Antony Flew
Posted by Joshua Claybourn on 10 December 2004 | 29 responses
Thanks to this Associated Press article the internet is abuzz with talk about Antony Flew’s departure from atheism. Flew is one of the most renowned and influential atheists of the 20th century. The AP does a good job of summarizing Flew’s conversion, but I can’t resist noting that the blogosphere is way ahead of the mainstream media on this one. Joe Carter, for instance, has covered Flew’s “conversion” here and here a while ago, just to offer one example.
How sad that he has embraced Intelligent Design as an explanation for the origin of life. ID creationism is not science.
I attended a debate a little over a year ago at the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo campus that featured Flew in person going head-to-head with a christian biblical scholar. The debate was put on as part of a veritas forum that is annually sponsored on campuses around the country. I distinctly remember Flew being quite unconvincing in his delivery of the atheist argument back then, so I am quite unsurprised by this latest news of his turnaround.
Origin of life and development of the species are two different things, Chuck. It’s hardly “sad,” as you term it, to believe that some sort of higher being kicked things off, regardless of whether you think said being did all the work itself or left it to evolution to sort out the details.
No, ID is sad b/c it has at its core a fatal flaw: it presumes a sort of “God of the Gaps.” This is a dangerous idea, and one that has cost Christianity much in the past.
Limiting the actions of the deity, saying he was was invovled here and not there, in the design but not in the evolution, at the origin but not at the finish, none of these is “science” and none fits well into a viable overarching theology.
ID is neither a viable scientific theory for explaining the origin of life nor good theology. Its popularized forms are especially dangerous, and should be avoided at all costs.
I would disagree, Scott (though not about the popular forms, which anyway do not stop at the kind of deism Flew seems to have embraced). One can entertain a more scientific — i.e., making falsifiable predictions — version of deism. I don’t think, in Flew’s case, that it can count as a ‘God of the gaps’, because usually the idea there is that one starts with a belief in God, and one then retreats to the ‘gaps’ as that belief is perceived to be threatened by science. But Flew obviously is starting from the other end of the spectrum.
I am pretty sure that he must take it that one gets different predictions for a creatorless and a deistically created universe, and that the latter just seems to be better confirmed.
Well, I think most of the time when there is an oral debate between an atheist and a christian the christian will come out on top. Most atheists are just not as articulate and rhetorically gifted speakers as the christian. They have a lot less practice in these debates.
But I’d agree that ID is deeply unconvincing.
One reason for that, Steven, is that there is a whole field of Christian apologetics, whereas atheism is more catch-as-catch-can about its arguments. There are a great many Christian institutions that support people in their endeavors to argue on behalf of Christianity, and indeed a great many Christians feel at least some obligation to make such arguments. But there is just about no such thing as institutional atheism (the American Ethical Union and the Brights basically don’t count, since the cardinality of their set of members is a rough approximation of zero).
This is why, indeed, your average atheist gets bushwhacked when she finds herself involved in a serious debate with a Christian. The poor atheist has no idea just how robust the Christian’s arsenal is, and just how much training she may have had in using it.
I have to say, if I were creating a list of the 20th century’s most influential atheists, I strongly doubt Flew would be on the list. I don’t recall ever hearing of him.
Who would be number one? Especially considering that many ‘atheists,’ in the popular rejects-Abrahamic-tradition sense of the word, would call themselves agnostics. But I think we’d have to start with, oh, Bertrand Russell and then work our way past Dawkins, Feynman, Douglas Adams, Daniel Dennett, and so on before we got to Flew.
I have to politely semi-dissent from Paul’s last comment, in that Flew really is pretty well-known in the circles of people who do the whole arguments-for-and-against-theism thing — he’s a more important atheist thinker _qua_ atheist than the thinkers Paul lists (except maybe Russell), though those other thinkers are surely more important _qua_ thinkers. This is especially true if we separate the theism/atheism question from the ID/evolution one — Dennett and Dawkins are really much more concerned with that latter debate than the former.
After a Google, I retract my earlier statement. I do, however, want to point out that it’s very likely that Flew’s conversion has been overstated:
http://www.secweb.org/asset.asp?AssetID=369
“Flew hasn’t really decided what to believe. He affirms that he is not a Christian–he is still quite certain that the Gods of Christianity or Islam do not exist, that there is no revealed religion, and definitely no afterlife of any kind.”
I think that my ignorance of Flew is due more to the fact that the theological debates on this matter appear to be relatively sterile, although I reserve my right to retract this statement to. Like much contemporary theology (or, I suppose, atheology), there seems to be only a continuous restatement of older ideas in the contemporary vernacular, not a generation of new thought.
“Dennett and Dawkins are really much more concerned with that latter debate than the former.”
Dennett and Dawkins may be more concerned with ID v. evolution, but they are hardly silent on the issue of theism v. atheism. And it’s quite clear where they stand (again, if we use “atheism” to incorporate “agnosticism” in the common conflation of the terms.)
And while I’m bringing up points that haven’t been addressed, here’s this from an AP article:
“Flew said he’s best labeled a deist like Thomas Jefferson, whose God was not actively involved in people’s lives.
“I’m thinking of a God very different from the God of the Christian and far and away from the God of Islam, because both are depicted as omnipotent Oriental despots, cosmic Saddam Husseins,” he said. “It could be a person in the sense of a being that has intelligence and a purpose, I suppose.”
So, uh, I don’t think this means he’s going before a baptismal font anytime soon.
Dennett and Dawkins are perhaps famous as non-theists, Paul, but there’s next to nothing in their published work (that I’m aware of anyway) that really tries to make a case for atheism, or even make a sustained response for standard cases for theism — with the notable exception, of course, of the argument from design. And, again, that’s more because of their interests in biology than in theology. What they don’t do is precisely what Flew is famous for doing: arguing the atheist’s general case.
“Origin of life and development of the species are two different things, Chuck. It’s hardly “sad,” as you term it, to believe that some sort of higher being kicked things off, regardless of whether you think said being did all the work itself or left it to evolution to sort out the details.”
There are a number of errors with this line of reasoning. Mainly, you rely on the outdated concept of vitalism, the doctrine that biological systems are sui generis entities which are not bound by the physical laws that govern inanimate objects. You might allow that biochemistry is no different from other chemical phenomena after all, and even that Darwinian forces have transformed populations over geological timescales to result in the unity and diversity of life on Earth. But, Gosh-darn it, life itself is just to complicated to have gotten started on its own in the Universe. God must have started it if we don’t understand it, right? Well, in addition to Scott’s excellent reference to the insult of narrowing God’s domain to gaps in human knowledge, there are many other reasons to reject this concept. Actually, there is considerable agreement among scientists as to the broad principles involved in the origin of life. It really just requires rejecting the notion of vitalism and applying Darwinian principles to phenomena simpler than mycoplasma and other bacteria - such as self-replicated chemical systems growing on mineral deposits.
(continued)
In an interview with Biola University (via Arts & Letters Daily), Flew claims that Darwin’s arguments began with a being which already possessed reproductive powers. Flew goes on to imply that such a being could only have been God. That chemical systems selected in a Darwinian fashion on the early Earth could have constituted such entities is never mentioned by Flew, who is, after all, a philosopher and not a biologist or geologist. However, Darwin himself, in an 1871 letter to a colleague, opens the possibility that a chemical entity may have been the first replicator - but that such a replicator could not spontaneously come into being today without being immediately devoured by more complex biochemical entities (or by oxygen itself, which would not be present in the atmosphere had photosynthesis by cyanobacteria not put it there). In the 1920s, AI Oparin and JBS Haldane independently postulated that since the early Earth’s conditions might have favored chemical reactions that synthesized organic compounds from inorganic precursors. Such reactions cannot happen now because the Earth’s atmosphere is oxidative (and, indeed, when oxygen did begin to build up in the atmosphere the world’s first great mass extinction occured). The early Earth’s atmosphere, rather, was probably reducing (electron-adding) and would have facilitated the joining together of simple inorganic precursors into a number of different carbon skeletens. Energy from lightening, vulcanic heat, and the intense UV radiation of a young sun would have further facilitated this process. Laboratory simulations of such conditions, beginning with the famous Miller-Urey experiments, have produced all 20 amino acids, ATP, TTP, GTP, CTP, UTP, and simple sugars, among other biomolecules. Other simulations involving dilute solutions of organic monomers dripped onto hot sand, clay, or rock have produced produced organic polymers, including polypeptides and simple nucleic acid oligomers. Clay may have been important as a substratum for these polymerization reactions for its ability to concentrate molecules. Similar systems using pyrite as a substratum, with iron-sulfur moieties (important in many enzymes in the human body), may have provided a very good substrate for the development of self-replicating autocatalytic systems.
(continued)
Aggregates of such molecules called protobionts self-assemble when mixtures of macromolecules are shaken. Protobionts have been observed to absorb substrates from their surroundings. Aggregates containing autocatalytic material such as RNA best able to incorporate organic molecules from their surroundings would eventually reach a critical size and split. Other aggregates might have failed to grow and split, others might have fallen apart, but what if only one or two of them did? That, my friend, is called natural selection. If the early Earth was teeming with such molecules and systems (as seems likely), it would have only required a few to get the process of life moving. As such systems incorporated RNA, they would have the powerful advantage of being able to replicate their characteristics more precisely - a tremendous advantage in the early period of chemical evolution. Such systems would show the first signs of heredity through the use of genetic information. Once such systems became isolated by incorporating themselves into simple micelles and liposomes, the makings of your greatest grandfather were underway. The rest is history.
