Open-Minded Atheists?

(This is another item from the backlog in my Drafts folder. I think I wrote it in 2005 or 2006. This all seems moot since Flew has now passed away, but I'm posting it here for what it is worth.)


I was recently made aware of the following article:

Douglas LeBlanc, "Atheists and Theists Analyze Antony Flew’s Newfound Deism" Christian Research Journal, volume 28, number 3 (2005), http://www.equip.org/free/JAF175.htm

What I find interesting about this article is not the opinions expressed regarding Flew's conversion from agnosticism to Deism, but what appear to be implied pot shots by Gary Habermas and Douglas Geivett against (some?) atheists.

For example, in commenting on Flew conversion, Habermas stated, "“Here’s a guy who may be more open-minded than I thought,” Habermas said. “I think over the years we haven’t taken him at his word when he says he goes where the evidence leads.” It is unclear why Habermas did not take previously take Flew at his word. One potential explanation worries me. Habermas's remark reminds me of a belief held by many theists (not necessarily Habermas), that nonbelief is never rational but instead the result of a willful choice to suppress the truth of theism in order to justify an immoral lifestyle.

Turning to Doug Geivett, Geivett quoted Richard Carrier's article on Flew's conversion from nontheism to Deism, in which Carrier wrote:

This would appear to be his excuse for everything: he won’t investigate the evidence because it’s too hard. Yet he will declare beliefs in the absence of proper inquiry. Theists would do well to drop the example of Flew. Because his willfully sloppy scholarship can only help to make belief look ridiculous.

Before I comment on Geivett's remarks, I first need to mention a potential area of disagreement between Carrier and I: I don't necessarily agree with the last sentence in the above quotation. If Flew's scholarship was "willfully sloppy," at most that damages Flew's credibility, not the credibility of supernatural belief in general. Turning to Geivett, Geivett said that Carrier seemed concerned that Flew’s new beliefs “would disturb people’s faith that God does not exist.” Also, in another apparent (?) reference to Carrier, Geivett wrote, "I regret the churlish attitude of some who are scandalized by his intellectual honesty and his cautiously nuanced position.”

While I do not speak for Carrier, I highly doubt that he was "scandalized" by Flew's change in position. Just as Geivett correctly notes that the evidential strength of the case for Christianity "does not depend on the conversion of a notable" nontheist, the evidential strength of the case for naturalism is not undermined by the conversion of a nontheist, even a notable nontheist.

Also, LeBlanc's article does not contain any discussion about Flew's own admissions that he failed to research specific pieces of evidence. For example, regarding the origin of life, Carrier quoted Flew as stating:

I now realize that I have made a fool of myself by believing that there were no presentable theories of the development of inanimate matter up to the first living creature capable of reproduction.

There is also no reference to Flew's admission that he was "mistaught by Gerald Schroeder," regarding the alleged theistic implications of physics. In terms of the reported reasons for Flew's newfound Deism, these seem to be significant reversals. After all, according to the transcript of Habermas's interview of Flew, Flew summarized his following reasons for embracing Deism.

• "The biblical account might be scientifically accurate raises the possibility that it is revelation," based upon the writings of Gerald Schroeder.
• Flew also thinks "the argument to Intelligent Design is enormously stronger than it was when I first met it. " He has "never been much impressed by the kalam cosmological argument," and he doesn't "think it has gotten any stronger recently." But he is apparently impressed with other arguments for intelligent design, based upon big bang cosmology and fine tuning.
• It's not clear to me if Flew considers this evidence for Deism or just evidence favoring the existence of disembodied minds, but Flew has become convinced that evidence of near death experiences "certainly constitute impressive evidence for the possibility of the occurrence of human consciousness independent of any occurrences in the human brain."

So it appears Flew has come to reject two of his three stated reasons for embracing Deism.

In conclusion: Habermas admission that he did not previously take Flew at his word is troubling. Geivett's (apparent?) comments about Carrier go too far. And LeBlanc's article does not acknowledge Flew's reversal on his two of his major reasons for switching from nontheism to Deism. Nevertheless, I do agree with Geivett that Flew should be "given the space he needs to draw his own conclusions and report them on his own terms.”

Also, to repeat what I wrote in a related article about Flew, nothing I have written is any way meant to deny the fact that Flew apparently moved from naturalism to supernaturalism (i.e., deism). All I have claimed is that it appears that, as of 2005 or 2006, Flew apparently came to reject two of his three stated reasons for embracing Deism.

Is Antony Flew a Former Agnostic or Former Atheist?

