Flew's There is a God / Oppenheimer NYT Review

books:


	• There Is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind Antony Flew, Roy Abraham Varghese HarperOne, 2007 - 222 pages average customer review:based on 58 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

READ THE BOOK

Call me old-fashioned, but I thought the POINT of reviewing books--even books on Amazon--was to review the actual book that one has actually READ. It seems now that it has become a place to "spike" books that you haven't read, and don't want others to read.

Unlike other pseudo-reviewers, I've actually read Flew's There is a God (and interviewed Flew as well). Anyone who has actually read it--and I wonder if Mark Oppenheimer did, given the inattention to the substance of the book in his infamous NYT piece--understands that it is a terse description of Flew's long, drawn out intellectual journey toward God--a journey of two decades. Twenty years; not twenty minutes or twenty days. Flew wasn't struck by God on his way to Damascus like St. Paul; he was slowly, ever so slowly brought to intellectual assent to a Deism (about the thinnest belief in God one can have).

Thus, the entire focus of a reader of Flew's There is a God SHOULD be on the list of books Flew cites as definitive in the slow changing of his mind, not on niggling debates about the slowness of Flew's mind at this precise point.

Roy Varghese (his co-author) has been with him for a good part of that journey (as have other believers), and was instrumental in helping Flew gather together his twenty year sojourn to God. IF there were some kind of a Christian conspiracy to use Flew as a mouthpiece, certainly Varghese et al would have made Flew's "conversion" far more exciting, and even more, would have him become a card-carrying Christian rather than, as he adamantly maintains, a Deist (not even a Theist!--Flew corrected me on this point in an interview with him). To read Varghese's full response to Oppenheimer, see http://www.tothesource.org/11_6_2007/11_6_2007.htm

In regard to Varghese's The Wonder of the World (one of the books that helped convince Flew of the scientific case for an intelligent Creator God), Oppenheimer characterizes it as scientific hack work. Interesting! Why does it also come recommended by TWO Nobel Prize Winners (Charles Townes, inventor of the laser; and Arno Penzias, who co-discovered Cosmic Microwave Bacground Radiation), and also physicist (and non-believer) Robert Jastrow? Are they also senile? Come on, folks!

As even Oppenheimer admits, the kind of arguments that Flew cites as demonstrating that the latest science leads (at least) to Deism, are those used by a whole host of other eminent scientists and philosophers. Is Paul Davies senile?

The simple truth is that there are all too many who don't want the scientific and philosophic arguments that convinced Flew of God's existence to receive any recognition. They will do anything to stop others from reading Flew's book. Perhaps they should read it themselves?

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The Senile Atheist?

Atheist's attack Anthony Flew as senile and manipulated, but the unsenile message his name presents is clear and convincing. Is Varghese the mind organizing Flew's amazing book? That may be a rational and true conclusion. His name as ghost writer is clearly stated on the cover.

The remaining question however, is who is the Mind behind all minds; the Purpose behind all purposeful life; the Originator of the magic code behind the genetic self-reproduction that makes natural selection possible?

Read this book quickly before Alzheimer's or virulent atheism attacks and destroys your mind too. After reading with pleasure this great book, I slipped into rhyme:

"Poor Richard Dawkins,
Christopher Hitchens too,
Sam Harris is weeping
Because Antony Flew."

(John Byron Hoehn)

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the Book the Chair and the review

Firstly.. i wanted to say.. the BOOK is amazing and has shed light on things i have wanted to have answers for, all along.
Excelent!!!
secondly.
i am not a scientist nor do i have any degree in which you all would look twice at me with any consideration. I say this because it appears none of you (reviewers) listen to any one who has not already been indoctrinated in such a way that you respect.
BUT , can you listen to common sense? In this book.. we are being asked to SIT in a chair. Some would argue that the CHAIR Isn't a chair.. or maybe that the CHAIR isn't stable enough for you or some one else. BUT instead.. we spend lots of time discussing and arguing over WHO made the Chair.. or if the chair was planned and designed by ONE man.. and then the work executed by another. IE: FLEW did or DIDN'T write the book.. design the chair or Didn't do the actual work of the chair himself. My point.. stop attacking the persons name on the book.. and flinging this dirt and that dirt at whomever gets you the most attention.. how bout just sitting IN THAT CHAIR and find out if the chair IS what its says it is.. stable.. comfortable.. ABLE to hold you.. or HOLD the person who created it. Make no mistake.. my parable is not one of WHO MADE THE CHAIR.. GOD or man.. its simply WHO wrote the book/ Designed the Chair FLEW or another? It's as if you made an ART of attacking the persons character or persons means.. with out actually taking into account the persons or other persons thoughts and letting THOSE challenge you. with out names.. let the work stand on its own.. and therefore..let your opinions stand with that and that alone.
from some guy with out any hype or degree.. hoping maybe i made some sense.
DO i believe in GOD.. yes.. do i believe as he does? no.. likely not.. do i believe like most religious? nope.. should I? thats my personal choice.. no one elses.. just like Flew.
RJ

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Brilliant!

I had the privilege of serving as the Literary Agent for this project and can vouch for the veracity of it's composition and it's content. It is a marvelous book showing a brilliant mind "following the evidence."

I highly recommend you read the book for yourself and wrestle with the substance of its arguments. Be aware that Flew could now be described as a deist, not a theist, lest there be any misunderstanding of his conclusions.

