Objections Sustained: Subversive Essays on Evolution, Law & Culture

by Phillip E. Johnson

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.

Genres: Science, Philosophy, Evolution, Christian

188 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Johnson is an American born-again Christian lawyer and creationist.

Reviews

[Sheryl]

A collection of Johnson's book reviews, most of them on either evolution or the law (or both), with a couple strays. Not Johnson's best book, but entertaining.

[Rod Innis]

A good book in intelligent design

[Mallory]

These short essays run the gamut of topics, from Darwin, evolution and higher education to the law, materialism and the current state of science. Most are written as book reviews or in response to something like an article. Overall, they are accessible and easy to understand, though some were more interesting to me than others. Johnson doesn’t pull any punches and manages to make the intellectual entertaining.

Favorite quotes: “Being able to assign an irrational cause for the other person’s beliefs is a powerful weapon in a cultural conflict.”

“The concept that the universe is the product of a rational mind provides a far better metaphysical basis for scientific rationality than the competing concept that everything in the universe (including our minds) is ultimately based in the mindless movements of matter. Perhaps materialism was a liberating philosophy when the need was to escape from dogmas of religion, but today materialism itself is the dogma from which the mind needs to escape.”

“The Pledge of Allegiance that we all recite tells us that this is one nation under God. If that language rings hollow today, it is not primarily the fault of the agnostics but of the people who know God but have preferred to fight over what divides them rather than to unite over what they have in common.”

[Kevin Morse]

Very engaging! Read it on a Sunday afternoon and enjoyed pretty much all of it. A few of the essays get a bit repetitive, but on the whole it was insightful and engaging. Oh, and I'm pretty sure he was right too!