The Highway Forums General Discussion Open Forum Anthony Flew

I may have missed this discussion but I was wondering whether anyone could verify if he has become a theist or no.

Ehud

Ehud,
According to an article posted at The White Horse Inn, he is in fact now a Deist. I don't have the link now, but at that site you should look for their broadcast of April 10, which goes into a fair amount of detail. Some time is also devoted to the subject in the April 17 broadcast as well.

I think his reports of becoming a deist/theist/agnostic are overstated and a bit exaggerated. There is also a Stand to Reason broadcast from a few months ago during which Greg Koukl interviewed Gary Habbarmas (sp?) about his conversations with Flew. From Gary's testimony (which is favorable to Flew), Flew keeps flip flopping between believing in some non-descript, undefined universal power and not believing anything.
As is usually the case, the evidentialist/Natural theology crowd take Flew's admission in believing some vague "power" as proof that evidence can be used to bring people to saving faith, even though Flew still rejects Christianity as being immoral and reprehensible, especially that atonement stuff about Jesus covering people in blood and that eternal, conscious punishment in hell thing.

Fred
www.fredsbibletalk.com

Fred,

Being a staunch presuppositionalist, I am in full agreement with you over the soteriological insufficiency of the reported "admission", and was not trying to imply other than that some now claim that Flew is a Deist. Your source certainly calls even that claim into question. In fairness to the WHI interview, it was made quite clear that Flew remains antagonistic toward the Living God.

While I hope for this man's sake that he will be converted by sovereign grace to saving faith in Christ, if he remains in his current state of rebellion--which is at the root of all unbelief--he is no nearer to God than the demons, who are quite thoroughly convinced Deists.

(Fred) I would say the demons are even beyond being deists; they are in fact Bible believing theists, because they know the true and living God is actively involved in our world.

<img src="/forum/images/graemlins/BigThumbUp.gif" alt="" /> Right again! That would be more precise.

I appreciate the info very much! I became interested in Flew's alleged "conversion" to an abstract God because he based his decision on scientific reasoning. As it turns out life really can't evolve from amino acids <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/wow1.gif" alt="" /> or at least not practically i'm sure would be said.

(Fred) Yeah, that is the allegation that has the evidentialist crowd slapping high fives. If only us Christians would present reasonable, undeniable evidence for God, in this case, supposed "scientific evidence" that will draw no other conclusion than some creator made it, then it should be enough to get the apologetic ball rolling toward the person making a salvific faith decision. However, with Flew, all that this supposed evidence did was to "affirm" some, as you wrote, abstract "god" in his mind. The typical misconception among most run-of-the-mill, and dare I say naive, theists, is that if a Christian presents all of the "scientific evidence that, according to the theist, is undeniable proof of God, it will most certainly convince the atheists of the world to belief in the Christian God. The truth of the matter is that all anti-theists have consider the alleged evidence. In fact, they study the same evidence the Christian believer does. However, they will only interpret it to fit their world-view. For instance, the late Sir Francis Crick, who was instrumental in discovering DNA, believed the DNA was designed and was evidence of, not God, but super evolved aliens who seeded our planet millions of years ago to kick start evolution. He believed in a "god" of sorts, they were just aliens. The foolishness of evidentialist Christians is the notion that proof of God automatically leads an unbelieving person to the Christian God. Such is not the case.

Fred
www.fredsbibletalk.com

There can be no question that the relatively small distance Flew has traversed from atheism to theism or deism is infinitesimal in comparison to the great chasm that still lies between these and saving faith; but, it is nevertheless a step in the right direction, however small. It certainly is not a good argument or illustration for the evangelistic effectiveness or "soteriological sufficiency" of classical or evidentialist apologetics; but again, this is usually not what is claimed for apologetics or evidences. Their function (and I believe this is true of presuppositional apologetics as well) is basically pre-evangelistic, i.e., to "demolish arguments" and tear down intellectual strongholds to prepare the mind to receive and understand the truth claims of the gospel. Unless the Holy Spirit also opens their heart or spirit, the gospel, however intellectually compelling some of its claims may seem, will be rejected, and at best one will have only become an adherent of "demonic orthodoxy."

By far the most interesting thing about Flew's conversion is that the evidence for a Creator which he now finds so compelling and convincing is part of the very same "pseudo-science" (Intelligent Design Theory) that is currently banned from most public school textbooks and curricula, which raises serious challenges to the reigning Darwinian paradigm. As one Texas newspaper editor recently put it: "If the scientific data are compelling enough to cause an atheist academic of Antony Flew's reputation to recant much of his life's work, shouldn't Texas schoolchildren also be taught the controversy?"


Vicit Agnus Noster,
Brad J. Hammond

I agree, but I will say that when I read the words "Bible believing", I think of someone who has embraced the Bible's teaching. Demons certainly believe that the Bible is true, but they certainly have not embraced its teaching.

Sorry, if this sounds like nitpicking.

Tom

While the chasm is still great like you said at least this will put some of us on the same page. If you don't believe in God then you won't believe in or expect any type of revelation from God. However, if Flew believes in a god well then there is a possiblity of revelation from a higher being.

Not necessarily. That would be dependent upon what type of "god" the individual recognizes as existent. If someone holds that there is some "higher force/power", but rejects that "god" is an impersonal entity, then no revelation would be forthcoming.

"Without absolutes revealed from without by God Himself, we are left rudderless in a sea of conflicting ideas about manners, justice and right and wrong, issuing from a multitude of self-opinionated thinkers." - John Owen

In His Grace,