Books
 The Right Questions: Truth, Meaning and Public Debate (IVP 2002)
This is Phil's most recent and most personal book. Besides dealing with the effects of a right-brain stroke and the events of September 11, 2001 he attempts to codify his own method of
seeing what's at the core of any important issue. A correct understanding of these issues, he argues, can only be arrived at by starting with the Right Question. A sampling of these:
- Why is it always wrong to mix science and religion?
- What is the ultimate premise, the beginning point, from which logic should proceed?
- How can a college education prepare students to understand the ultimate purpose or meaning for which life should be lived and to choose rightly from among the available possibilities?
- What is the appropriate understanding of religion in a pluralistic nation where substantial numbers of Christians, agnostics, Jews and Muslims all need to live together in peace?
- How can democratic liberalism remain viable when severed from its Christian roots?
- What is the most important event in human history?
 The Wedge of Truth: Splitting the Foundations of Naturalism (IVP 2000)
(from the IVP website):
Science is the supreme authority in our culture.
If there is a dispute, science arbitrates it. If a law is to be passed, science must ratify it. If truth is to be taught, science must approve it.
And when science is ignored, stroms of protest are heard in the media, in the university--even in local coffee shops.
Yet a society ruled by science (and the naturalistic philosophy that undergirds much of it) faces major problems. Science speaks so authoritatively
in our culture that many are tempted to use its clout to back claims that go beyond the available evidence. How can we spot when such ideological slight of hand has taken place?
More important, while we may learn a great deal from science, it does not offer us unlimited knowledge. In fact, most scientists readily acknowledge
that science cannot provide answers to questions of ultimate purpose or meaning. So to what authority will we turn for these?
The deficiencies in science and the philosophy (naturalism) that undergirds it call for a cognitive revolution--a fundamental change in our thinking
habits. And it all begins with a wedge of truth.
This wedge of truth does not "wedge out" a necessary foundation of rational thought. But it does "wedge in" the much-needed acknowledgment that reason
encompasses more than mere scientific investigation. Phillip E. Johnson argues compellingly for an understanding of reason that
brings scientific certainty back into relational balance with philosophical inquiry and religious faith.
Applying his wedge of truth, Johnson analyzes the latest debates between science and religion played out in our media, our universities and society-at-large.
He looks to thinkers such as Newbigin, Polanyi and Pascal to lay a foundation for our seeing the universe in a totally different way.
And from that base he then considers the educational programs and research agendas that should be undertaken--and have already begun in some earnest--during this new century.
In the end, Johnson prophetically concludes that the walls of naturalism will fall and that the Christian gospel must play a vital role in building a new
foundation for thinking--not just about science and religion but about everyhting that gives human life hope and meaning.
 Objections Sustained (IVP 1998)
(from the IVP website):
Phillip E. Johnson has been called "our age's clearest thinker on evolution" and the "principal lay critic of Darwinism." Indeed, some of his most persuasive writing has been penned in opposition to the sacred cow of modern secularism. Here, for the first time, are collected several of Johnson's pithiest essays attacking the idolatry of Darwin.
Here also, however, are his stimulating thoughts on a wide variety of other topics, including "pop" science, religious freedom, American pragmatism, Paul Feyerabend, Winston Churchill, postmodernism and natural law.
If you have read and appreciated Johnson's previous books, you'll enjoy this gathering of his finest work written for magazines and journals. Even if you haven't read Johnson before, though, Objections Sustained will be an excellent introduction to a thinker who has become one of the foremost cultural critics of our day.
 Defeating Darwinism By Opening Minds (IVP 1997)
(from the IVP website):
For decades, Christians have felt voiceless in the critical debate over evolution. Until now. Finally, ordinary Christians have the opportunity and the resources to defeat the false claims of Darwinism.
With all of the complicated scientific debate swirling around the topic of evolution, Christians need an easy way to understand the basic issues without oversimplifying. Phillip Johnson has the answer: the key to defeating the false claims of Darwinism is to open our minds to good thinking habits. Here is first-rate advice on avoiding common mistakes in discussions about evolution, understanding the legacy of the Scopes trial, spotting deceptive arguments, and grasping the basic scientific issues without getting bogged down in unnecessary details.
In the bestselling and critically acclaimed Darwin on Trial and Reason in the Balance, Phillip Johnson took on the academic elites and exposed the misleading claims of evolutionary naturalism. Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds provides a new and powerful treatment of these issues for high-school students, parents, teachers, pastors, youth advisors and ordinary readers. Johnson aims not just to defeat a bad theory, but to defeat it in the right way-by opening minds to the truth.
 Reason in the Balance: The Case Against Naturalism in Science, Law & Education (IVP 1995)
(from the IVP website):
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.
 Darwin on Trial
(from the IVP website):
Here's the book that has rocked the scientific--and Christian--establishment.
Phillip Johnson's critique of Darwinian evolution touched off explosions among scientists and theologians almost from the day of its publication in 1992.
The volatile debate was at first carried on in academic journals and in magazines like Nature and Scientific American. It even engaged the attention of
leading evolutionists like Nobel Laureate physicist Steven Weinberg and prominent naturalist Stephen Jay Gould. Johnson was invited to debate several of
his opponents at universities across the country. And he was himself the subject of debate: Michael Ruse, author of Darwinism Defended, spoke at an annual
meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science on the topic "Nonliteralist Anti-Evolutionism: The Case of Phillip Johnson."
Darwin on Trial also shook up theistic evolutionists. William Hasker (Huntington College, Indiana) in the Christian Scholar's Review, Howard Van Till
(Calvin College, Michigan) in First Things and Owen Gingerich (Harvard Center for Astrophysics) in Perspectives on Science & the Christian Faith all
published their critiques of Darwin on Trial.
Clearly, Johnson's arguments have been taken seriously by Darwinists of every sort. And though at first the mainstream press seemed to be out of earshot
(except for reviews in Publisher's Weekly and The National Review), news of Darwin on Trial eventually reached wider audiences. Last summer, Johnson
appeared with William F. Buckley on Firing Line. And in May 1995 he was interviewed on the PBS telecast In the Beginning: The Creationist Controversy
with Randall Balmer. These and other indications of expanding interest in his critique is good news for all who wish to bring the debate over Darwinism
into the bright light of day.
Regnery Gateway, 1991. Revised edition (with response to critics), InterVarsity Press, 1993. Chinese and Spanish translations are also in print.
Criminal Law: Cases, Materials, and Text
West Pub. Co., Fifth edition 1995.
Criminal Procedure: Cases and Commentary
West Publishing Company, Second Edition 1994.
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