STOP PRESSES! Flew Still An Atheist?

Whoa!

CHECK THIS OUT!

According to Rationalist International, Antony Flew has issued a statement affirming atheism and appearing to suggest that, although he notes the advance of science-oriented arguments for the existence of God, he has not been convinced by them.

Something is rotten in Denmark (and, well, most of the rest of Europe, anyway).

Given the claims made in the ABC news story (which quoted a telephone interview with Flew) and the interview with Flew that Philosophia Chrisi is publishing (which quotes Flew responding to questions about his "theism" and describing his own views as "deistic"), I see four possibilities:

  1. The Rationalist International folks are to blame: They’ve hoaxed  in some degree.
  2. ABC News and Philosophia Christi are to blame: ABC News turning out to be incompetent (not at all implausible) and Gary Habermas and/or the Philosophia Christi folks turning out to have hoaxed in some degree (not at all likely) or otherwise botched the interview.
  3. Flew is to blame: He has himself staged a hoax (not likely) or has flipped back to atheism and doesn’t want to admit he previously accepted belief in God.
  4. No one is to blame: This is some colossally-implausible Rashomon-like misunderstanding.

Time will tell what is the case.

UPDATE!: It appears that option #1 may well be the case. Despite the fact that the R.I. bulletin is headlined in a way that conveys the impression the statement it reports was generated recently (it is headlined Bulletin #137 [12 December 2004]), a careful reading of the text accompanying Flew’s statement indicating that it is an old statement, not one issued in response to the present reports. Rationalist International seems to have republished the statement in an attempt to create confusion regarding Flew’s present position.

Be warned, as you may well encounter people passing off the Rationalist International statement as a recent one.

The bulletin also reports a quote dated October 2004 from Flew in which he appears to refuse to affirm the proposition "Probably God exists." There are two problems with this, however: (1) The quotation only includes Flew’s response to a proposition put to him and does not include the proposition itself; we have to rely on R.I. for that. (2) Many philosophers for technical reasons might assert the impossibility of assessing the "probablity" (construed in a mathematical sense) of God’s existence but still feel justified in believing in him for other reasons. Flew may fall into that category.

What is ultimately needed to settle the matter is a new statement from Flew, but it appears at this point that Rationalist International has acted in bad faith by republishing previous statements instead of contacting Flew directly and obtaining a new one.

Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."

4 thoughts on “STOP PRESSES! Flew Still An Atheist?”

  1. What’s really going on is that he’s refusing to use the word “theist”– so he’s a non-theist (or a ‘negative’ as opposed to ‘positive’ atheist) because he does not believe in the God of the theistic religions.

    He does, however, have a reasonable degree of belief in a Spinozistic or Aristotelian deity.

  4. A fool says in his heart there is no God, declared in Bible. Atheism is a nonsense told by fools and for fools.

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