Debate on the origins of life are still intense, of course. In addition, no one has been able, in a lab, to start with abiotic materials and recreate the conditions culminating in a cell. I wouldn’t be surprised, however, if such a feat were accomplished in the next fifty years. I would love to do it myself. But the basic picture of development, including (1) chemical evolution, in which simple molecules occuring geologically reacted under reducing conditions to form complex organic polymers, (2) the self organization of complex mixtures of these polymers to form replicating systems, and (3) the culmination of this process to form the first cell is plausible and widely agreed upon.
All of that said, positive atheism is at least as irrational as revealed religion. In a prescientific culture, I would have found atheism extremely irrational compared with theism. Even now, the idea that all of reality and logical possibility sprang itself into existence seems like a bit of a leap of faith itself. Agnosticism is really the only purely rational conclusion. Perhaps even an extremely weak deism. But this provides insight to the question of the origin of existence itself, not the question of the origin of life - which very probably will be answered according to processes very well described by physics, geology, and chemistry.
1. What about “positive atheism” is irrational? And isn’t faith, i.e. theism, by definition irrational? This isn’t meant as a slam but simply an attempt to point out that having faith in something is, again by definition, an irrational act.
2. I am an atheist. Have been all my 40+ years. By that I mean that I do not believe in God in the same way that I do not believe that a 400 foot bunny rabbit lives underneath Baghdad. If someone finds that big bunny, I’ll accept it but in the meantime it’s simply irrational for me to have faith that it will be found.
I don’t see agnosticism as solving either of the problems it seems to want to.
greg
Positive atheism is irrational in that it makes an unfalsifiable statement. Proclaiming that there is no God without evidence is as irrational as proclaiming that there is a God without evidence. Read Popper. An extremely weak theism, as a purely intellectual speculation in the effort to understand why anything bothers to go about existing rather than not is no more irrational than imagining the existence of an infinite number of parallel universes that can never be observed. Such a speculation is inherently agnostic if the armchair metaphysician acknowledges that he cannot prove the existence of such an entity. Your faith that no God exists is pure faith. You cannot prove it, just as the Christian cannot prove the the existence of his God.
Therefore, the only purely rational course is agnosticism, which refuses to make unfalsifiable claims. I hope you don’t think I’m knocking your faith, or anyone else’s.
Proclaiming that there is no God without evidence is as irrational as proclaiming that there is a God without evidence.
“Proclaiming that, absent any empirical evidence to the contrary, that there is no 400 foot bunny rabbit that lives under Baghdad is as irrational as proclaiming that there is a 400 foot bunny without evidence.”
You see how that’s intractable, right?
Your faith that no God exists is pure faith
In other words, any act of skepticism is an act of faith. My belief that the moon isn’t filled with kittens is an act of pure faith on my behalf — a religious tenet I suppose. This strikes me as nihilism — that anything we believe, or (more importantly) do not believe, is simply an act of faith.
I am an atheist, by definition one without theism or faith. An agnostic is simply one without knowledge. If asked if there isn’t a 400-foot bunny under Baghdad or if the moon is filled with kittens I’ll not reply “I don’t know” but rather “I don’t believe so.”
greg
If you state, “There are no kittens on the Moon,” that statement is falsifiable. If you claim “There is no 400 foot bunny living underneath Baghdad,” that too is falsifiable. They are both testable statements because such creatures are real entities that leave some definite mark on the world. If you are having a conversation with someone on the possible reasons for all of existence, every possible hypothesis is metaphysical and therefore unfalsifiable. In a metaphysical discussion, in which by definition every statement is purely hypothetical, there are no falsfiable statements except for those which contradict the rules of logic. In such a discussion, a reasonable person can come to conclusions which they cannot prove. It is reasonable to conclude that there probably was no first cause, and it is also reasonable to conclude that there may have been a first cause. However, it is unreasonable to positively assert either statement as if you know for sure that your case is correct. The only ultimately reasonable conclusion is such a discussion is “I don’t know.”
A 400 foot bunny is a real creature? Did I mention that he’s made of sand (bunny transubstantiation)?
If you don’t find him, it’s not that he doesn’t exist. It’s just that you’re not looking hard enough. Have faith, he’s there.
