Prof. Antony Flew
Posted on 12/13/2004 2:08:55 PM PST by snarks_when_bored
In a sensationalist campaign in the internet, it is alleged that Professor Antony Flew, British philosopher, reputed rationalist, atheist and Honorary Associate of Rationalist International, has left atheism and decided that a god might exist.
The controversy revolves around some remarks of Prof. Antony Flew that seems to allow different interpretations. Has Antony Flew ever asserted that "probably God exists"? Richard Carrier, editor in chief of the Secular Web quotes Antony Flew from a letter addressed to him in his own hand (dated 19 October 2004): "I do not think I will ever make that assertion, precisely because any assertion which I am prepared to make about God would not be about a God in that sense ... I think we need here a fundamental distinction between the God of Aristotle or Spinoza and the Gods of the Christian and the Islamic Revelations."
This is not the first time that Professor Antony Flew's atheist position is attacked. In reaction to an internet campaign in 2001 that tried to brand him a "convert" to religious belief, Professor Antony Flew made the following statement. In 2003 he answered yet another campaign in this direction with the same statement. It is still now his latest official position in this regard.
Richard C. Carrier, current Editor in Chief of the Secular Web, tells me that "the internet has now become awash with rumors" that I "have converted to Christianity, or am at least no longer an atheist." Perhaps because I was born too soon to be involved in the internet world I had heard nothing of this rumour. So Mr. Carrier asks me to explain myself in cyberspace. This, with the help of the Internet Infidels, I now attempt.
Those rumours speak false. I remain still what I have been now for over fifty years, a negative atheist. By this I mean that I construe the initial letter in the word 'atheist' in the way in which everyone construes the same initial letter in such words as 'atypical' and 'amoral'. For I still believe that it is impossible either to verify or to falsify - to show to be false - what David Hume in his Dialogues concerning Natural Religion happily described as "the religious hypothesis." The more I contemplate the eschatological teachings of Christianity and Islam the more I wish I could demonstrate their falsity.
I first argued the impossibility in 'Theology and Falsification', a short paper originally published in 1950 and since reprinted over forty times in different places, including translations into German, Italian, Spanish, Danish, Welsh, Finnish and Slovak. The most recent reprint was as part of 'A Golden Jubilee Celebration' in the October/November 2001 issue of the semi-popular British journal Philosophy Now, which the editors of that periodical have graciously allowed the Internet Infidels to publish online: see "Theology & Falsification."
I can suggest only one possible source of the rumours. Several weeks ago I submitted to the Editor of Philo (The Journal of the Society of Humanist Philosophers) a short paper making two points which might well disturb atheists of the more positive kind. The point more relevant here was that it can be entirely rational for believers and negative atheists to respond in quite different ways to the same scientific developments.
We negative atheists are bound to see the Big Bang cosmology as requiring a physical explanation; and that one which, in the nature of the case, may nevertheless be forever inaccessible to human beings. But believers may, equally reasonably, welcome the Big Bang cosmology as tending to confirm their prior belief that "in the beginning" the Universe was created by God.
Again, negative atheists meeting the argument that the fundamental constants of physics would seem to have been 'fine tuned' to make the emergence of mankind possible will first object to the application of either the frequency or the propensity theory of probability 'outside' the Universe, and then go on to ask why omnipotence should have been satisfied to produce a Universe in which the origin and rise of the human race was merely possible rather than absolutely inevitable. But believers are equally bound and, on their opposite assumptions, equally justified in seeing the Fine Tuning Argument as providing impressive confirmation of a fundamental belief shared by all the three great systems of revealed theistic religion - Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. For all three are agreed that we human beings are members of a special kind of creatures, made in the image of God and for a purpose intended by God.
In short, I recognize that developments in physics coming on the last twenty or thirty years can reasonably be seen as in some degree confirmatory of a previously faith-based belief in god, even though they still provide no sufficient reason for unbelievers to change their minds. They certainly have not persuaded me.
" where does the world come from if God was not its author? "
If God was the author, then who wrote God?
:^)
Anyone who missed him.
Yesterday's Rationalist International posting of Flew's response refers to Flew's letter of October 19, 2004 (about two months ago). I'll have to check again, but I think that the recent stories about Flew's rejection of atheism are based on that letter. I'll check after I post this.
The existence of a world that has no internal principle or constituent power that explains its own existence is problematic.
LOL, newspeak from the Godless.
I agree with you on that...dumb.
There is no such person.
Wrong, an agnostic thinks the whole question of whether Good is unknowable under any circumstances. A negative atheist merely has a "lack of belief." He would potentially believe if proof could be provided.
The article I linked to was from Sunday, and said he had said these things "yesterday" (Saturday).
Ya nailed it, Lauralee.
Aristotle recognized the eternity of the world as a question unresolvable by scientific observation, not as a satisfying answer to the question of the world's existence.
Aristotle's physics is impressively developed (and it became the basis of the Catholic view of the world as enshrined in the teachings of Aquinas), but it's wrong. Even so, Aristotle resorted to metaphysics to explain the ground of the physical world. His deity was 'thought thinking about itself', and it was responsible for the great circular motions of the heavens. This 'thought thinking about itself' was, of course, eternal, without beginning or end.
The existence of a world that has no internal principle or constituent power that explains its own existence is problematic.
That certainly appears to be the case.
Well, that definitely accrues to your favor. I was expecting an argument. :-}
Perhaps I'm mistaken on this, but I don't think so at the moment.
Nah...I'm for speaking plainly. Calling things what they're usually called is okay by me (as long as there's no dangerous unclarity involved).
This article appears to a 2003 statement by Flew republished by Rationalist International.
I take that last sentence to mean that Flew was consulted before the piece was re-published Sunday. I don't know this for a fact, of course, but that's the way the web-posting presents itself.
And as Dr. Schuller says: "You know the agnostic is wrong, because either there is or there is not a God."
Otherwise, I'm going to be inclined to believe he's really no longer an atheist.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.