A Bad Premise

While doing research for my post, "The New Theism: A Short History," I became familiar with the important contributions of Philip E. Johnson to the Intellectual Design movement. In fact, many people consider Johnson to be the "father" of the movement. Considering his important work, I'm genuinely embarrassed by how little I new about him!

In any case, while reading his Wikipedia biography, I discovered that Johnson had created a philosophical alternative to atheist materialism called "theistic realism." Since this sounded so similar to my own perspective ("Spiritual Rationalism"), I eagerly clicked on the link to the Wikipedia article on "theistic realism."

Unfortunately, in the first paragraph, the piece states...

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."

And then later...

Johnson bases his argument for theistic realism on several verses in both the Old Testament and New Testament Bible, particularly Proverbs 1:7, John 1:1-3, and Romans 1:20-23.

Needless to say, my own philosophy does NOT begin with the "acknowledgement of God," nor would I use the Bible at any point for evidence of God's existence. "Spiritual rationalism" begins the premise that 1) Reality is Real and that 2) Reason is the means to discover Reality. God's existence - or NON-existence - must conform with those facts.

Thankfully, it does. As I've said before, "it is 'rational' to believe in God, and a personal God who has a loving interest in our lives." But our intellectual and spiritual journey can not BEGIN with that assumption. It must be a product of it.

While I'm almost certain that Dr. Johnson and I share many opinions on faith and philsophy, ultimately his idea of "theistic realism" is distinct from my "spiritual rationalism." And needless to say, I like my interpretation better.

-Todd