Phillip E. Johnson
Phillip E. Johnson
Phillip E. Johnsonis a retired UC Berkeley law professor and author who is considered the father of the intelligent design movement. He became a Christian while a tenured professor. He is a critic of what he calls "Darwinism". By "Darwinism", he means "fully naturalistic evolution, involving chance mechanisms and natural selection". As a Christian, Johnson believes "that a God exists who could create out of nothing if He wanted to do so, but who also might have chosen to work...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionEducator
CountryUnited States of America
This [the intelligent design movement] isn't really, and never has been, a debate about science, it's about religion and philosophy.
All the most prominent Darwinists proclaim naturalistic philosophy when they think it safe to do so.
Darwinism is not merely a support for naturalistic philosophy: it is a product of naturalistic philosophy.
Truth as such is not a particularly important concept in naturalistic philosophy.
Science...has become identified with a philosophy known as materialism or scientific naturalism. This philosophy insists that nature is all there is, or at least the only thing about which we can have any knowledge. It follows that nature had to do its own creating, and that the means of creation must have included any role for God.
People behind me and in front of me are pushing me, ... All three of us respect each other and we've been running hard.
Evolutionary biologists are not content merely to explain how variation occurs within limits, however. They aspire to answer a much broader question-which is how complex organisms like birds, and flowers, and human beings came into existence in the first place.
Modernism is typically defined as the condition that begins when people realize God is truly dead, and we are therefore on our own.
No doubt it is true that science cannot study God, but it hardly follows that God had to keep a safe distance from everything that scientists want to study.
The Intelligent Design movement starts with the recognition that "In the beginning was the Word," and "In the beginning God created." Establishing that point isn't enough, but it is absolutely essential to the rest of the gospel message.
The assumption that nature is all there is, and that nature has been governed by the same rules at all times and places, makes it possible for natural science to be confident that it can explain such things as how life began.
According to the scientific naturalist version of cosmic history, nature is a permanently closed system of material effects that can never be influenced by something from outside - like God, for example.
Although I insist that God has always had the power to intervene directly in nature to create new forms, I am willing to be per-suaded that He chose not to do so and instead employed secondary natural causes like random mutation and natural selection.
The problem with allowing God a role in the history of life is not that science would cease, but rather that scientists would have to acknowledge the existence of something important which is outside the boundaries of natural science.