The point is that the march of History has been the upending of one religious superstition after another. At one time that the sun orbited the earth, not the other way around, was an un-falsifiable (is that even a word?) piece of dogma.
I’m not saying that it’s not possible that a supernatural being put this all into motion (and very few atheists would — such “hard atheism” is indeed an act of faith and, like all acts of faith, inherently irrational).
I’m just saying that, like the 400-foot bunny, until I see some better evidence, I’m not betting on that horse.
Call it an ecumenical version of Occam’s Razor. Sure, it would be fun to while away the hours living within an elaborate supernatural/metaphysical fantasyland but some of us are a little pressed for time.
greg
p.s. The kittens, like God, are invisible. Again, have faith.
Gregory,
It seems we have mostly agreed all along, but for a misunderstanding of terminology. The “hard atheism” that you described is what I was referring to by positive atheism. The positive atheist says, with an evangelical certainty, that “There is no God.” The negative atheist, like the agnostic, refuses to make positivist statements. He says, “I do not believe there is a God.” Such a statement, in my view, is merely healthy skepticism, and not far removed from the agnostic, who says “I don’t know if there is a God.” As for making metaphysical speculations, you may not have the time, but as a scientist I know that pure imagination and speculation is the raw material for the hypotheses which observations select to form the scientific picture of our world. Besides that, it is a lot of fun and not too dangerous - unlike blasting away at people for not accepting “Jesus”.
Fair enough. Suffice to say that I once used to think I was an agnostic until I realized that it was the theists who were writing the dictionary definitions of both agnostics and atheists.
In response to the question “Are the walls of your house filled with invisible, odorless, Velveeta?” I’m just not willing to say “I don’t know.” “I don’t think so” is much more comfortable.
But show me that they are, indeed, filled with Velveeta and I’ll change my mind, just as any honest secular humanist would.
greg
The problem with unobservable entities such as bunnies, kittens, and Velveeta filling space is that such entities do not aid in solving any problems. Neutrinos, Higgs bosons, dark matter, dark energy, and the cosmological constant are all unobservable theoretical entities which do explain observable phenomena. As a scientific realist, I am willing to accept that these entities exist because I have seen their effect on the world and scientists now even use them in designing experiments to uncover deeper problems. The existence of all existence, which we can all agree upon, is a problem in itself. The deeper problem with it is that looking further back in time than the first femtosecond after the Big Bang is impossible, and there is of yet no way to explain the existence of the Universe in the same way we explain how massive objects move towards one another and how the Universe is accelerating. Science does not really answer “why” questions, it can only answer “how”. But all of the theories put forward to answer the question, “How do universes and, beyond that, multiverses and logical realities come into being” can never be falsified since no experiment can be designed that recreates the conditions present at t=0 seconds. Enter metaphysics. A lot of scientists think that such questions are pointless, and they are certainly right, but that does not stop the human imagination from putting forward theories and using some degree of logic to explain it. Perhaps a fluctuation in the quantum spacetime field caused the universe to spontaneously come into being, but where did the quantum spacetime field come from? To a lot of reasonable people, it is okay to concede that some infinitely powerful force–personal or not–must have exercised choice at some point. It is also perfectly reasonable to reject such a force. But it will always–always–be a problem that cannot be answered by science since we are confined to the space time sphere that we are, and can never exit it to experiment with the fabric of the meta reality that was once pregnant with the universe we live in.
Such questions will not usually trouble most minds, however; nor should they. But until your bunnies and kittens act as theoretical entities to explain some observable phenomenon, they are more pointless than the prime mover is to the metaphysician.
On that note - go back and read almost all of my posts until this conversation started. I think you’ll find that we agree on a lot more than we do with most people in the general populace.
In other words, ontological problems are no less meaningless than questions about the proper interpretation of quantum theory (Copenhagen vs many worlds interpretation). As they provide no hypothetical solution to even metaphysical problems, let alone real problems, invisible bunnies and the “Velveeta cheese field” are quite literally useless intellectual junk. Metaphysics, however, will always doom its practitioners to fruitless labor. That’s why it’s in such disrepute amongst we pragmatic, empirical sorts. The notion that one reality was selected from among an infinite number of possible realities still implies choice - and even the existence of infinite potentiality begs the question, “Whence come this splendid, pointless symphony of nonsense?”
To such a question, I am far more comfortable with “I don’t know” than “Absolutely nothing, or so I believe” (negative atheism) or “Absolutely nothing, and trust me” (positive atheism). That is why agnosticism is the most reasonable.
Antony Flew and Abiogenesis
British athiest philosopher Antony Flew isn’t anymore. This story has been flying around the blogosphere a lot lately. Here is my take on the results and the reasons for his “conversion”…