Antony Flew facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Antony Flew
Born	Antony Garrard Newton Flew (1923-02-11)11 February 1923 London, England
Died	8 April 2010(2010-04-08) (aged 87) Reading, Berkshire, England
Alma mater	SOAS, University of London St John's College, Oxford
Era	20th-century philosophy
Region	Western philosophy
School	Analytic Evidentialism Libertarianism
Academic advisors	Gilbert Ryle
Main interests	Philosophy of religion
Notable ideas	No true Scotsman Presumption of atheism Negative and positive atheism Subject/motive shift
Influences David Hume, Richard Swinburne

Antony Garrard Newton Flew (born February 11, 1923 – died April 8, 2010) was an English philosopher. He was known for his work in the philosophy of religion. Flew taught philosophy at several universities in the United Kingdom and Canada. These included Oxford, Aberdeen, Keele, Reading, and York University.

For most of his life, Flew was a strong supporter of atheism. He believed that people should assume there is no God until there is clear proof. He also questioned ideas like life after death and the meaning of the concept of God. In 2003, he signed the Humanist Manifesto III. He also came up with the idea of the No true Scotsman fallacy.

However, in 2004, Flew changed his mind. He announced that he now believed in an intelligent designer of the universe. This surprised many of his friends and fellow atheists. Flew explained that he had become a Deist. This means he believed in a God who created the universe but does not interfere with it. He said he was following the evidence, which led him to this new belief.

In 2007, Flew wrote a book called There is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind. He wrote it with Roy Abraham Varghese. The book caused some debate. Some people claimed Flew's health was declining and that Varghese wrote most of the book. Flew denied this, saying the book truly showed his views. He did admit that Varghese helped a lot with the writing because of his age.

Antony Flew: A Philosopher's Journey

Antony Flew was born in London. His father was a Methodist minister and theologian. Flew went to school in Cambridge and Bath. He reportedly decided there was no God by the age of 15. During World War II, he studied Japanese and worked as an intelligence officer for the Royal Air Force. He was even posted to Bletchley Park, a secret code-breaking center.

After the war, Flew earned a top degree from St John's College, Oxford. He also won a scholarship for philosophy. He studied with Gilbert Ryle, a famous philosopher. Flew had an early debate about "backward causation" in 1954. This was an important moment in his career.

Flew taught philosophy at various universities for many years. He was a lecturer at Christ Church, Oxford and the University of Aberdeen. He became a professor at the University of Keele and later at the University of Reading. While at Reading, he developed his famous "No true Scotsman" fallacy. After retiring, he worked part-time at York University in Canada.

Politically, Flew was a right-wing libertarian and conservative. He wrote articles for The Journal of Libertarian Studies. He was interested in opposing the idea of social justice. This is the idea that wealth should be shared equally among people. Flew believed social justice could lead to government control. He thought it went against the traditional idea of justice. His later books, like Politics of Procrustes, focused on this topic.

As a student, Flew often attended meetings of C. S. Lewis's Socratic Club. He found Lewis to be a very reasonable person and a strong Christian speaker. However, Flew was not convinced by Lewis's arguments for God's existence. He also questioned other philosophical arguments for God. He felt that only scientific arguments, like the teleological argument, were truly convincing.

Flew also wrote an article called Theology and Falsification. In it, he argued that claims about God could not be proven false. This meant they couldn't be tested for truth. He also disagreed with the idea of life after death. In 1998, he debated Christian philosopher William Lane Craig about God's existence.

Antony Flew got married in 1952 and had two daughters. He passed away on April 8, 2010, in Reading, England. He had been suffering from dementia.

Atheism and Deism: A Change of Mind

The Presumption of Atheism

One of Antony Flew's most important works was his 1976 book, The Presumption of Atheism. In this book, Flew suggested that when thinking about God's existence, we should start by assuming there is no God. This assumption should stand until there is clear scientific proof for God. He also questioned the idea of life after death and the meaning of the concept of God.

Flew's idea of "presuming atheism" became very popular. Many atheists today use this idea. They say that atheism is the "default position." This means that those who believe in God have the "burden of proof" to show that God exists.

Revised Views

Conversion to Deism

Starting in 2001, there were rumors that Flew had stopped being an atheist and had become a Deist. Flew denied these rumors at first.

In 2004, Flew talked with his friend and fellow philosopher, Gary Habermas. Flew told Habermas he was thinking about believing in God. He said that new scientific discoveries were making him rethink his position. He described his view as atheism with "several huge question marks."

In a December 2004 interview, Flew, then 81, confirmed he had become a Deist. He said that the strongest arguments for God's existence came from recent science. He felt that the argument for Intelligent Design was much stronger than before. Intelligent design suggests that the universe and life are too complex to have happened by chance. They must have been designed by an intelligent being. Flew supported the idea of an Aristotelian God. This is a God with power and intelligence. He did not believe in life after death. He also did not believe God was the source of all good. He said God had created "a lot of" evil. He also did not believe in the resurrection of Jesus as a historical fact.