The NT Times Magazine article referenced in other reviews could be categorized as an ad hominem argument (defined as "appealing to feelings or prejudices rather than intellect, or attacking character and not content"). In an attempt to find a "story behind the story" the article sidesteps the actual story itself, which is that Antony Flew, a brilliant atheistic philosopher, has changed his mind about the existence of God.

Here is Antony Flew's response to the claim, made in the NY Times magazine article, that he did not write the book (from a statement issued by the publisher's office 11/7/2007):

"My name is on the book and it represents exactly my opinions. I would not have a book issued in my name that I do not 100 percent agree with. I needed someone to do the actual writing because I'm 84 and that was Roy Varghese's role. The idea that someone manipulated me because I'm old is exactly wrong. I may be old but it is hard to manipulate me. This is my book and it represents my thinking."

Harper One deputy publisher Mark Tauber adds, "We stand behind this book. Roy Varghese took Tony's thoughts and put them in publishable form. This is not an unusual practice." Tauber adds, "Unfortunately, the NYT Magazine writer generalized from Flew's aphasia to senility--which is far from accurate. Additionally, the NYT writer completely skipped the philosophical content of the book, dismissing Tony's arguments for God's existence in one word, calling it 'pseudoscience' and so insulting both Tony and anyone persuaded that these arguments might be true."

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Flew's There is a God / Oppenheimer NYT Review

There now seems to be a great deal of controversy swirling around Antony Flew's new book to which I must respond, at least to some of it. With regard to Mark Oppenheimer's review of Antony Flew's new book There is a God, 4 November 2007 in The New York Times, I must make the following "brief" comments: (1) I have known Tony Flew and Roy Varghese now for over 22 years. I know them to be men of honor, integrity, and unquestionably fine character - quite apart from their "belief" systems! Believe me I know Tony Flew and he would not allow Roy to "speak for him, put words in his mouth." Roy would never attempt to do so! (2) I have several folders of letters from Tony written to me. He has written me many, many more times over the years than I have written him. He has phoned me from England, but I have never phoned him. I can tell you absolutely that there never was an attempt on the part of Evangelical philosophers to "circle the wagons" around Tony and try to "convert" him. Quite the contrary. If mutual friendships developed - and they did - it was out of admiration and respect - at least on the side of the Evangelicals. (3) As I relate in my forthcoming review of Tony's book in The Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, Tony wrote me in an unsolicited letter on 27 April 2004: "I have just finished rereading about the first one hundred pages of our book and find that I do not now disagree with much you said in those pages. I think we may well find that we reach very substantial agreement without needing extra time." (The book he refers to is: Miethe/Flew, Does God Exist? A Believer and an Atheist Debate, 1991.) This debate, of course, was a philosophical one centered on the existence of God. It did not discuss the evidence for Christianity. (4) Oppenheimer makes many assertions that are simply matters of his opinion that are not substantiated by fact. I certainly agree with David Neff who says: "Mark Oppenheimer raises questions galore without actually proving any of his points." (5) Oppenheimer commits a serious factual error when he says that Gary Habermas invited Tony to debate on the Resurrection. Habermas had nothing to do with the invitation to this debate. In fact, Habermas knew nothing about it before I challenged Tony in a Dallas restaurant to the debate in front of Gary and three of our graduate students. The entire story of how the debate came about is recounted in my "Introduction" to the new edition published in 2004 by Wipf and Stock Publishers. (6) If Oppenheimer thinks, as he says he does in The New York Times piece, that Tony's "greatest contribution remains his first" referring to the article "Theology and Falsification" it shows you how out of touch, behind the times he is as that piece was less than logically sound as I and many other philosophers have pointed out. (Miethe/Flew, Does God Exist (1991), 44-61. (7) Oppenheimer makes a very serious "intellectual" blunders when he says: "When Flew met Christians who claimed to have new, scientific proof of the existence of God, he quickly became again the young graduate student [emphasis added] ... when all his colleagues were committed to strict rationalism." Which is it? He is old and we can't trust his mind anymore. Or, he is "young" enough mentally that he can remember and feel what he did as a young academic. (8) Oppenheimer writes, with regard to his claim that Tony changed his mind to "believe" and then back again: "But, it seems somewhat more likely that Flew, having been intellectually chaperoned by Roy Varghese for 20 years, simply trusted him to write something responsible. Which is it: That in two years Flew's mind has gone. Or, that he trusted Roy who was unfaithful and unethical. I find both totally unacceptable. Furthermore, I find the second, the assault on Varghese's character reprehensible. (9) Oppenheimer also says, with regard to Tony's new found belief: "Or perhaps [it is] not so surprising, for Flew never considered himself a dogmatic atheist. Even when he traveled the world arguing against religious belief, he was never an angry polemicist;..." And, "... it becomes more understandable if [Flew] never hated religious belief the way many philosophers do and if he never hated religious people in the least." WOW! Does Oppenheimer realize what he is saying? Is "hate" appropriate for an individual who professes to be a "philosopher" as a modus operandi for his philosophy? I thought a philosopher claims to be arguing logically and rationally from valid information. Thank anyone; the heavens, the god of materialistic atheism; that Tony was never a "hateful" bigot! (Don't confuse me with the facts; my mind is already made up!) I think Oppenheimer admits more than he realized here, to his shame. Personally, I would much rather "engage" a person of Flew's genteel dispassion, as Oppenheimer admits, than one of the "haters" which he states is the attitude of "many [atheist] philosophers." Though, I must admit that I have debated some of those bigots as well!

-- Terry L. Miethe, Ph.D., Ph.D., D.Phil. (Cand. Oxon.)

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reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, page 10, 11, 12

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