Theistic Science - Johnson

Johnson

After Edwards v. Aguillard in 1987, Phillip E. Johnson became convinced that creationists had lost the case because the methodological naturalism used by the scientific community in defining science does not include supernatural processes, and therefore (unfairly, in his opinion) excluded creationism. He concluded that creationists must therefore redefine science to restore the supernatural, and developed the wedge strategy. The intelligent design movement began with the publication of Of Pandas and People in 1989, and Johnson later became its de facto leader.

In an essay written in 1996, Johnson wrote of the intelligent design movement that "My colleagues and I speak of 'theistic realism' -- or sometimes, 'mere creation' --as the defining concept of our movement. This means that we affirm that God is objectively real as Creator, and that the reality of God is tangibly recorded in evidence accessible to science, particularly in biology." Johnson presents theistic realism as a philosophical justification for intelligent design in his 1998 book, Reason in the Balance. According to Johnson, true knowledge begins with the acknowledgment of God as creator of the universe, the unifying characteristic of which is that it was created by God. Theistic realism relies on a concept of God which involves that He is real, personal, and acting in the world through mechanistic creationism.

The Wedge Document of 1999 states "Design theory promises to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist world view, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions."