A philosophical foundation for psychology.

Johnson, Phillip E. (2000).

The wedge of truth: Splitting the foundations of naturalism. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press. Hardcover. 220 pp. $17.99. ISBN 0-8308-2267-4.

Phillip E. Johnson graduated from Harvard University and the University of Chicago Law School. He was a law clerk for Chief Justice Earl Warren of the United States Supreme Court and has taught law for more than 30 years at the University of California, Berkeley His previous books include Darwin on Trial, Reason in the Balance, Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds, and Objections Sustained.

Johnson's The Wedge of Truth addresses the issue of epistemology in current American academia. This topic is of crucial importance to the discipline of psychology because it determines the nature of what it is to be a science. It is also of crucial importance to American society in general because those who decide what knowledge is can therefore control what is valued in government and in education.

Johnson demonstrates that philosophical naturalism (also called materialism) is the dominant epistemological view of academia and that this philosophy is often embodied in the theory of evolution. Naturalistic philosophy says that reality is composed of nothing beyond physical matter, chance, and the laws of nature; hence, everything from the origin of the world to present-day phenomena must be explainable under these terms.

Both philosophical naturalism and evolutionary theory are often confused with academic science in general, but Johnson makes a distinction between naturalism and academic science. Naturalism is an a priori commitment to a view that has the power to determine conclusions and values, and academic science is supposed to be an unbiased tool for finding morally neutral facts. However, if naturalism is accepted as the dominant philosophy of knowledge, science becomes the supreme discipline since it deals with what is directly observable and, therefore, real.

The effect of this philosophy for theology and the humanities is devastating since their categories of knowledge are either empty or filled with irrelevant make-believe, which can only be useful as a tool for controlling people. Psychology also suffers drastic consequences from the implications of naturalism because humans are seen as nothing more than their physical parts and brain chemistry. Therefore, psychology is reduced to a study of the observable facts about people, which means that concepts such as love, personality, and rational choice are not officially real, but are just another tool in man's struggle for survival and domination.

After laying out the current academic situation, Johnson identifies several serious weaknesses within both materialism and the theory of evolution. From a scientific point of view, materialism cannot account for the creative origin of information. Johnson explains how the existence of complex, aperiodic, and specified genetic information in all life processes presents an insurmountable problem for a naturalistic theory of evolution. Furthermore, all observable evidence indicates that only a pre-existing intelligence can create this kind of information. The effects of natural law and chance are observed to either disorganize information or reproduce it, at best, but never to generate new information.

There is also the problem of human consciousness. Materialism cannot account for this phenomenon; therefore, some of materialism's adherents logically conclude that human consciousness does not exist. The difficulty with this conclusion is that if rational thought is illusory, so is all theorizing, with the result that philosophical naturalism proves itself untrue and irrelevant.

Beyond the logical problems, if human consciousness does not exist, then neither does the human self or individual person. Once personhood is erased, there is no ethical impediment to any imaginable moral atrocity. All that matters is the survival of the fittest. This is evident in evolutionary psychology's explanation of mothering behaviors. If a mother protects her infant, she is displaying the maternal instinct produced by natural selection and her firing neurons. However, if she kills her child, she is displaying the neonaticidal instinct, which is also produced by natural selection and her firing neurons. In the end there is no distinction between the two behaviors because both are ultimately unpredictable and meaningless.

In addition to critiquing naturalism and evolution, Johnson brings forth evidence that these ideas are being defended from fair examination and criticism by the use of authoritarian, unscientific, and unscholarly methods in both academic and political arenas. He goes on to propose an alternative to these academic commitments (once their shortcomings are acknowledged), which is the "Wedge" in the book's title. According to Johnson, the Wedge is an informal movement of scholars who are willing to consider the possibility that the materialist premise is not true.

From this starting point Johnson introduces intelligent design theory, the proponents of which suggest that a creative intelligence, rather than matter, law, and chance, that brought the world into its present state. These theorists seek to use reason and scientific evidence to confirm the plausibility of the existence of this intelligence. For the remainder of academia, the implications of this theory's basic conception of reality make room for true, independent, and relevant contributions not only from science, but from theology, psychology, and the arts and humanities as well.

Theology's task, for example, is to establish the identity of this fundamental intelligence within the universe. The Christian Bible states that, "In the beginning was the Word" and identifies "the Word" as God and as a person. Understanding the creative God as a person who is prior to matter consequently gives the discoveries of psychology a special relevance and allows the study of a broader range of subject material than does the reductionist philosophy of materialism.

The reigning dogma of naturalistic philosophy not only contains flaws that undermine its own plausibility, but when accepted as a foundation of knowledge, severely limits the usefulness and inherent value of many other disciplines beyond science, including psychology and theology. Psychologists and theologians alike would do well to read Phil Johnson's The Wedge of Truth as they seek a clear defense for both their professions and the unhindered pursuit of truth.

BOOK REVIEWER FOR THIS ISSUE

AMY R. SMITH, B.A., is a 2001 summa cum laude graduate of Biola University with a degree in psychology. She is a member of Psi Chi and a graduate of the Torrey Honors Institute, a classical education program.