Atheist philosopher follows the evidence where it leads … to God!

Why did the world’s most important atheist scholar, Antony Flew decide in his eighties that there is a God after all?

The New York Times was quick to suggest senility, but reading his book with Roy Varghese, I don’t think that will wash. Their slender hardcover, There IS a God (Harper One 2007) introduces us to a genteel world in which atheism did not mean “hassle Christians”, “ban Christmas,” “make religious education child abuse,” et cetera. In fact, Flew even reveals that he and his wife did not have sexual relations before their marriage out of moral conviction. I wonder how many avowed Christian couples can say that today?

Reading his book—which recants his earlier atheistic views—prompts me to ask, Why the recent popularity of anti-God books? And why now, after nearly six decades of celebrated atheism, does Flew dissent from these popular books? In answer to the first question, a literary agent in New York admitted to me recently that many current atheist books have been given a free ride in the system precisely because they promote a view of life that is fashionable among the Manhattan set – even if it is rejected everywhere else on the planet.

And the dissent? Well, Flew is a breath of fresh air by contrast. Trust me, he is nothing if not a methodical thinker. He is an example to us all in that regard. If I didn’t have any other reason for trusting his conclusions, his sheer sense of method would provide a reason to consider them carefully (within reason, as he would himself wish).

Here are two of Flew’s key points:

- We should follow the evidence where it leads. That was the point of C.S. Lewis’s Socratic Club at Oxford, in which Flew was active, and it will serve us well today. He waited till he felt he had enough evidence for God’s existence, and then acted on it, revising his previously held—and widely advertised—opinions.

- We should act on the evidence. In May 2004, he announced that he had accepted the existence of God, based on our DNA (the genetic code that specifies each person’s physical existence). He said, “It’s the enormous complexity of the number of elements and the enormous subtlety of the ways they work together. The meeting of these two parts at the right time by chance is simply minute. It is all a matter of the enormous complexity by which the results were achieved, which looked to me like the work of intelligence.” (P. 75)

Flew remains to this day a deist—a person who concedes the existence of God. I have heard many Christians disparage him on that account (= he hasn’t been saved). But I believe that, in doing so, my Christian brothers and sisters miss the central point. Flew is a deist on the evidence. He concedes Paul’s key point in Romans 1:20, that God may be known, at least in part, by his creation.

In other words, Flew is not trying to get away from God, so as to do whatever he pleases. He is trying to determine what the evidence suggests. In an age when this or that atheist author is trotted out, destined for stardom—even though he has contributed absolutely nothing to the advance of thought on religion or spirituality and is merely rehashing his own angst—it is refreshing indeed to hear from someone who has been keeping up with the evidence from the world around and within us.

Robb Mann, chair of physics at the University of Waterloo and member of the elite Perimeter Institute, told my adult night school class in the intelligent design controversy at the University of Toronto a few weeks ago that the evidence for the fine tuning of the universe has become more and more clear in recent years, including the last decade. I suppose that fact naturally causes a sort of existential panic in those who are committed to the idea that the universe is without purpose or meaning. Some are seeking legislation against discussing the idea of intelligent design in school settings. The Council of Europe considers it a threat to human rights. But their panic isn’t my panic or yours. Or Antony Flew’s, either, it turns out. I guess we choose our panics.

Also: The “Copernican” myth, and other science myths – the undead still walk!

The myth that Copernicus’s model of the universe “dethroned” humans is a vampire that refuses to die. In Physics Today, Mano Singham tries yet again! to drive a nail through the monster’s heart. Singham writes (December 2007, page 48) about the promoters of the myth …

This bilge grows up like weeds in the interlocking bricks. Are YOUR kids learning the bilge in school – at your tax expense?

In case you are wondering: Who am I? Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O’Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada’s Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the just published The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist’s case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).