Antony Flew and the Teleological Argument

S

Socratic Spelunker

Registered Senior Member
So I was readinng about a guy named Antony Flew. He was a hard-core and outspoken atheist, something like Dawkins, but he eventually switched to deism. He continued to deny the God of the Bible, but he did believe that there was some sort of intelligence out there.

He once said in an interview that the sole reason for his change of mind was the "scientific forms of the teleological argument".

That surprised me. I always thought that the argument from design was a pretty epic fail of an argument. Not only that, but I'm not sure what these "scientific forms" of the argument are.

Does anyone know specifically what it was about this argument that convinced him?

By the way, when you answer this question, please just answer the question. I don't want to hear about the time you looked up at the shimmering night sky and got a warm fuzzy feeling inside, nor do I want to hear your way-too-rehearsed list of flaws with this argument. I know them well. Please don't just post a link to Antony Flew's wikipedia page or suggest some google search terms. Please just answer the question.

What was it about the Teleological argument that convinced Antony Flew that there was some sort of God?
 
I've been doing some further reading in addition to the articles linked to above.

It seems that Flew's conversion to Deism was based on two things. Firstly, it was the arguments put forth by Gerald Schroeder in his 1998 book, "The Science of God" in which he attempts to reconcile the biblical account of creation with the modern scientific understanding of the history of the universe. In his interview with Habermas (pdf above), Flew stated "I am very much impressed with physicist Gerald Schroeder’s comments on Genesis 1."

Secondly, as we read on Wikipedia, Flew stated in a letter to Richard Carrier "My one and only piece of relevant evidence [for an Aristotelian God] is the apparent impossibility of providing a naturalistic theory of the origin from DNA of the first reproducing species ... [In fact] the only reason which I have for beginning to think of believing in a First Cause god is the impossibility of providing a naturalistic account of the origin of the first reproducing organisms."

However, Richard Carrier reports (once he had acquired permission to quote Flew) that Flew has since stated "I have been mistaught by Gerald Schroeder" and "it was precisely because he appeared to be so well qualified as a physicist (which I am not) that I was never inclined to question what he said about physics". Flew also later states that having read Victor Stenger's book "Has Science Found God?", which is largely a response to claims such as those made by Gerald Schroeder, that he "cannot but agree with his [Stenger's] negative conclusions".

Finally, Flew has also stated that "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". Essentially then, once Flew decided to actually investigate the science, he reached the conclusion that the arguments he had used to justify his conversion were based on faulty conclusions. He never converted back to atheism, but it's pretty clear that Deism wasn't where the evidence lead him, it was simply where he wanted to go.

None of this has stopped a multitude of Christian websites from continuing to frame this as an example of overwhelming scientific evidence leading to God of course.

Anyway, RIP Antony Flew
 
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Yeah, I read the attempt to square genesis with science. I do think its possible, but Schroeder does a crappy job of it. It's filled with arbitrary assumptions, bad science, and a poor understanding of scripture.

Anyway, thanks for the info.
 
Ophiolite said:
I understand that God does not accept the Genesis account....either of them.
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The leaders of almost all the major Christian denominations (Catholic, COE, etc.) accept the Biblical creation story as a metaphor, and their universities teach perfectly respectable science courses. Most of the holdouts are, of course, in my country: the Southern Baptists and all the bizarro sects. Some of them have their own universities but in today's economy they're struggling to stay in business.

A lady who used to work for me was "born again" (geeze, once was enough for that bitch) and started going to a storefront Pentecostal church. She had a two-year community college diploma, which made her the most educated person there. She came into my office one Monday morning, all excited to tell me what she had just learned. It seems that lions and tigers weren't always predators. In Earth's early days there was only harmony and sweetness, and they ate only plants.

I asked her what they must have looked like, since herbivores have to have much longer digestive tracts to host the bacteria that break down the cellulose in their diet, and much different teeth for chewing tough plant tissue. She just walked out, which was all I really wanted anyway.
 
Fraggle Rocker said:
The leaders of almost all the major Christian denominations (Catholic, COE, etc.) accept the Biblical creation story as a metaphor, and their universities teach perfectly respectable science courses. Most of the holdouts are, of course, in my country: the Southern Baptists and all the bizarro sects. Some of them have their own universities but in today's economy they're struggling to stay in business.

A lady who used to work for me was "born again" (geeze, once was enough for that bitch) and started going to a storefront Pentecostal church. She had a two-year community college diploma, which made her the most educated person there. She came into my office one Monday morning, all excited to tell me what she had just learned. It seems that lions and tigers weren't always predators. In Earth's early days there was only harmony and sweetness, and they ate only plants.

I asked her what they must have looked like, since herbivores have to have much longer digestive tracts to host the bacteria that break down the cellulose in their diet, and much different teeth for chewing tough plant tissue. She just walked out, which was all I really wanted anyway.
Click to expand...

that's funny. :D
 
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