Photo: Antony Flew
Antony Flew was a British philosopher and a famous atheist who became a believer in God a few years before his death.
Flew was a promoter of atheism. While attending classes at Oxford, Flew participated in the meetings of the Socratic Club, the club where C. S. Lewis and a group of students came together to discuss “the intellectual difficulties connected with religion and with Christianity.”
It was in one of the meetings of the Socratic Club that Flew presented a paper, “Theology and Falsification,” in which he argued that claims about the existence of God cannot be tested for truth or falsehood.
Flew’s argument in “Theology and Falsification” was that the existence of God could not be proven until evidence for God’s existence could be found.
A few years before he died, Antony Flew found the evidence he was looking for. In 2008 Flew wrote a book, There Is a God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind, acknowledging that he had moved from atheism to theism.
In a statement about his journey to theism, Flew said that his conversion was the result of his “growing empathy with the insight of Einstein and other noted scientists that there had to be an Intelligence behind the integrated complexity of the physical Universe” and “my own insight that the integrated complexity of life itself – which is far more complex than the physical Universe – can only be explained in terms of an Intelligent Source.”
Although Flew never became a Christian, his affirmation that there is a God and the reasons he offered to believe in an Intelligent Source should force Christians to pause and consider the arguments he presented for the existence of God.
According to Flew, three things convinced him of the existence of an Intelligent Source: the origin of life, the Big Bang Theory, and the laws of nature. If you have never heard of Antony Flew or if you have never read There Is a God, I encourage you to read these posts about a man’s journey from atheism to God.
Studies on Antony Flew
1. Antony Flew: There Is A God
2. From Atheism to Theism: A Journey Toward God
3. The Origin of Life and the Existence of God
4. The Big Bang Theory and the Existence of God
5. The Laws of Nature and the Existence of God
6. There Is a God: A Postscript
7. Betting on the Existence of God
9. An Interview with Antony Flew
Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary
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Dr. Claude Mariottini - Professor of Old Testament 