Reviews

"Reason in the Balance is a serious and original challenge to the secularist orthodoxy that still dominates the public square. Johnson's case in support of intelligent design . . . is credibly and comprehensively presented, and his ease with the scientific arguments of naturalism is particularly impressive."
*Weekly Standard*

"Johnson fires a major salvo in the culture wars with this sweeping critique of the reigning materialist philosophy."
*Publishers Weekly*

"There are plenty of critics of 'Godless science,' but few are more intelligent (or better writers) than Johnson."
*Booklist*

"In a brilliantly controversial polemic, Johnson fires an intellectual broadside against what he sees as the marginalization of theism in public life and explores its implications for society and religion. . . . Well argued and astute, this critical work makes an exciting contribution to contemporary scientific and cultural debate."
*Kirkus Reviews*

"No scholar has more courageously and more competently challenged the reigning naturalistic presupposition and antisupernatural hostility that dominate contemporary science. Darwinian evolutionists have been unable to ignore him--and more significantly--unable to refute him."
*Carl F. H. Henry, in Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society*

"What distinguishes Johnson is his penetrating understanding of science and its limits. For that reason, he stands in the great tradition of Blake and Swift, companion skeptics of Enlightenment hype."
*Commonweal*

"Clear and accessible. . . . Johnson shows how naturalistic precommitments influence the search for a grand, comprehensive vision of all reality."
*Journal of Church and State*

"Recommend this book as one of the valuable apologetic contributions of our day."
*Bookstore Journal*

Johnson (Darwin on Trial) fires a major salvo in the culture wars with this sweeping critique of the reigning materialist philosophy. According to this UC Berkeley law professor, ``naturalism''‘the belief that all of reality can ultimately be explained in purely physical terms and that God is merely a projection of human desires‘dominates our universities, public schools, sciences and professions. Yet most Americans, he maintains, are‘like him‘theists, Christian or otherwise, and believe in a supernatural God who created humanity for a purpose. Not always convincingly, he links naturalist assumptions to the pro-choice position on abortion, to Marxism, to popular culture's self-indulgent hedonism, to the ethical relativism of philosopher Richard Rorty and to judicial decisions to ban from schools the teaching of religious viewpoints. Doing battle with evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould, astrophysicist Stephen Hawking and other scientists, Johnson calls for a scientifically informed theology to study the interaction of God and the supernatural with the whole of creation. $30,000 ad/promo; Conservative Book Club main selection; author tour. (Aug.)

"Phillip Johnson is a scrappy Christian thinker who is taking on several important debates about law, education and science in contemporary culture. He strikes many sparks, and some of them illuminate the issues in helpful ways. Reason in the Balance will inflict a few burns, but it will also shed some light."Richard J. Mouw, president, Fuller Theological Seminary "Having demolished the scientific case for Darwinism in his first book, Phillip Johnson now answers the question 'So what?' In a brilliant analysis, he shows how Darwinist assumptions underlie current controversies in ethics, law, education and public policy."Chuck Colson