I'll just say 1st that, even if the Word of God were opposed by every man on Earth & thru history, God would be right
Unbelievers are called "the world" because they will always be the majority
As Jesus said, "Broad is the road that leads to destruction & many walk down it: strait & narrow is the road to life & few find it"
Romans 1 emphasises how sin darkens the human heart & renders man's thinking futile
1 Corinthians 1 underlines that God has made human wisdom foolish, & chooses to use those the world consider fools to confound those whom the world rates so wise, & uses those the world despises to confound those it admires
Philippians 1 says we should have the same attitude as Christ, who "made Himself of no reputation"
Are we prepared to be "fools for Christ"?
Jesus even said, "I thank you, Father, that you have hidden these things from the wise & revealed them to babes"
God's Word is intended to communicate with all people, not just academics
The quote I print now was preceded by Romans 1:20 - "since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities - His eternal power & divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse"
Now read on, as they say...
With the publication of Darwin on Trial in 1991, Johnson conferred a Berkeley pedigree on such thinking by marshalling evidence against the sufficiency of evolution to account for the origin of species. Doubts About Darwin concentrates on Johnson's argument and traces its impact on a core group of followers in academia. Woodward counts himself among this group.
Although (like many books based on dissertations) it's laced with technical terms, Doubts About Darwin demonstrates that Johnson is a master rhetorician. As Johnson himself explains in the book's forward, "Rhetoric is the art of framing an argument so that it can be appreciated by an audience." He calls it "a noble art."
Woodward analyzes the rhetoric associated with the modern ID movement that began in 1985 with the publication of Evolution: A Theory in Crisis by Australian physician and biochemist Michael Denton; that spread throughout the U.S. evangelical community through Johnson's writings and speaking during the 1990s; that peaked in 1996 with the publication of mathematician David Berlinski's article "The Deniable Darwin" and biochemist Michael Behe's Darwin's Black Box; and continues with the subsequent publication of The Design Inference by William Dembski and Icons of Evolution by Jonathan Wells.
Woodward measures the rhetorical effectiveness of each of these major ID works. More than anyone else in the ID movement, Johnson highlighted the effect of scientific materialism (or methodological naturalism) in shaping the debate over origins. By their own definition of their field, modern scientists investigate only natural causes, not supernatural ones. In his various popular books and public statements, Johnson denounces such reasoning as circular.
"We define science as the pursuit of materialist alternatives. Now what kind of answers do we come up with?" he noted in a 1997 interview with Tim Stafford for CT. "By gosh, we come up with materialist answers." Darwinism may be the best naturalistic answer to biological origins, Johnson stresses, but it is still wrong.
As Woodward illustrates, the writings of other key ID proponents have broadened the critique of Darwinism.
Must go!
Ian
