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Theistic realism is the idea that true knowledge must begin with the acknowledgment of God as creator, because the unifying characteristic of the universe is that it was created by God. More broadly, it is the idea that God is real and personal, and that a proper theism requires an understanding of God as acting in the world, particularly through Creation.
Theistic realism stands in opposition to philosophical naturalism. While philosophical naturalism holds that natural phenomena are best understood with reference only to themselves and hypotheses about creators are unnecessary and unparsimonious, theistic realism holds that natural phenomena are best understood with reference to the Creator, and that because they were created, any attempt to understand them without acknowledging the creator is doomed to fail.
By analogy, when studying a vehicle engine which was designed and constructed, one must understand it as deliberately designed for a purpose if one wishes to truly understand how and why it functions.
Although the idea has been held in one form or another by many scientists and theologians throughout time, the term was coined by Phillip E. Johnson in his book, Reason in the Balance.
Scriptural Basis
Johnson grounds his argument for theistic realism in several verses in the New Testament of the Bible. Particularly:
- "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things ame into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being." John 1:1-3
- "Ever since the creation of the world [God's] eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made. So they are without excuse; for though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools; and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling the mortal human being or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles." Romans 1:20-23.
- "The fear of God is the beginning of Wisdom." Proverbs 1:7
Theistic realism and philosophical naturalism
Johnson argues that in the theistic worldview, true knowledge begins with acknowledging that we and the universe are created, and then progresses by exploring the nature of that creation, and through it, seek to understand God. By contrast, philosophical naturalism involves the rejection of that creator, therefore seeks to understand creation without reference to the creator, and therefore leads to inevitable failure.
Johnson argues that philosophical naturalism and theistic realism are diametrically opposed, because:
- "Naturalistic evolutionary theory, as part of the grand metaphysical story of science, says that creation was by impersonal and unintelligent forces. The opposition between the biblical and naturalistic stories is fundamental, and neither side can compromise over it. To compromise is to surrender."
He clarifies further that:
- "Naturalistic science tells us something completely different from what Romans 1 tells us, something that contradicts not just the Genesis account but the fundamental principle of creation that is the common ground of all creationists -- Christian, Jewish, and Islamic. It tells us not that we collapse into intellectual futility and confusion when we discard the Creator as a remnant of prescientific superstitution, but that it is precisely by the 'death of God' that humankind comes of age and becomes ready to receive the truth that Darwinism is all too ready to provide."
He concludes:
- "Because in our universe experience unintelligent material processes do not create life, Christian theists know that Romans 1:20 is also true: 'Ever since the creation of the world God's eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made.' In other words, there is absolutely no mystery about why living organisms appear to be the products of intelligent creation, and why scientific naturalists have tow ork so hard to keep themselves from perceiving the obvious. The reason living things give that appearance is that they actually are what they appear to be, and this fact is evident to all who do not cloud their minds with naturalistic philosophy or some comparable drug."
Theistic realism and theistic naturalism
Johnson asserts that theistic naturalism is an effort by theists to accomodate to academia by "accepting not just the particular conclusions that scientists have reached by also the naturalistic methodology that generated those conclusions." In essence, theistic naturalists do science as though God didn't exist, but then hold "by faith" that he does. This reasoning draws a strict dichtomony between "faith" and "science" and allows for no overlap. Naturally, such a faith is irrelevent to science, and falls to Occam's razor. On the contrary, Johnson argues, Theism can only be rational when we allow for the possibility the God Does things.
Johnson argues that theories of biology grounded in theistic realism present a challenge to philosophical and theistic naturalism:
- "I do not urge scientists to give up on any theory or research agenda until they themselves are convinced that further efforts would be fruitless. In view of the cultural importance of the naturalistic worldview, however, and its status as virutally the official philosophy of government and education, there is a need for informed outsiders to point out that claims are often made in the name of science that go far beyond the available evidence. The public needs to learn to discount those claims, and the scientists themselves need to learn how profoundly their interpretations of the evidence are influenced by their metaphysical preconceptions. IF the resulting embarrassment spurs scientists on to greater achievements, leading to a smashing vindication of their basic viewpoint, then so be it."
Antecedent ideas related to theistic realism
Although not using the term "Theistic realism," many others have held to the same basic tenets.
- "The fool says in his heart, 'There is no God.'" -- Psalm 14:1.
In the Timaeus, Plato wrote the following question and answer sometime around 350 BC.
[1] (http://ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext98/tmeus11.txt)
- Is the world created or uncreated? -- that is the first question.
- Created, I reply, being visible and tangible and having a body, and therefore sensible; and if sensible, then created; and if created, made by a cause, and the cause is the ineffable father of all things, who had before him an eternal archetype.
Thomism, the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, holds that "Everything that is moving is moved by another." It was therefore unthinkable to a Thomist that something should come out of nothing -- like an ever-increasing supply of water coming from an empty jug. Within Thomistic philosophy, given the existence of something, and the premise that everything that is must be caused by something else, the existence of the universe is proof of the existence of a Creator God, the "unmoved mover," more real than the universe itself, and therefore the sole agent able to set it in motion. To a Thomist, the exploration of the cosmos leads irresistably back to the Creator, more solid and real than the vaporous universe itself.
G.K. Chesterton wrote:
- "What actually is the chief mark and element of insanity? ...It is reason used without root, reason in the void. The man who begins to think without the proper first principles goes mad; he begins to think at the wrong end ... If this be what drives men mad, what is it that keeps them sane? ... It is possible in the ... solely practical manner to give a general answer touching what in actual human history keeps men sane.
- Mysticism keeps men sane. As long as you have mystery you have health; when you destroy mystery, you create morbidity.
- The ordinary man has always been sane because the ordinary man has always been a Mystic. He has permitted the twilight. He has always had one foot in Earth and the other in Fairyland. He has always left himself free to doubt his gods; but (unlike the Agnostic of today) free also to believe in them. He has always cared more for truth than for consistency. If he saw two truths that seemed to contradict each other, he would take the two truths and the contradiction along with them ...
- The whole secret of Mysticism is this, that man can understand everything by the held of what he does not understand. The morbid Logician seeks to make everything lucid, and succeeds in making everything mysterious. The mystic allows one thing to be mysterious, and everything else becomes lucid."
More recently, David Bergman, creationist physicist, wrote, "The underlying worldview assumptions of creationism are centered on reality, causality, and unity -- logical assumptions that came to be imbedded in science and the scientific method. Creationism has been opposed by atomism since Epicurus (342-270 B.C.) asserted that random events occur in matter. The early atomists developed a theory of matter to support a pantheistic worldview; in modern science, atomistic principles are implemented into current theories of matter, forces, and cosmology ... each of the two ancient theories that explain life have underlying worldview assumptions and prominent spokesmen. Moses wrote the earliest extant defense of creationism, while many ancient and modern writers have developed and expanding his theme. The foundations of atomism were described by the Roman poet Lucretius (circa 96-55 B.B.) whose poem On the Nature of Things made him the principal spokesman for atomism (and evolution) during the last two millennia. More recently, Charles Darwin described evolution theory -- a logical outcome of atomism, its assumptions, and objectives." See CommonSenseScience.org's pdf file on this subject. (http://www.commonsensescience.org/pdf/conflict.pdf)
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