August 9, 2000

By	Matthew R. Holiday II (Dallas, TX USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Phillip Johnson's best book yet -- the one I'd been waiting for. In this book he deals more with the philosophical issues and Christianity's response to those issues.

What is science? A search for TRUTH, at all costs? Or is it instrinsically bound to naturalism, a belief system? Why do evolutionists need to defend their beliefs by resorting to obfuscation and cheap propaganda?

Answers to these questions, and more, await you. This is a must-read book for anyone concerned about a philosophical movement which has had enormous negative consequences in recent history and promises worse to come; a movement dominating our culture today with little real criticism. Johnson offers the criticism, and begs for more. He also brings up what is becoming the key scientific issue (real science!): can the mechanism Darwinism describes actually create information from raw, inanimate materials (e.g., create cells with DNA and the ability to reproduce, which are necessary for natural selection even to start)?

When I was an undergrad, folks had bumper stickers that said things like "Challenge authority." It's high time we challenged the cultural "authority" of evolutionism and its negative view of the value of human life.

This book is an extension of the lead article in Touchstone magazine's double issue last summer on evolutionism (July/Aug 1999). Most of the other authors in that issue have books (Dembski, Behe, etc.) well worth reading.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Rationality vs rationalization, December 17, 2001

By	Lloyd To (Surrey, UK) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book presents a serious challenge to the modern naturalistic worldview that all answers to reality are to be found in empirical investigation, including the question of origins and even questions of morality. It rests on the (usually unacknowledged) *assumption* that nature is all there is.

Much that is claimed as rationality by adherents of naturalism is in fact mere rationalization, but since they pull the strings behind the scientific establishment (and hold the purse strings), they usually succeed in stifling open debate. Their refusal to face up honestly to the challenge posed by the origin of life and the origin of information is an illustration of this. But their refusal to engage their critics in open debate also betrays their lack of confidence in their position. Their uneasiness sometimes degenerates into paranoia, as evidenced by the irrational knee-jerk reaction over the Kansas board of education amendment of the evolution section of the science syllabus. Their frequent resort to authoritarian bully tactics to 'protect' science is an inherent contradiction. Often, materialistic naturalists are so deeply indoctrinated in their dogma that they are quite unable to comprehend their opponents' viewpoint, as when they demand their critics to provide a better *naturalistic* explanation of origins than the one they criticise, when the whole point is that there is no satisfactory *naturalistic* explanation. Atheistic science prefers to cling to an intellectually bankrupt theoretical position rather than relinquish naturalism. But "claiming to have knowledge is not a truimph for science unless it is true knowledge, and admitting that we don't have answers is an improvement on dogmatically retaining the wrong answers."

A frequent naturalist assertion is that scientific progress would be retarded by accepting a theistic position. This is false on at least two counts. Firstly, many of the founders of modern science were theists who believed that the universe was designed by an intelligent creator, and this belief *motivated* their scientific investigations. Secondly, many contemporary scientists, including many working in the medical and biological sciences, have only a rudimentary knowledge of evolutionary theory, and do their research without reference to it.

The author is an old hand at taking on the bastions of naturalism, and it is a pleasure to read a book that argues its case so cogently.