There Is a God

September 10, 2007
British philosopher Flew has long been something of an evangelist for atheism, debating theologians and pastors in front of enormous crowds. In 2004, breathless news reports announced that the nonagenarian had changed his mind. This book tells why. Ironically, his arguments about the absurdity of God-talk launched a revival of philosophical theists, some of whom, like Alvin Plantinga and Richard Swinburne, were important in Flew's recent conversion to theism. Breakthroughs in science, especially cosmology, also played a part: if the speed or mass of the electron were off just a little, no life could have evolved on this planet. Perhaps the arrogance of the “New Atheists” also emboldened him, as Flew taunts them for failing to live up to the greatness of atheists of yore. The book concludes with an appendix by New Testament scholar and Anglican bishop N.T. Wright, arguing for the coherence of Christian belief in the resurrection. Flew praises Wright, though he maintains some distance still from orthodox Christianity. The book will be most avidly embraced by traditional theists seeking argumentative ammunition. It sometimes disappoints: quoting other authorities at length, citing religion-friendly scientists for pages at a time and belaboring side issues, like the claim that Einstein was really a religious believer of sorts.

October 1, 2007
Flews 1950 paper Theology and Falsification shot down dogmatically antireligious Wittgensteinian logical positivism but came to be seen as equally devastating to religion. His philosophy of religion remained atheist on rational grounds (his newfound theism is rational, too, not at all sectarian), and he was the most considerable philosophical advocate of atheism until 2004, when he announced that he had changed his mind because ofwhat accumulating scientific evidence persuaded him to believe. The laws of nature, the teleological organization of life (i.e., toward an end), and the existence of the universe structurally indicate a directive or presiding intelligence. He tells how he reached his present position by reviewing his career as a philosopher of religion and then the specific lines of reasoning that led to his change of mind. He couldnt be more engaging and remain an analytic philosopher, and the appended essays by Varghese (a critique of new atheist nonphilosophers Richard Dawkins and company) and N. T. Wright (a brilliant explication of the doctrine of the Resurrection) almost upstage him!(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)