Re: The Wedge of Truth: Splitting the Foundations of Naturalism

From: Stephen E. Jones (sejones@iinet.net.au)
Date: Thu Jul 20 2000 - 17:29:46 EDT

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    Reflectorites

    Here is a Breakpoint on Phil Johnson's new book, "The Wedge of Truth".

    Sounds like Johnson has found a good, deep crack to insert his wedge
    of truth into!

    Steve

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    [...]

    BreakPoint with Charles Colson
    Commentary #000720 - 07/20/2000
    The Dangers of Naturalism: Are Humans Merely Robots?

    You've seen the stories: They're nothing short of
    horrifying. An 18-year-old girl at her high school
    prom delivers her baby in a bathroom stall, then
    leaves the dead child in a trash can and returns to
    dancing. We shudder at the breathtaking callousness
    and disregard for human life; yet for some
    scientists, such behavior is only natural.

    They believe that humans are robots, programmed by
    our genes, to dump newborns into garbage cans if our
    gene-controlled brains determine that such cold-
    hearted actions are in our Darwinian best interest.

    Well, in his new book, THE WEDGE OF TRUTH: Splitting
    the Foundations of Naturalism, author Phillip Johnson
    challenges the naturalistic view of human nature. Our
    true nature, he says, which finds such acts morally
    wrong, is profoundly different.

    Johnson starts with this provocative question: Why
    exactly is it wrong to kill babies? In the case of
    the 18-year-old who abandoned her newborn in a
    bathroom, the MIT evolutionary psychologist and
    science popularizer Steven Pinker wrote in the NEW
    YORK TIMES that the young woman was acting on a
    "genetic imperative." That means, basically, that
    impersonal forces of natural selection had molded her
    behavior, through her genes, to jettison any drag on
    her future "reproductive success."

    Pinker wrote, "If a newborn is sickly, or if its
    survival is not promising," a mother may cut her
    "losses, and favor the healthiest in the litter or
    try again later on."

    Yet this explanation, even if true (and there are
    many reasons to doubt it) simply doesn't answer
    Johnson's first question. Pinker's answer doesn't
    explain why we find the actions of the 18-year-old
    mother morally reprehensible. If there really is no
    difference between human beings and other animals,
    then we would no more condemn the young woman's
    abandoning her newborn than we would condemn her for
    clipping her fingernails or plucking her eyebrows.

    But that isn't the case. We do condemn such behavior.
    The tragic young woman in question was convicted of
    homicide and sent to prison. Why? Because human
    beings recognize the reality of a moral realm which
    is not derived from nature. As Phillip Johnson
    argues, evolutionary psychologists like Pinker can
    explain that moral realm only by suspending their
    naturalistic rule of reasoning.

    Pinker himself admits that infanticide is wrong, yet
    he is more or less helpless to explain WHY he thinks
    it's wrong. Instead, he flatly proclaims. "Science
    and morality are separate spheres of reasoning."

    But not so fast, objects Johnson. If we genuinely
    know that some actions, such as infanticide, are
    wrong, then that knowledge must have an ultimate
    source or cause. Our moral knowledge, therefore, must
    in some sense be "immaterial" or "supernatural,"
    stemming from an ultimate source other than nature.

    For Johnson, as for the great ethical philosophers
    throughout the centuries, that ultimate source is
    God. In THE WEDGE OF TRUTH, Johnson the feisty law
    professor makes a compelling case that our moral
    nature is not Darwinian but theistic. And it's a case
    that you and I can and must make to our neighbors.

    =====================
    You can order your own copy of Philip Johnson's
    The Wedge of Truth from BreakPoint Online
    at <http://www.breakpoint.org>.
    =====================

    Copyright (c) 2000 Prison Fellowship Ministries

    [...]
    ===================END FORWARDED MESSAGE===================

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    "It is now approximately half a century since the neo-Darwinian synthesis
    was formulated A great deal of research has been carried on within the
    paradigm it defines. Yet the successes of the theory are limited to the
    interpretation of the minutiae of evolution, such as the adaptive change in
    coloration of moths; while it has remarkably little to say on the questions
    which interest us most, such as how there came to be moths in the first
    place." (Ho M.W. & Saunders P.T., "Beyond neo-Darwinism - An Epigenetic
    Approach to Evolution," Journal of Theoretical Biology, Vol. 78, pp.573-
    591, 1979, p.589.
    Stephen E. Jones | sejones@iinet.net.au | http://www.iinet.net.au/~sejones
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