In an essay written in 1996, Johnson wrote of the intelligent design movement that "My colleagues and I speak of 'theistic realism' — or sometimes, 'mere creation' — as the defining concept of our movement. This means that we affirm that God is objectively real as Creator, and that the reality of God is tangibly recorded in evidence accessible to science, particularly in biology." Johnson presents theistic realism as a philosophical justification for intelligent design in his book, "Reason in the Balance". According to Johnson, true knowledge begins with the acknowledgment of God as creator of the universe, the unifying characteristic of which is that it was created by God. Theistic realism relies on a concept of God which involves the notions that He is real, personal, and acting in the world through mechanistic creationism.