Posted on 01/10/2005 2:47:28 PM PST by Mr. Silverback
Antony Flew, the 81-year-old British philosophy professor who taught at Oxford and other leading universities, became an atheist at age 15. Throughout his long career he argued—including in debates with an atheist-turned-Christian named C. S. Lewis—that there was a “presumption of atheism,” that is, the existence of a creator could not be proved.
But he’s now been forced to face the evidence. It comes from the Intelligent Design movement, led by Dr. Phillip Johnson and particularly the work of Michael Behe, the Lehigh biochemist who has proven the “irreducible complexity” of the human cell structure. Though eighty-one years old, Flew has not let his thinking fossilize, but has faithfully followed his own dictum to “go where the evidence leads.”
Christian philosophy professor Gary Habermas of Liberty University conducted an interview with Flew that will be published in the winter issue of Philosophia Christi, the journal of the Evangelical Philosophical Society and Biola University. Flew told Habermas that a pivotal point in his thinking was when he realized two major flaws in the various theories of how nature might have created itself. First, he recognized that evolutionary theory has no reasonable explanation for “the first emergence of living from non-living matter”—that is, the origin of life. Second, even if a living cell or primitive animal had somehow assembled itself from non-living chemicals, he reasoned it would have no ability to reproduce.
Flew told Habermas, “This is the creature, the evolution of which a truly comprehensive theory of evolution must give some account. Darwin himself was well aware that he had not produced such an account. It now seems to me that the findings of more than fifty years of DNA research have provided materials for a new and enormously powerful argument to design.”
Flew has, thus, become a Deist—that is, he acknowledges God as creator but not as a personal deity. In his opinion, “There is no room either for any supernatural revelation of that God or any transactions between that God and individual human beings.” In fact, he told a group last May that he considers both the Christian God and the Islamic God to be “omnipotent Oriental despots—cosmic Saddam Husseins.”
But a crack is beginning to develop in his opinion that God hasn’t spoken through Scripture. When he reads the first chapter of Genesis, Flew says he’s impressed that a book written thousands of years ago harmonizes with twenty-first-century science. “That this biblical account might be scientifically accurate,” says Flew, “raises the possibility that it is revelation.” A book containing factual statements that no human knew about at the time of writing seems to argue that the authors must have had coaching from the Creator.
The evidence is there for all who will look, as his one-time adversary C. S. Lewis discovered, and as more and more thinking intellectuals are discovering today. So it is that Antony Flew, perhaps the most famous philosopher of atheism, is just a step or two away from the kingdom.
One of the concepts in evolution is the random mutation of genes. Did not God create "randomness" in the first place?
I'm just amazed to think that there are people who think that God could not have been smart enough to set up the system of evolution in the first place. They apparently think that God could snap his fingers, and there was a new creature. But they don't think God could have created a life system that would modify itself over time. Creationism is such a simplistic view of God.
I prefer to think that God created gravity, and that's what made the lake flat.
Same with evolution.
Atheism is a religion too. To say you know there is no God is logically the same as saying you know there is.
___________________________________
If your God is logical
-- reason is your religion.
To say then you know God, is not reasonable.
"Why is creative evolution any different than setting a toy boat free in a stream?"
I don't particularily want to debate with a "theistic" evolutionist. I will just say that the God I worship is a "hands on" God. He doesn't just turn things loose like a toy boat in a stream. That view is not just confined to origin of species. It is also my view of all occurences in the world - past, present, and future.
"They apparently think that God could snap his fingers, and there was a new creature. But they don't think God could have created a life system that would modify itself over time. Creationism is such a simplistic view of God."
That is just a rationalization on your part. You are trying justify your own lack of faith in the reliability of scripture. What you call "simplistic" is what I call the simple faith of a child that Christ Jesus said was necessary.
I don't want to argue either (except respectfully).
However, God will not reduce Himself to that which you worship...He Is Infinite...and He can do whatever He wants...and it is surely infinitely greater than our capacity to understand...but is bound only by His Love and Care.
What I am saying is...don't define Him because you are surely reducing Him to your human capacity.
Then you can see that this argument over evolution is really between believers who merely interpret Genesis in different ways. Some recognize that those few hundred words about the creation are just not enough to include something detailed like evolution. The Bible is not a science textbook and church is not a science foundation.
I personally believe that the whole evolution vs. creationism fight is damaging to believers. The damage ends when believers decide that they will not contest science.
God still did it. That's the only point that matters.
Thx...we are weenies when standing before Him...hence my name (your name too I imagine)...God Bless.
What I am trying to communicate is that many different people, and many Christian churches, have different interpretations of the Bible.
We've long since quit chasing Quakers out of town, because all different views of God are tolerated. Except, it seems, those who understand the workings of evolution and see no reason to replace science with one particular narrow interpretation of Genesis.
"What I am saying is...don't define Him because you are surely reducing Him to your human capacity."
I respectfully submit to you that I am not defining God. I am simply describing God as He defines Himself in scripture - as totally sovereign in everything (in other words - "hands on"). I don't limit God, I acknowledge He totally rules, and bow before him.
There's a huge problem with your comparison. Creationists believe that man is in a fallen state, in need of a higher power to redeem us. Evolutionists believe that we indeed are evolving into higher, more intelligent life forms. Yes, God did create gravity as one of the organizing forces of nature. Surely you know that evolution is OPPOSED to several natural laws. Going from order to disorder is the nature of things. Evolution has it backwards. If you believe that God created laws of nature, like gravity, to govern the universe, then you have a big problem with the theory of evolution.
But I'll bet we're going to be amazed at how different God is and His world is than what we imagine...not different in how true and loving it is...just different in how much more wonderful it is (and He is) than we could ever have imagined.
If it rains today, did'nt God do it? But, isn't rain part of the scientific "naturalistic" world? What's the difference?
If a gene in a creature is modified by "chance", didn't God create chance itself?
Once, Christians explained that things fell to the earth because God willed it so. We now call that gravity.
God created gravity, just as He created evolution.
In the mean time, the fight over creationim is public schools saps the political capital we won last November. We need to spend such capital on the important things like supreme court judges and such. Fighting over creationism and ID will merely split the conservative base. Which is why the left is fanning the flames of ID, in the hope that we will end up fighting each other.
We need to keep our priorities straight. Teach anything you want in church. But leave science to decide what goes into science classrooms. Religion and philosophy (which is what "ID theory" is) doesn't belong there.
So it never snows, right? Obviously, a huge cloud of water vapor is far more disordered than millions of six-sided crystals, no two of which are identical.
Amazing how some atheists come around the closer they get to meeting their Creator...
Amazing how many devoted athiests manage to muster the strength to breathlessly say "oh God" on their death beds.
Narby:"The theory of evolution is irrelevant to the subject of God."
(and goes in to say God could have created evolution)
GLDNGUN: "And that's the problem. God is NOT irrelevant."
"Except, it seems, those who understand the workings of evolution and see no reason to replace science with one particular narrow interpretation of Genesis."
My friend, I am fully educated in biological science and I am fully aware of evolutionary theory and its postulated mechanisms, etc. I just don't agree with it. Partly because I don't think it can explain macro evolution, but mainly and admitedly because I see it conflicts with scripture.
Oh, and BTW, just because you don't hold as high a view of scripture as I do, does not mean I want to "run you out of town." I can only express what I believe. It is in God's hands whether you accept it or not. I'm not motivated to "force" anyone to believe anything...that is a fruitless endeavor and not my responsibility as a human being.
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.