The Right Questions - An Interview with Phillip E. Johnson

Phillip Johnson helped shape the Intelligent Design movement by teaching people how to ask the right questions. Similarly, true academic freedom is not about having all the answers. It's about teaching people how to ask all the right questions. In his book The Right Questions: Truth, Meaning & Public Debate (InterVarsity Press, 2002), Professor Johnson teaches us how to put a variety of contemporary topics on the witness stand-such as education, science, logic, tolerance, gender and liberty-and unwrap the confusion by asking the right questions. For example, Johnson informs us to inquire:
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?
How can democratic liberalism remain viable when severed from its Christian roots?
By bringing such challenges to the academic forum, Phillip Johnson shows himself to be a great strategist: for he deftly demonstrates how the reigning naturalistic philosophy not only squelches public debate but also constrains us to ask the wrong questions. Unless we begin with the right questions, our discussion will be framed by the assumptions of that very philosophy which must be challenged, Johnson argues.