Reason in the Balance: The Case Against Naturalism in Science, Law Education

In his first book, Darwin on Trial, Berkeley law professor Phillip E. Johnson took on the heavyweights of science. And he got their attention, even provoking a response from neo-Darwinist Stephen Jay Gould in the pages of Scientific American. Now Johnson's back with a book that expands his critique from science to law, education and today's culture wars.Is God unconstitutional?Why is morality forced out of public school curriculum?Can Christians believe in God and evolution?Why aren't we getting anywhere in the debate over abortion?Will the Grand Unified Theory solve the riddle of the universe?Johnson dares to answer these and other tough, touchy questions. He reveals why naturalism (the philosophy that the material world is all there was, is and will be) has become "the established religious philosophy of America," supplanting Judeo-Christian belief. He shows how naturalism undergirds science, law, education and popular culture. And he argues that naturalism has even infiltrated the church--marginalizing opposition as irrational, and encouraging Christians to adopt a more "reasonable" stance.In Reason in the Balance, Johnson writes energetically and persuasively--chapter by chapter zeroing in on the chinks in the argument for naturalism. He explores nearly every acre of today's cultural battlefield: God, sex education, evolution, abortion, cosmology and particle physics, what our public schools should teach, the basis of law, the meaning of reason and a few other things that matter. Armed with biblical truth, common sense and a clear understanding of his foe, he steps out like David to fell the intellectual Goliath of our day.

Phillip E. Johnson is a graduate of Harvard University and the University of Chicago Law School. He taught law for more than thirty years at the University of California at Berkeley where he is professor emeritus. For the last decade Johnson has also been at the forefront of the public debate over evolution and creation. He has taken his message to such places as the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. His InterVarsity Press titles include Reasonin the Balance, The Wedge of Truth, The Right Questions and Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds.