There Is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind by Antony Flew, Roy Abraham Varghese Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of There Is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind
Book Review: Hah!
Summary: 2 Stars
Before buying this book - or even thinking about it as a product of Anthony Few's mind, read the article by Mark Oppenheimer in the November 4 issue of The New York Times Magazine.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/magazine/04Flew-t.html
The following is a direct quote from the article - for those who might not have access:
"In August, I visited Flew in Reading. His house, sparsely furnished, sits on a small plot on a busy street, hard against its neighbors. It could belong to a retired government clerk or to a career military man who at last has resettled in the mother country. Inside, it seems very English, with the worn, muted colors of a BBC production from the 1970s. The house may lack an Internet connection, but it does have one very friendly cat, who sat beside me on the sofa. I visited on two consecutive days, and each day Annis, Flew's wife of 55 years, served me a glass of water and left me in the sitting room to ask her husband a series of tough, indeed rather cruel, questions.
In "There Is a God," Flew quotes extensively from a conversation he had with Leftow, a professor at Oxford. So I asked Flew, "Do you know Brian Leftow?"
"No," he said. "I don't think I do."
"Do you know the work of the philosopher John Leslie?" Leslie is discussed extensively in the book.
Flew paused, seeming unsure. "I think he's quite good." But he said he did not remember the specifics of Leslie's work.
"Have you ever run across the philosopher Paul Davies?" In his book, Flew calls Paul Davies "arguably the most influential contemporary expositor of modern science."
"I'm afraid this is a spectacle of my not remembering!"
He said this with a laugh. When we began the interview, he warned me, with merry self-deprecation, that he suffers from "nominal aphasia," or the inability to reproduce names. But he forgot more than names. He didn't remember talking with Paul Kurtz about his introduction to "God and Philosophy" just two years ago. There were words in his book, like "abiogenesis," that now he could not define. When I asked about Gary Habermas, who told me that he and Flew had been friends for 22 years and exchanged "dozens" of letters, Flew said, "He and I met at a debate, I think." I pointed out to him that in his earlier philosophical work he argued that the mere concept of God was incoherent, so if he was now a theist, he must reject huge chunks of his old philosophy. "Yes, maybe there's a major inconsistency there," he said, seeming grateful for my insight. And he seemed generally uninterested in the content of his book -- he spent far more time talking about the dangers of unchecked Muslim immigration and his embrace of the anti-E.U. United Kingdom Independence Party.
As he himself conceded, he had not written his book.
"This is really Roy's doing," he said, before I had even figured out a polite way to ask. "He showed it to me, and I said O.K. I'm too old for this kind of work!"
"When I asked Varghese, he freely admitted that the book was his idea and that he had done all the original writing for it. But he made the book sound like more of a joint effort -- slightly more, anyway. "There was stuff he had written before, and some of that was adapted to this," Varghese said. "There is stuff he'd written to me in correspondence, and I organized a lot of it. And I had interviews with him. So those three elements went into it. Oh, and I exposed him to certain authors and got his views on them. We pulled it together. And then to make it more reader-friendly, HarperCollins had a more popular author go through it."
So even the ghostwriter had a ghostwriter: Bob Hostetler, an evangelical pastor and author from Ohio, rewrote many passages, especially in the section that narrates Flew's childhood. With three authors, how much Flew was left in the book? "He went through everything, was happy with everything," Varghese said."
Book Review: The Delightful Journey of a Great Mind
Summary: 4 Stars
This book, with the ever catchy subtitle "How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind" is sure to infuriate most dogmatic atheists and capture the heart of zealous Christians. Both would be making a mistake. First, Flew has never been known as the most notorious - maybe the most brilliant or most influential of the last century, but he was almost always gracious and unlike Dawkins, Dennet, and Hitchens, he was not overly polemic; but instead, he focused on sharpening his logical arguments. Flew was one of the few atheists philosophers I enjoyed reading and watching. He also always demonstrated great respect for those whom he disagreed, a true demonstration of grace and honor.
Second, many modern atheists, more concerned with their zealotry (mention in the book) than properly constructed arguments are sure to hate this book; Dawkins, Dennet, and Harris, et al, are sure to resort to fallacious rebuttals (like Dawkins did at a lecture several months ago calling Anthony Flew a "once" great mind who is now suffering from old age - where is the argument Dawkins?). One will notice these people by the one star reviews - they cannot evaluate a text on its own terms, but must hate it regardless of any merits it may have.
