A Challenging Read

Today I finished a recommended reading we have in my OT101 class titled "Reason in the Balance: The Case Against Naturalism in Science, Law & Education" by Phillip E. Johnson. Johnson, a Harvard Law graduate, clerk for the Supreme Court, and 30+ year law professor at Berkeley basically brings to light how postmodern thought assumes naturalism is "true." The result is that public education and especially higher education are controlled by "evolutionary fundamentalism" which asserts that "of course" the world runs on only naturalistic principles and, thus, any theistic arguments are seen as outdated at best - bigoted, ignorant, and mindless at worst.

Johnson, a Christian and expert in Law and Science, first criticizes the enormous assumptions made by evolutionary biologists. This portion of the book was old news to me. Evolution - when examined critically - does not provide sufficient evidence for origins and most thoughtful scientist will tell you the same thing. If you find that sentence startling then it is probably because you have taken on "blind faith" what has been fundamentally shoved down your throat in postmodern media, education, and morality by the "experts" who hold the keys to the "truth." Sounds like medieval Catholicism in reverse. I challenge those reading this (out of the maybe two who actually do) who hold to a naturalistic philosophy to read this book. All your favorites - Dawkins, Sagan, Hawkings - will be among those whose work is critiqued.

What Johnson does not aim to do (thankfully) is say "Literal 6-Day Creation" is right and "Evolution" is wrong per se, but that evolution - a theory in and of itself with considerable holes - is taken as "the way things are" when approaching law, science, morality, and ultimate reality in postmodern America. Johnson is certainly not "anti-science." His goal is to level the playing field so that people who hold a theistic viewpoint in intellectual circles - and there are many - may freely offer up alternative viewpoints without be marginalized as "religious kooks" or "rabid fundamentalists." Indeed, a fundamentalist is someone that is not even open to another viewpoint because his way is, of course, the way things really are. For as many as can be found in the Christian tradition I can think of none any worse than many holding to a Darwinian claim of origins amongst the scientific elite. Ironically, there is as much if not more objective evidence for the Resurrection as for any significant origins of complex organs and new emerging organisms (macroevolution) in the fossil record.

Evolution debunking aside, the part of the book that was the most fascinating was the bit about law and morality. Since naturalism assumes that 1.) Life is a series of random, purposeless processes and 2). God is a product of pre-scientific evolutionary thought (i.e. an idea of the mind), then morals and values are completely subjective and any claim to an external standard of morality is outdated and irrelevant. The implications of this are enormous and Johnson succinctly outlines them throughout the book. An easy (and forgive me, cliched) example is someone like Hitler, whose value system assumed Jews to be inferior and thus called for their extermination. He was doing the Earth a great service in his own eyes. It would be difficult for someone with a naturalistic worldview to say what he did was "wrong" because on what do you measure the standard of "right?" Depends on what crowd you run with. Hitler's decision was based on nothing but neutral biochemical reactions in the brain. How can anyone hold him responsible when there is only collective subjective value systems to hold him accountable against?

Johnson, who is insanely more intelligent than myself, puts these arguments together with a flow that answers objections as they surface in the readers mind. My commentary above certainly does the book no justice, so if you have time, pick up a copy. If anything it will bring forth in vivid detail the culture war that entails America and what's at stake.

Peace.