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: A good, but technical, look at a change of mind
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a good overview of Flew's change of mind from atheism to deism over the course of his lifetime. However, there are two things to note that may dissuade the casual reader. First, this is NOT a story of a journey from atheism to Christianity, like some like to portray it as: Flew accepts that there is a God, now, but makes no allowances for what that God is like, nor does he believe in a heaven, hell, or any other sort of an afterlife. So, the average Christian reader will not find what he or she is expecting in this book. Second, Flew is a first class philosopher, and his arguments and evidences are largely based on philosophy and other forms of logic and reasoning. These explanations can be wordy and hard to follow for someone not used to this type of thinking. Overall, this is a very good book, but possibly not for every typical reader.Book Review: That's it?
Summary: 1 Stars
When the news broke in 2004 that Antony Flew, one of the most influential atheist thinkers of the 20th century, had accepted the existence of God, reactions among his fellow atheists ranged from shock to sorrow to denial. A few years later, he has now published his account of what evidence led to his "conversion", supplemented with essays by Roy Abraham Varghese and N.T. Wright.
In this work, Flew promises that the three together constitute a "powerful new vision of the philosophy of religion". This is exactly what I expected in picking up this volume. Sadly, the evidence Flew cites and the vision he expounds are neither powerful nor new.
There is not a single argument Flew offers that is even remotely original. In fact, it is largely composed of re-hashings of the "fine-tuning" design style arguments already offered by a myriad of thinkers. Sure, he still has a flair for the clever parable; but nothing in the arguments is new, and in many places his "arguments" consist of little more than lengthy quotes from others. He allows the additions by Varghese and Wright to make at least half of his case for him. From someone whose career in philosophy of religion began with incredibly novel and innovative ideas (however flawed they may be), this is especially disheartening.
Perhaps the work could be salvaged by the quality of the arguments; but alas, save for his refusal to make wild speculations about the mathematical probability of the physical world on a naturalistic view, it fares no better here than others who have made fine-tuning style arguments. In fact, in several places, I found myself asking out loud "Really? Flew was convinced by THIS?" Repeated from other sources, Flew's arguments inherit the questionable presuppositions of all fine-tuning arguments. Also repeated from his other sources, Flew takes a great deal of time arguing that naturalism can't account for order (even repeating some of the same mistakes typical of the literature here, such as treating the naturalistic view as chalking everything up to chance, which it most certainly does not), but takes very little effort to show how the existence of God DOES explain the pehnomena he addresses.
The "supplementary" piece by Varghese is even worse on this account. A clear graduate of the William Lane Craig school of debate, Varghese spends a lot of time criticizing naturalists, calling their views "laughable" and "far-fetched", only believeable by one who has "take[n] leave of one's senses". He even has the gall in the introduction to criticize Richard Dawkins (rightly) for his blatant ad homine criticisms of Flew, but then promptly turn around and do the same to Dawkins. In his essay, Vargese focuses a lot--21 pages worth-- on how naturalism can't explain life, consciousness and thought (ignoring the vast body of work in these areas); then offers ONE WHOLE PARAGRAPH to explain how God accounts for these. His argument? He can't conceive of how these things could have arisen from non-living, non-conscious matter. I've rarely been so underwhelmed by an argument. Forget the vast amount of work being done in biology, psychology and neuroscience--Varghese can't conceive of it, so life, consciousness and thought MUST be due to God. Wright's arguments for the historicity of the incarnation and the resurrection are just as underwhelming: what they boils down to is that such claims must be true because no other explanation can account for why a group of 1st-century Jews would come up with ideas so out of touch with what other 1st-century Jews believed. What ARE those alternative explanations, and WHY can't they explain this? Wright never says; but we DO have his assurance that he's examined all of them.
This book is SO out of step with the quality of Flew's other work in philosophy that at times I found myself doubting its authenticity (though I'm sure that Flew would be publicly railing against this book if it were), or wondering whether Flew is pulling a Sokal-esque hoax and has his expose ready to roll off some other press. I sure hope so; for it would truly be tragic if one of the most innovative philosophers of the 20th century left us with his final words to the world being a pointless repetition of other scholars' already unconvincing arguments.
Book Review: Great explanation of Flew's change of Mind
Summary: 5 Stars
I was really interested to see the reasoning behind Antony Flew's change from devote atheist to deist. I found it quite profound to see his thought process and the way he always questioned, and then followed where the answers led him. It also contains a mini-biography, as well as the history of his thoughts. He details the reasoning that changed his mind, and does so with deep thought, and a childlike attitude, which is so refreshing. So often great thinkers really now longer leave doors open in their minds, and only provide the deep thoughts to find reasoning for what they already believe.
This was a great read, I look forward to reading some of the books, articles and essays he mentioned that helped challenge his beliefs.
Book Review: Really bad science
Summary: 2 Stars
I was very puzzled by the science in this book.
On page 116 Antony Flew writes 'The principle of special relativity ensures that forces such as electromagnetism have an invariable effect regardless of whether they act at right angles to a system's direction of travel. This enables genetic codes to work and planets to hold together when rotating.'.
I assume that 'invariable effect' means 'invariant effect.'
What is meant by 'whether they act at right angles to a system's direction of travel.'?
Compared to what? The sentence make no grammatical sense.
And what are the other forces like electromagnetism that special relativity applies to?
Clearly not gravity, as special relativity means ignoring gravity.
And not the strong and weak nuclear forces which are governed by quantum mechanics, unless Flew has reconciled relativity and quantum mechanics.
Unless relativity really does mean that the srong and weak nuclear forces have invariable effects whether they act at right angles to a system's direction of travel....
And do electromagnetic forces really have invariant effects whether they act at right angles to an object moving in a field of force, or act parallel to an object moving in a field of force?
That would certainly revolutionise the whole world of electric motors.
And why do planets hold together while rotating because 'special relativity' means that electromagnetic forces have invariant effects whether they are at 90 degrees to the direction of motion?
Planets hold together because of gravity, which is not covered by special relativity.
The science in the book stinks.
Book Review: God Wins Another One!
Summary: 5 Stars
"There is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind" is a fascinating book, primarily written by Antony Flew - a contrite, bright and honest man. Mr. Flew's philosophical path to God is a testament to his scholarly desire to follow the rivulets of reason to THE ULTIMATE TRUTH. This is more than one can say about today's Western proponents of "religious" atheism, who seem to have fixed on an anti-God argument that is driven largely by a secular and commercial fervor than by one of enlightened reason. For secular progressives, their three-pronged goal is designed to promote an arrogant, self-loathing view that works toward the attenuation of those moral precepts that have guided and allowed the West to flourish for centuries; seeks the diminution of restraints on the most abhorrent forms of human behavior; and promotes an "anti-religion" religion that turns a nice nihilistic buck in our capitalistic society - a free market society that they so irrationally despise. Go figure! It was wonderful to read about an intellectual journey that was not bound by hackneyed shibboleths or petty political demons. Great book!