(This is another item from my drafts folder that was never published. I think I wrote this in early 2006. I have fixed/added some links and made some edits.)

The journal Philosophia Christi and perhaps, by extension, Biola University, have made a big deal of Antony Flew's conversion from atheism to theism in the article, "Atheist Becomes Theist." See:

http://www.biola.edu/antonyflew/

When Flew did call himself an atheist, he made it very clear that he always considered himself a so-called 'negative' atheist. In his terminology, he lacked belief in God, but he never held the positive belief that God does not exist. In this sense, Flew's "presumption of atheism" could be renamed the "presumption of agnosticism" (as at least one Christian apologist has pointed out).  Furthermore, to the best of my knowledge, Flew never accepted any of the arguments for the nonexistence of God. (If anyone knows of any evidence to the contrary, please let me know and I will accordingly issue an update to this post.)

Why does this matter? Because many theists, including several of the Christian philosophers associated with Philosophia Christi (Craig [see here], Moreland, Geivett, Copan [see here], et al) have always criticized this definition of atheism as revisionist. Whenever someone would say in a debate that atheism is merely the lack of theistic belief, the Philosophia Christi philosophers would say that atheism is properly defined as what Flew called 'positive' atheism, viz, the belief that God does not exist. According to these philosophers, individuals who are merely 'negative' atheists are not atheists at all.

So it seems there is tension here, if not an outright contradiction, between what some Christian philosophers have typically said about the definition of atheism, and their attribution of atheism to Antony Flew.
Either Flew was an atheist and so-called 'negative' atheism is a form of atheism after all, or atheism must be defined as the positive belief that there is no God and hence Flew was never an atheist (in that sense) and hence theists should not refer to Flew as a former atheist.

In order to avoid any misunderstandings, I want to emphasize a couple of points. First, I am not objecting to the Philosophia Christi philosophers' insistence that atheism be defined as the positive belief there is no God. In fact, I pretty much agree with them. Second, regardless of how we label Flew's pre-Deism position (e.g., 'atheist', 'negative atheist', or agnostic), nothing I have written is any way meant to deny the fact that Flew apparently moved from naturalism to supernaturalism (i.e., deism). All I have claimed is that there seems to be a tension between how certain Christian philosophers have defined atheism, on the one hand, and how they have labeled Flew's beliefs prior to his conversion to deism.

Who is the Most Prominent Atheist?

[This post was originally published on The Secular Outpost on July 4, 2006. It was republished here on November 7, 2021 with the date manually adjusted to reflect its original publication date.]

Philosopher Doug Krueger once made the interesting observation that whenever theists want to boast about their alleged successes in debates with atheists, theists always describe their opponents as "best-known," "foremost," the "most famous," or the "most prominent." For example:

• The blurb for the book on the second Habermas-Flew debate describes Antony Flew as "the world's best-known philosophical atheist."
• The back cover of the Moreland-Neilsen debate book describes Kai Nielsen as "one of today's best-known atheist philosophers."

If I were to generalize a bit, it appears there is interest in answering the following questions:

• For any purported atheist, is the individual recognized as an atheist by other atheists?
• Who is the most prominent atheist philosopher (living or deceased)?
• Who is the most prominent living atheist philosopher?
• Who is the "best" atheist debater?
• Who has the strongest arguments for atheism?
• Which atheist has the best rebuttals to theistic arguments?
• For any given atheist, are their arguments for atheism representative of what you consider to be the best arguments for atheism?

This got me thinking about an idea. Anyone who is a sports fan is familiar with various polls that rank teams and players in different sports, such as ESPN's NFL Power Rankings, the National Football League's Pro Bowl, the AP College Football Poll, the Major League Baseball All-Star Game, and so forth. You get the idea. It would be interesting (and potentially useful) if atheist philosophers, debaters, and activists were to do their own poll or ranking of fellow atheists, similar to the polls and rankings we see in the sports world. (This could be potentially useful to both sides, insofar as it might help address a situation where Christian debaters select a particular atheist as their debate opponent, claim that the atheist is a better spokesperson for atheism than he or she is, and then other atheists are disappointed in the selection of the atheist spokesperson.) Of course, this idea raises all sorts of logistical questions, such as what exactly would be voted on, who gets to vote, when would the vote occur (i.e., how often), how will the votes be counted, and so forth. But if this idea were perceived as useful, I'm sure that these issues could be figured out.

What do you think? Would the idea of "ranking" atheist philosophers, debaters, or activists be useful?