Weighing the Evidence: An Atheist Abandons Atheism

BreakPoint with Charles Colson ^ | January 10, 2005 | Charles Colson

[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.

[Dimensio]

The theory of biological evolution, which addresses neither the origins of the first life forms nor the ultimate origins of the universe.

[GLDNGUN]

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.

Well, let's just take this silly analogy to its illogical conclusion. In the evolutionary model, your cloud will continue to evolve into...what? Here in the real world the storm weakens into nothing. Tell you what. Go stack some wooden matchsticks into an intelligent, complex design. A building for example. Then take a swing at it with a baseball bat and see if the matchsticks fall into a more complex organization. If it doesn't happen the first time, I'm sure it's just a matter of time and chance. Keep at it, and let us know when your matchsticks form the Eiffel Tower, Empire State Building, or a retractable-roof stadium by "chance".

[Dimensio]

To which "God", out of the thousands worshipped throughout human history, do you refer, and why is lacking belief in an entity that is entirely an unsupported assertion as logical as believing in an entity that is an entirely unsupported assertion?

[Dimensio]

At 81, he's reached an age at which sexual license probably does not seem so all-important. I've come to think that's about 95% of the motivation behind the modernist revolt against religion, of which atheism is but one strand. The high theorizing is rooted mainly in the desire to reject any authority outside oneself, and this in turn is motivated very largely by the desire to misbehave sexually.

Ah, the "people are atheists to justify sexual deviancy". Just one in a series of bogus and bizarre "explanations" for why people don't believe as you do.

[Dimensio]

Evolutionists believe that we indeed are evolving into higher, more intelligent life forms

No, that's not what the theory of evolution states.

Surely you know that evolution is OPPOSED to several natural laws.

Such as?

Going from order to disorder is the nature of things

Oh, funny. I suppose that a zygote going to a fully grown human being also violates natural laws, or are you asserting that a small clump of a few undifferentiated cells is somehow more ordered than a fully functioning adult mammal?

Can you even state the "natural law" to which you think you are referring?

[Dimensio]

Well, let's just take this silly analogy to its illogical conclusion. In the evolutionary model, your cloud will continue to evolve into...what?

Clouds are not imperfectly reproducing life forms, thus the theory of evolution does not apply to them.

Odd how the people who cry the loudest about how they "know" that evolution violates the "laws of nature" end up showing that they know absolutely nothing about the theory whatsoever.

[Dimensio]

There are no atheists in fox holes.

Wrong.

Flew doesn't even believe in an afterlife. I'd hardly call his conversion an act of bet-hedging.

[Dimensio]

I do not know about you, but it makes a difference to me whether we evolved from a centipede or came here as a humans. I am funny that way.

Hmm. Argument from the consequences. Haven't seen that one used in awhile.

[Prophet in the wilderness]

Intellect, Pride and unbelief.

[GLDNGUN]

Evidently you missed my point entirely. He showed his cards when he said "The theory of evolution is irrelevant to the subject of God." Those are HIS words, not mine. I merely quoted him. That is the entire basis and reason for the theory of evolution. It seeks the origins of a universe in which THE EXISTENCE OF GOD IS IRRELEVANT. If you can't see or understand that, I will pray for your eyes to be opened. Yes, anyone and everyone is free to believe in a god that created a universe in a way in which he is irrelevant. I believe in a God that is quite relevant and I believe He was quite relevant in the creation of the universe.

The Bible clearly states that God created the animal life and humans and made them to reproduce after their own kind. Again, you are free to not believe it, and to believe whatever you want.

Nowhere did I "insist that one can't believe in God and evolution". I don't think it's very logical, and requires some pretty nimble mental gymnastics but it's no doubt possible.

And now to quote you..."It's so very common, I'm not picking on you. It would just be refreshing to have a thread where people argued only the points that are actually made."

Touche!

[Tribune7]

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.”

You have to respect this guy.

[Tribune7]

I think a lot of people who call themselves atheist are basically rejecting the religious tradition of their childhood, and often that is quite understandable.

[Tribune7]

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.”

So God did it? :-)

[Prophet in the wilderness]

Proverbs 1 : 7 ... The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge. God uses the simple things to confound the wise ( arrogant, educated, elitists, proud, high minded ).
God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.
God's reveals his mysteries and secrets to the simple, humble, and the downtrodden.

[microgood]

Hmm. Argument from the consequences. Haven't seen that one used in awhile.

Wasn't really an argument. I was just stating if I an dealing with the question of origins, how we evolved is an important part of the question.

[GLDNGUN]

Does not the choppy lake in the afternoon storms "organize" itself into a perfectly mirror flat surface in the mornings? It has gone from disorder to order using a simple rule called gravity. Same with evolution.

You ARE kidding, right? Are you still trying to compare the law of gravity with the theory of evolution? In your example, water is simply respecting the rules of its properties as being acted upon naturally by the force of gravity. These are God-inspired rules of nature that are easily observed. Evolution on the other hand, to repeat, is OPPOSED to several laws of nature. The ONLY way that evolution could have happened is if God "forced" it disobey the very laws of nature of He created. And if you believe that, then you have destroyed the very reason for the existence of the theory of evolution - to make God irrelevant. Remember?

As for the Jim Jones rant, I have no idea of what you talking about. Diminishing the Biblical account because of what some crackpot cult did, would be like me saying that you are league with Stalin and communists since he was an evolutionist.

[Prophet in the wilderness]

God uses the SIMPLE THINGS to confound the wise ( arrogant, proud, educated, high minded, elitist, self righteous )

[Prophet in the wilderness]

If you read Ephesians, and the book of Corinthians, the Bible tells us that GOD has hidden his mysteries and secrets from the WORLD , HUMAN REASONING for a reason, and will reveal it to those who want to believe in him, and those who are humble, simple at heart, and GOD will reveal it is " HIS TIME OF CHOSING " .
God uses the " SIMPLE " things to confound the wise "
God reveals his mysteries and secrets to the humble, simple and the downtrodden.

[Dimensio]

Evidently you missed my point entirely. He showed his cards when he said "The theory of evolution is irrelevant to the subject of God." Those are HIS words, not mine. I merely quoted him. That is the entire basis and reason for the theory of evolution. It seeks the origins of a universe in which THE EXISTENCE OF GOD IS IRRELEVANT.

Evolution says nothing whatsoever regarding the origins of the universe. You only reveal your stunning ignorance of evolution when you make such laughable statements.

[Prophet in the wilderness]

lol,,,,, I love it .