A friend of mine and I have been reading Antony Flew’s new book THERE IS A GOD. Flew had been the English-speaking world’s most prominent atheist until Richard Dawkins assumed that role. A few years ago, Flew announced his conversion to theism (though not full-blown Christianity). This caused a stir at the time, but true to their materialist bias, the academy and media quickly fluffed it off (“poor Antony — he’s just getting old and a bit soft in the head”). As the following excerpts (that my friend collected) attest, Flew knew exactly what he was doing in rejecting his lifelong commitment to atheism. Also, a refreshing feature of the book is Flew’s evident grace, good will, and sensitivity — the contrast with the boorishness of neo-atheists like Dawkins-Hitchens-Harris is stark.
>From p. 79 ff:
“For Dawkins, the main means for producing human behavior is to
attribute to genes characteristics that can significantly be
attributed only to humans. Then, after insisting that we are all the
choiceless creatures of our genes, he infers that we cannot help but
share the unlovely personal characteristics of those all-controlling
monads.“Genes, of course, can be neither selfish nor unselfish any more than
they or any other nonconscious entities can engage in competition or
make selections. (Natural selection is, notoriously, not selection;
and it is a somewhat less familiar logical fact that, below the human
level, the struggle for existence is not “competetive” in the true
sense of the word.) But this did not stop Dawkins from proclaiming
that his book ‘is not science fiction; it is science …. We are
survival machines — robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the
selfish molecules known as genes.’ Although he later issued occasional
disavowals, Dawkins gave no warning in his book against taking him
literally. He added, sensationally, that ‘the argument of this book
is that we, and all other animals, are machines created by our genes’“If any of this were true, it would be no use to go on, as Dawkins
does, to preach: ‘Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because
we are born selfish.’ No eloquence can move programmed robots. But in
fact none of it is true — or even faintly sensible. Genes, as we have
seen, do not and cannot necessitate our conduct. Nor are they capable
of the calculation and understanding required to plot a course of
either ruthless selfishness or sacrificial compassion.”>From p. 85 ff:
“Let us begin with a parable. Imagine that a satellie phone is washed
ashore on a remote island inhabited by a tribe that has never had
contact with modern civilization. The natives play with the numbers on
the dial pad and hear different voices upon hitting certain sequences.
They assume first that it’s the device that makes these noises. Some
of the cleverer natives, the scientists of the tribe, assemble an
exact replica and hit the numbers again. They hear the voices again.
The conclusion seems obvious to them. This particular combination of
crystals and metals and chemicals produces what seems like human
voices, and this means that the voices are simply properties of this
device.“But the tribal sage summons the scientists for a discussion. He has
thought long and hard on the matter and has reached the following
conclusion: the voices coming through the instrument must be coming
from people like themselves, people who are living and conscious
although speaking in another language. Instead of assuming that the
voices are simply properties of the handset, they should investigate
the possibility that through some mysterious communication network
they are ‘in touch’ with other humans. Perhaps further study along
these lines could lead to a greater understanding of the world beyond
their island. But the scientists simply laugh at the sage and say,
‘Look, when we damage the instrument, the voices stop coming. So
they’re obviously nothing more than sounds produced by a unique
combinatino of lithium and printed circuit boards and light-emitting
diodes.“In this parable we see how easy it is to let preconceived theories
shape the way we view evidence instead of letting the evidence shape
our theories…. And in this, it seems to me, lies the peculiar
danger, the endemic evil, of dogmatic atheism. Take such utterances as
‘We should not ask for an explanation of how it is that the world
exists; it is here and that’s all’ or “Since we cannot accept a
transcendent source of life, we choose to believe the impossible: that
life arose spontaneously by chance from matter’ or ‘The laws of
physics are “lawless laws” that arise from the void — end of
discussion.’ They look at first sight like rational arguments that
have a special authority because they have a no-nonsense air about
them. Of course, this is no more sign that they are either rational or
arguments….“… I therefore put to my former fellow-atheists the simple central
question: ‘What would have to occur or to have occurred to constitute
for you a reason to at least consider the existence of a superior
Mind?Moving on now from the parable, it’s time for me to lay my cards on
the table, to set out my own views and the reasons that support them.
I now believe that the universe was brought into existence by an
infinite Intelligence. I believe that this universe’s intricate laws
manifest what scientists have called the Mind of God. I believe that
life and reproduction originate in a divine Source.Why do I believe this, given that I expounded and defended atheism for
more than half a century? The short answer is this: this is the world
picture, as I see it, that has emerged from modern science. Science
spotlights three dimensions that point to God. The first is the fact
that nature obeys laws. The second is the dimension of life, of
intelligently organized and purpose-driven beings, which arose from
matter. The third is the very existence of nature. But it is not this
alone that has guided me. I have also been helped by a renewed study
of the classical philosophical arguments.”