Third, many Christians may overly praise the book. The book, while interesting, does not produce so much a tightly constructed argument as much as shows the journey and the arguments he encountered that changed his mind (DNA, Physics, etc) and he takes pains to show that many other thinking people can be theists, etc. I may be mistaken, but I think he would prefer people investigate the matter further and hence, his arguments are brief and interwoven with a biographical sketch. The arguments still uphold pretty well, but probably not as sophisticated as they could have been or in other books elsewhere.
There is a good appendix section involving a brief encounter with theologian NT Wright and Roy Abraham Varghese provides a nice preface and appendix section as well. All in all a fun, quick, and easy read. The book is delightful in some respects; but, in other respects, I wanted just a little more argument.
Lastly, I have added this edition to my original review to also provide a quick response to many atheists who are so enamored with the NYT
article and claim it is proof that the zealot Christian right and others have taken advantage of an old senile man. First, Oppenheimer's article has been rebutted by Varghese and many inconsistencies have been noted by others as well. Further, Flew himself has provided an interview claiming the book is his "last will and testament" on these things. Furthermore, did ABC and other mass media take advantage of Flew when he said he was no longer an atheists?
It is an embarrassment to all that some people who are so dogmatic about their atheism (or whatever ism it is) that they appeal to a sloppily developed article. Wiker's review provides the address to his website that has the Flew interview.
Book Review: Insightful and Stimulating
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a stimulating survey of Anthony Flew's conversion from atheism to theism. He begins by outlining his philosophical past and the reasons for his rejection of theism. He is quite candid when addressing his own perceived weaknesses in the underpinnings of his earlier atheistic philosophy. Though not as interesting as the second part of the book, this first section is a necessary component to understand the significance of Flew's conversion.
The second part of the book focuses on the three arguments that had the biggest impact on Flew's conversion: the argument to design (nature obeys laws), the emergence of life from non-life, and the emergence of the universe itself.
Though this is a relatively short volume, one can easily grasp Flew's philosophical prowess. He draws important distinctions between the roles of science and philosophy, and the tendency of many scientists to act as philosophers (and consequentially our own willingness to accept their philosophical reflections as informed) despite the fact that they have no more philosophical training than anyone else outside of philosophy.
His arguments are well supported (contrary to the impression given by the Publisher's Weekly review, the quotes are not intrusively lengthy) and often bring to light revealing theistic first-person claims by those whose work has been used as a foundation for atheistic arguments (e.g. Darwin and Einstein).
Two appendices follow Flew's story. The first, from Roy Abraham Varghese, deals with what he sees as a blatant unwillingness by the "new atheists" to address the phenomena that are particularly relevant to question of God's existence. The second appendix is a contribution by esteemed New Testament scholar N. T. Wright that considers the historical grounds for belief in Jesus and His resurrection.
I'm certain that anyone with an interest in the philosophy of religion or Christian apologetics (though, as has been noted, Flew does not (yet, at least) consider himself a Christian) will thoroughly enjoy this book.
Book Review: The horrific exploitation of an old man
Summary: 1 Stars
Most of what you really need to know about this book is contained in the New York Times Magazine article, "The Turning of an Atheist." It makes clear that Flew did not write the book, his memory has declined to the point where he is incapable of understanding the issues discussed in it, and is in fact being cynically exploited by religious propagandists.
Since I have, in fact, read the book, I'll offer some comments on the end product. One way to understand what's wrong with this book is to read any of Flew's earlier books on philosophy of religion and comparing. While not perfect, Flew's earlier writings display a care for careful argumentation that is entirely lacking in this book.
This book fails to answer any of the questions raised by Flew's previous work, and by the very public vacillations he engaged in during his turn around. The first section deals with his previous views, and on two key points, just says what other people have said in response to them without giving Flew's current position or explaining how he reached it. On free will, there is a statement that Flew used to believe that it exists and is compatible with determinism, now believes it exists and is incompatible with determinism, but no clear explanation for the turn around. Instead of a discussion of any depth we get a brief exposition of a version free will that looks plagiarized from a pop theology book.
The first section was pretty bad, but the second, which was supposed to give Flew's reasons for believing in God, disappointed even my lowest expectations. First it declares that scientists were wrong to criticize him for getting the facts wrong, and that the scientific facts don't matter. Then, in place of substantiative arguments for the existence of God we get a parade of quotes that aren't critically analyzed at all. Some of the quotes are from philosophers, but the focus is on scientists, making the previous disregard of science utterly hypocritical.
Don't buy this book. But if you must, I reiterate my recommendation to read it alongside a real work in philosophy of religion, so you can see the difference between serious analysis and propaganda. And read the NYT article--you'll be shocked by it's revelations.
Book Review: Far outshines the New Atheists
Summary: 5 Stars
Flew, unlike Dawkins, Hitchens et al is a philosopher and relies on honest argument intervowen with his personal experience. Well worth a read!