Antony G.N. Flew, recipient of the Schlarbaum Prize in 2001 (his prize address), sparked a news story with legs; Google news records 208 stories and counting. What’s in the news is his change on mind on the matter of theism vs. atheism, now favoring the former over the latter. What has not been noted in the stories, however, is that Flew is a dedicated political libertarian, a widely published critic of Rawlsian egalitarianism, an opponent of positivism in the social sciences, and a fierce defender of liberty against forced redistribution. (See his vita.) Is it too much too hope that these news stories will draw attention to his work on politics as well?
Probably, but just in case, here are some of his articles from the Mises Institute’s Journal of Libertarian Studies:
“Could There Be Universal Natural Rights?”
“Enforced Equality Or- Justice?”
“Human Choice and Historical Inevitability”
“Social Science: Making Visible the Invisible Hands”
“Socialism and Social Justice”
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Given how badly the press has bungled the story of Flew’s position shift in theology, one can only hope they completely ignore his other thoughts.
The overall quality of reporting on this issue has been abysmal.
regards,
Shirley Knott
I fully agree with Shirley. While a number of the articles I’ve seen so far provide relevant details of his actual “change of heart”, all of the headlines have implied that he has made a 180 degree change. Reading a little deeper, I quickly found that he has accepted the idea of intelligent design.
I, for one, am very interested in his forthcoming book. Whether one agrees or disagrees with his position is less important than the fact that any evidence or argument that could change his mind on this point is worthy of consideration. Perhaps just as interesting is the implied question of why he hasn’t changed his mind on other disputed points. I hope he addresses that.
Curiously, only five of those 200+ articles mention that Dr. Flew specifically rejects the notion of an afterlife, which is the only aspect of the question with any practical significance.
The problem with intelligent design, as I see it, is that it simply complicates the question further. If you attribute the origin of Man to God, then you now have to explain the origin of God, a task made much more difficult by the lack of any concrete knowledge of what God is. I’d be interested to see how Dr. Flew addresses this.
He can’t address it. It’s a question of “faith” ultimately. Nothing he said seems fundamentally different than the usual “intelligent design” arguments. He sees something complex (DNA) then concludes there must be an intelligence and power that created it. The problem is what is the meaning of this “creation”? How was it done? Who or what did the “reating”?
As you imply above, merely naming the problem does not solve it. We could simply say for anything we don’t understand “God did it”. In this way, societies such as very ancient Greece could believe that some sort of god hurls thunderbolts. How? and what? are the questions. “God” is not a scientific answer to this question. It is simply how? and what? given a name and personified.
Faith is a different matter. But Flew talks about “scientific evidence” which he doesn’t provide at all….
The existence of God can neither be proven nor disproven. Thus, creationism cannot be a science. No matter what one says about the arguments for anything, someone can always say “God did it”.
With all due respect David, your statement is correct if and only if ‘god’ is a well-defined term. Tragically, it is not.
Were one to define ‘god’ as ‘the odd sum of two evens’, one can disprove the existence.
The challenge is to find a definition of the term that does not do violence to the ‘standard [sic] usage’. I do not see this happening, nor do I see Flew’s latest efforts contributing in a positive fashion. Although I await the next publication of his book ‘God and Philosophy’, in which he promises an explanation for his shift.
regards,
Shirley Knott
I am not a creationist David, but try this sentence on for size.
That men act can neither be proven nor disproven. Thus, praxeology cannot be a science.
For what I have read about this, Mr. Flew did not (and I reiterate) DID NOT give his support to theism, but rather to DEISM, as in belief in a God that created the universe, winded it up and just let it go on its own. This means NO God looking over your shoulder to see if you behave, NO God to worship (or else!), nothing close to the Christian-Hebrew-Muslim bipolar God.
I concur with Mr. Tucker: one should put more attention on Mr. Flew’s libertarian views and his works on freedom and philosophy.
Sag,
I agree with regards to the difficulty of defining god. I simply assume the standard omnipotent omniscient god.
Pete,
Regarding your statement
This is not true, since writing such a thing is itself an action. One cannot deny that men act, because the denial of the action axiom would be self-contradictory. Thus, praxeology is in fact a science, though a different one than the natural sciences.
With regards to God, it is not self-contradictory to say that no god exists, nor vica-versa. Thus, the existence or non-existence of god cannot be proven deductively (as praxeology seeks to prove or disprove things). Certainly, it is impossible to disprove the existence of God by observation, because anyone can say “God made that happen”.
I suppose, however, that my above statement is not quite correct. It is certainly possible that it could be proven observationally that God exists. If a giant face appeared in the sky and made every person in the world levitate 10 feet in the air, I’d say that observation proves the existence of God.
Is writing an action, or simply the result of chemical reactions that we do not understand? I am not saying this is true, but the action axiom is no more provable than the fact god exists.
From my reading of Theory and History I doubt Mises would disagree.
And David, please note that if omniscience and omnipotence can be shown to be incompatible, ie, no entity can posses both, then god in your sense can indeed be disproved.
But, of course, we have nearly the same difficulty with ‘omniscience’ and ‘omnipotence’ that we do with ‘god’.
Whether a statement (judgement) can be proven or disproven really does lie on the question of whether the statement is meaningful in a fully qualified fashion.
It is intellectually dishonest, and lazy, to assert otherwise.
regards,
Shirley Knott
For the purposes of praxeology and the praxeological consideration of action, it really doesn’t matter if we actually can choose, or if its all pre-determined chemical reactions.
“For the purposes of praxeology and the praxeological consideration of action, it really doesn’t matter if we actually can choose, or if its all pre-determined chemical reactions.”
This makes sense to me. Action is going to be action no matter what the impetus is…
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