NY Times Writer Questions Former Atheist Anthony Flew's Competency
NY Times writer Mark Oppenheimer raises some questions about the competency of Anthony Flew, the world's most famous ex-atheist. Christians like David Neff of Christianity Today, along with Victor Reppert, are responding with a letter from the co-author of Flew's soon to be released book, There is a God. David Neff sums up the NY Times article by saying that Oppenheimer... ...questions the degree of Flew’s involvement in writing the book, the credibility of scientists whose perspective Flew adopted, and even Flew’s mental competence at the advanced age of 84. (Oppenheimer suggests that Flew may be “a senescent scholar possibly being exploited by his associates” and raises the possibility that his “memory [is] failing” and that “his powers [are] in decline.”) None of this is about whether or not God exists, but it is interesting to get at the truth. Is Flew being manipulated by Christians in the interests of spreading their message about the gospel? Is that possible? Would they do this?
20 comments:
You mean like Lee Strobel in The Case for Faith, who got octagenerian Alzheimer's sufferer Charles Templeton to sob and admit that he "missed" Jesus?
Why would they do this? Pious fraud is a long-standing Christian practice.
Anecdotal evidence is not evidence, the atheists love to tell me.
So where's the PROOF of this claim!
Put up or shut up.
Not all Christians force people into accepting Jesus. That is one of the many stereotypes that people have put on us. .....and why would it be so hard for a man of that age to realize how bad he really needed Jesus in his life? why couldn't that be enough?
If you read the article, it doesn't sound to me like Jesus or even Christianity has anything to do with it.
It sounds like this man now agrees with anyone who communicates with him, and will buy into whatever argument will please his current audience.
Putting his name on a book that he did not write a single word of (it had a ghostwriter for the ghostwriter) in his obviously confused state of mind is a travesty.
Who knows what he thinks at this point? From the article it does not seem like he even realizes what he *used* to think.
The question "would they do this?" is a powerful one. Christians in power (ecclesiastical, governmental, corporate) have been doing this- for centuries. Christianity is a sordid history of cover-up and exploitation. I know these are volatile charges and will upset many...and yes, of course, others have done it to. But Christianity claims to be "the one, the pure, undefiled religion" before God. In my lifetime alone are numerous examples of Christians covering up and exploiting weaker "spokespersons" in order to gain some kind of cultural attention, perhaps they are at heart provocateurs. Yes, they would do this, and have done it.
John W. Loftus said...
"Is Flew being manipulated by Christians in the interests of spreading their message about the gospel? Is that possible? Would they do this?"
My reply...
Christians have blown this story up from the very beginning. If you recall, Flew admitted that he subscribed to belief in a deistic god, a god like that of Thomas Paine. That's a far cry from the adulterated 3-in-1 god of the church.
If Flew has changed his position in this short of time and slipped to being a Christian theist, he's not in his right mind and has indeed fallen victim to senility (as old as he is, this is the only sensible conclusion to draw).
Christian publishers would love nothing more than to get such a former atheist "big gun" on their side just for the ethos of it. But count on Christians to paint things as though he is a church-going, Bible-toting, trinity-defending, dispensationalist Christian who believes in the Big Bang! Sad, sad, sad!
Let's see Flew go through and dismantle his old philosophical arguments against God. He can't and won't. He just ignores them now, like believers in Christianity do. The only way an atheist can become a Christian is at a point of emotional breakdown; at such a point, all arguments go out the window and sentimental reasoning takes over completely.
If at all his beleifs have changed, I'm afraid we will never know what Flew really believes at this point. The waters have been too muddied.
(JH)
Varghese is writing a letter?
You mean they haven't got Flew to write a letter saying that he wrote some of the book with his name on it?
Firstly, I see no reason to believe Flew to be mentally incompetent at the age of 84 unless we have reason to warrant such a belief. Second, in response to Joe, im sure you know of Christians who lose their faith in a matter of weeks because they discover the earth is not 6000 years old or the bible isnt inerrant. Some atheists report losing there "extreme faith" after reading a book or two. I suspect you would not be so fast to suggest they are simply delusional however. Last, Flew is at the end of the day not a Christian. Perhaps he will be. But as far as I know, he is a deist, not that atheists are that much kinder to that group (I was never treated any kinder by atheists when I was one)
Joe Said -"He just ignores them now, like believers in Christianity do."
I hardly think that Plantinga's formulation of "Reformed Epistemology" could be called ignoring logical positivism and on top of that it seems that many Christians (Inwagen, Plantinga, Swinburne, Hick, Kvanvig just to name a few) are willing to engage in philosophic debate and do not ignore atheistic arguments.
I would like to comment on the following passages from Mr. Flew's book. Bear in mind, that in playing the devil's advocate, I classify myself as one who hopes that there is a God. Flew writes, “How can a universe of mindless matter produce beings with intrinsic ends [and] self-replication capabilities?”
“ . . . our knowledge of the universe must stop with the big bang, which is to be seen as the ultimate fact.” “The laws of physics are ‘lawless laws’ that arise from the void – end of discussion.” Flew tackles the why is there something instead of nothing question and writes: “The only satisfactory explanation for the origin of such ‘end-directed, self-replicating’ life as we see on earth is an infinitely intelligent Mind.”
My comment, "The something from nothing dilemma is the most mind-blowing question we on earth contemplate. If one believes that the intelligent life we see on earth (something from nothing) requires an infinitely intelligent mind, then we have to wonder how this infinitely intelligent God sprang from nothing."
Louie Lawent - author of "The Louie/God Interviews (What The Big Fella Really Thinks About Man And The Universe)"
www.myspace.com/LouieLawent
GordonBlood said...