Flew was very critical of Islam. He called it the "uniting and justifying ideology of Arab imperialism." In a 2004 interview, he said the Christian God and the God of Islam were like "omnipotent Oriental despots, cosmic Saddam Husseins."

Restatement of Position

In 2005, Flew published a new edition of his book God and Philosophy. In the introduction, he discussed new ideas that had come up since the original book in 1966. These ideas included:

• New definitions of God.
• Arguments for the Christian God.
• Changes in the Church of England's beliefs about Hell.
• Questions about the Big Bang and the start of time.
• The idea of multiple universes.
• The fine-tuning argument (that the universe seems perfectly set up for life).
• Questions about how living things developed from non-living matter.
• The idea of an Intelligent Orderer.
• An expanded idea of an Aristotelian/Deist God.

In a March 2005 interview, Flew said the fine-tuning argument didn't prove anything on its own. But he felt it could support the belief in a creating God for those who already believed. He also said there had been progress in understanding how DNA might have started naturally. However, he confirmed his Deism. He repeated that his God was not the God of any specific religion.

A month later, Flew told Christianity Today that he was not becoming a Christian. He again said he was a Deist. He explained that he always followed the evidence, no matter where it led.

In 2006, Flew joined other academics. They asked the British government to teach intelligent design in schools. In a 2007 interview, Flew again said his Deism came from his belief that an intelligence must be behind the complex universe and life itself. He repeated that he was not a Christian.

Awards and Recognition

Antony Flew received several awards for his work. He was given the Schlarbaum Prize in 2001. This award recognized his achievements in promoting liberty. He also received the "Phillip E. Johnson Award for Liberty and Truth" in 2006. This award honored his commitment to open thinking and free expression. Flew said he appreciated the award, especially after getting criticism for changing his views.

He was also an honorary member of the New Zealand Association of Rationalists and Humanists. He was a fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. In 1985, he received the In Praise of Reason Award. This is the highest honor from the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. It recognized his contributions to using critical thinking and scientific evidence.

Works

• A New Approach to Psychical Research (1953)
• New Essays in Philosophical Theology (1955) editor with Alasdair MacIntyre
• Essays in Conceptual Analysis (1956)
• Hume's Philosophy of Belief (1961)
• Logic And Language (1961) editor
• God and Philosophy (1996)
• (1966) Second series
• Evolutionary Ethics (1967)
• An Introduction to Western Philosophy: Ideas and Argument from Plato to Sartre (1971)
• Body, Mind and Death (1973)
• Crime or Disease (1973)
• Thinking About Thinking (1975)
• Sociology, Equality and Education: Philosophical Essays in Defence of A Variety of Differences (1976)
• Thinking Straight (1977) ISBN: 978-0879750886
• A Dictionary of Philosophy (1979) editor, later edition with Stephen Priest
• Philosophy, an Introduction (1979)
• Libertarians versus Egalitarians (c. 1980) pamphlet
• The Politics of Procrustes: contradictions of enforced equality (1981)
• Darwinian Evolution (1984)
• Examination not Attempted in Right Ahead, newspaper of the Conservative Monday Club, Conservative Party Conference edition, October 1985
• God: A Critical Inquiry (1986) – reprint of God and Philosophy (1966) with new introduction
• David Hume: Philosopher of Moral Science (1986) Oxford: Basil Blackwell
• Agency and Necessity (1987) series = Great Debates in Philosophy id=with Godfrey Norman Agmondis Vesey
• Did Jesus Rise From the Dead? The Resurrection Debate (1987) with Gary Habermas
• Power to the Parents: Reversing Educational Decline (1987)
• The Logic of Mortality (1987)
• Readings in the Philosophical Problems of Parapsychology (1987) editor
• God, A Critical Inquiry (1988)
• Does God Exist?: A Believer and an Atheist Debate (1991) with Terry L. Miethe
• A Future for Anti-Racism? (Social Affairs Unit 1992) pamphlet
• Thinking About Social Thinking (1995)
• Philosophical Essays (1998) edited by John Shosky
• Merely Mortal? (2000)
• Equality in Liberty and Justice (2001) Transaction Publishers
• Does God Exist: The Craig-Flew Debate (2003) with William Lane Craig ISBN: 978-0754631903
• Social Life and Moral Judgment (2003)
• God and Philosophy (2005) – another reprint of God and Philosophy (1966) with another new introduction
• There is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind (2007) with Roy Abraham Varghese ISBN: 978-0061335297
• Encyclopedia article (2008). The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage; Cato Institute. 228–229. 
• Encyclopedia article (2008). "{{{title}}}". The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage; Cato Institute. 331–332. 

See Also

In Spanish: Antony Flew para niños