Browse Search Feedback Other Links Home Home The Talk.Origins Archive: Exploring the Creation/Evolution Controversy

Index to Creationist Claims,  edited by Mark Isaak,    Copyright © 2006
Previous Claim: CA114.4   |   List of Claims   |   Next Claim: CA118

Claim CA115.1:

Design arguments have caused philosopher Antony Flew to renounce 66 years of atheism and admit that the universe is created. Specifically, he was convinced by the complexity of life and the improbability of abiogenesis.

Source:

Yahya, Harun. n.d. The scientific world is turning to God. http://www.harunyahya.com/articles/70scientific_world.html

Response:

  1. Antony Flew's conversion was not to theism, but to a weak deism, a belief that a creator set the universe in motion but has not participated in any way since (Carrier 2004).

  2. Flew's one and only piece of relevant evidence for accepting a deistic god was the apparent improbability of a naturalistic origin for life (Carrier 2004). Flew, by his own admission, had not kept up with the relevant science and was mistaught by Gerald Schroeder, a physicist and Jewish theologian (e.g., Schroeder 2001). He later conceded, "I now realize that I have made a fool of myself by believing that there were no presentable theories of the development of inanimate matter up to the first living creature capable of reproduction" (Carrier 2005). Thus Flew's conversion is, by Flew's own admission, baseless.

    Flew remains a deist but calls his belief a "very modest defection from my previous unbelief" (Carrier 2005).

  3. The argument from authority is weak to begin with, and Flew has never been a spokesperson for atheism, much less for the unrelated subject of evolution. Nobody's unsupported beliefs, including Flew's, constitute an argument for or against evolution (nor for or against atheism). Only evidence and logical argument are legitimate reasons to accept or reject any objective position.

Links:

Carrier, Richard. 2004. Antony Flew considers God--Sort of. The Secular Web (Oct. 10), http://www.secweb.org/asset.asp?AssetID=369

Young, Matt. 2005. Antony Flew's conversion to deism: An update. http://www.pandasthumb.org/pt-archives/000723.html (Jan. 9).

References:

  1. Carrier, Richard. 2004. Antony Flew considers God--Sort of. The Secular Web (Oct. 10), http://www.secweb.org/asset.asp?AssetID=369
  2. Carrier, Richard. 2005. Antony Flew considers God--Sort of; Update (January 2005). The Secular Web (Oct. 10), http://www.secweb.org/asset.asp?AssetID=369#January2005-1
  3. Schroeder, Gerald. 2001. The Hidden Face of God: How Science Reveals the Ultimate Truth.

Previous Claim: CA114.4   |   List of Claims   |   Next Claim: CA118

created 2005-9-21