"Firstly, I see no reason to believe Flew to be mentally incompetent at the age of 84 unless we have reason to warrant such a belief. Second, in response to Joe, im sure you know of Christians who lose their faith in a matter of weeks because they discover the earth is not 6000 years old or the bible isnt inerrant. Some atheists report losing there "extreme faith" after reading a book or two. I suspect you would not be so fast to suggest they are simply delusional however. Last, Flew is at the end of the day not a Christian. Perhaps he will be. But as far as I know, he is a deist, not that atheists are that much kinder to that group (I was never treated any kinder by atheists when I was one)"
My reply...
That's why I said "if", "if" he changed positions that quickly, then given his age, his convictions would be suspect. But as you said, he's only a deist, and yet that isn't what all those Christians who email me want me to think when they tell me: "see, Flew was a smart atheist and even he now believes in god." As I said, they'd love nothing more than to use him as their new canon. I at least thank you for acknowledging that he is NOT a believer. I have had to pry that fact out of so many others. And you're wrong--I have a good deal of respect for deism. I don't hold the position because, as Ingersoll put it, the god of nature is just as cruel as the god of the Bible, but it is at least an intellectual avenue to a god, one could say.
Matthew said...
"I hardly think that Plantinga's formulation of "Reformed Epistemology" could be called ignoring logical positivism and on top of that it seems that many Christians (Inwagen, Plantinga, Swinburne, Hick, Kvanvig just to name a few) are willing to engage in philosophic debate and do not ignore atheistic arguments."
My reply...
That's just it, my friend. At the end of the day, none of that matters to them. Should they ever admit than a given argument bothers them, they will "just have faith." Evidence is only window dressing to Christians. It just looks nice but it's no loss if you don't have it.
William Lane Craig admitted that he is so sure of his faith that even if we could go back in time and prove to him for certain that Jesus never existed, he'd still believe--that's how strong his "witness" of the spirit is! That's the epitomy of irrationality.
(JH)
Joe Said -"He just ignores them now, like believers in Christianity do."
I hardly think that Plantinga's formulation of "Reformed Epistemology" could be called ignoring logical positivism and on top of that it seems that many Christians (Inwagen, Plantinga, Swinburne, Hick, Kvanvig just to name a few) are willing to engage in philosophic debate and do not ignore atheistic arguments.
I too object to the claim that christians -- add Howard-Snyder to that list -- are unwilling to debate or discuss the philosophical and analytic arguments of Flew in either direction.
Remember that to discredit Flew on the basis of competency smacks of a straw man cheap shot. Do we discredit the last writings of Bertrand Russell on the basis of old age incompetence? No. How convenient!
Richard Carrier, mentioned in the NY Times article, has responded , and he minces few words in blasting the authors of "Flew's" book.
Karl said "Do we discredit the last writings of Bertrand Russell on the basis of old age incompetence? No. How convenient!"
Did Bertrand Russell completely change his views, and show no knowledge of his own prior arguments in his old age? Did Russell need a ghostwriter (who also needed a ghostwriter) in his old age? Did Bertrand Russell's writing style completely change in his old age? Did Bertrand Russell show almost no knowledge of what he wrote in his own book?
That is a very sad article. You see this confused man in his old age being used. billf, you said said it correctly, his mind seems to change with the wind.
Joe said...
"That's just it, my friend. At the end of the day, none of that matters to them. Should they ever admit than a given argument bothers them, they will "just have faith." Evidence is only window dressing to Christians. It just looks nice but it's no loss if you don't have it."
I don't really think that you understood what I wrote the first time. My understanding was that your claim was that Christians are not willing to engage in debate with Non-Christians but they just ignore their arguments (Which if I can digress a bit, is an un-true claim. Plantinga has done this to an extent in accepting Molinism to make coherent his answer to the problem of evil)).
As a Christian I have taken it upon myself to understand the nature of belief more clearly, I feel that this comment and your previous comments are highly offensive and rather irrational. It really is easier to pigeonhole believers into whatever warped view of them that you have, than to give them the benefit of doubt.
Beyond this there is a claim that you seem to be making about arguments for unbelief (mainly that there are some out there that are credible enough to dismantle any Christian belief or philosophic structure) and it seems to me that these are arguments that you seem to not be providing.
matthew I forgot to give you props. Thanks for clearly putting an end to the nonsense that christians are not willing to engage in debate.
If Christians were not willing to engage in debate, DC would not be here. However, many Christians (I dare say the vast majority) stake nothing in debate; win or lose horribly, their ideas about the world will remain unchanged. The precious exceptions to this apparent generalization is why DC bothers to argue, rather than just listen to Christian apologia and weigh it privately.
Andrew, Flew himself admitted in an interview with Oppenheimer that he is suffering from "aphasia" and did not recognize most of the philosophers mentioned in the book that was ghostwritten under his name.
Even his original conversion to deism left most with serious misgivings. His original conversion was based on the works of Gerald Schroeder, an old-earth creationist whose pseudoscience was long since debunked as arbitrary post hoc justifications and contrary to relativity. After this was pointed out to Flew, he recanted his support of Schroeder (Flew claimed he was "mistaught"), but then based his acceptance of deism on Behe's thoroughly debunked "Darwin's Black Box". Then he started slipping into aphasia. His interviews with Lee Strobel are sad (and Lee Strobel came off as a filthy opportunist in them).
gordonblood, which atheists reported losing their "extreme faith" after reading a book or two?
If some prominent former atheist has gone mental (as it appears from those who have interviewed him) in old age, what does that have to do with the truth? It's a shame to see someone exploited like this but even if Flew were still in his right mind it would change nothing. There is still no evidence for a god and certainly not the traditional Judeo-Christian God and lots of evidence against it.
Post a Comment