Christian Ethics Today

There Is A God: How The World`s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind

Book Reviewed by John Scott1,
Dallas, TX

There Is A God: How The World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind
Antony Flew, with Roy Abraham Varghese,
New York: HarperOne, 2007. $25

Many atheists have changed their  minds, but none have attracted  as much media attention as Antony  Flew. That’s because he had been the  world’s intellectual champion for atheism for more than fifty years. He wrote  over thirty philosophical works, some  christian ethics today    winter 008     of which are considered classics by  atheists. Then, in 2004, he made the  surprise announcement that he now  believes in God. His new book, There  is a God, explains why he disagrees  with his former self.

Part I of the book, “My Denial of  the Divine,” tells how Flew became  an atheist despite growing up in a  good Christian home as the son of a  Methodist preacher. And he continued to be an atheist notwithstanding  his association at Oxford with C. S.  Lewis, the former atheist who had  become a Christian apologist.

Part II, “My Discovery of the  Divine,” explains how science and  reason finally compelled Flew to  believe in God. In one of Flew’s earlier  works he took the position that those  who say God exists have the burden of  proof. Flew has not changed his mind  on that point. But now he believes  that burden has been met. He calls the  evidence “compelling and irrefutable.”  Based in part on recent DNA research  he says, “The only satisfactory explanation for the origin of ‘end-directed,  self-replicating’ life as we see on earth,  is an infinitely intelligent Mind.” And  he finally concedes that a Divine Mind  is “the only viable explanation” for the  origin of the laws of nature.

Flew does not personally disparage  any of the currently popular atheists.  But he does undercut their credibility  by pointing out various misstatements  in their books. I’ll cite just one example.  Richard Dawkins is generally regarded  as the world’s leading atheist now that  Flew has relinquished that “honor.” In  his best selling book The God Delusion Dawkins takes several pages to convince his readers that Einstein was  an atheist. Flew refutes Dawkins in a  rather straightforward way—he uses  an exact quote by Einstein that begins:  “I’m not an atheist.”

Is Flew Really the Author?

An article in the New York Times magazine, written as if it were an  exposé, “revealed” that a friend of  Flew did most of the actual writing on  this book. 2 His name is Roy Abraham  Varghese. That hardly qualifies as  investigative journalism. The cover of  Flew’s book plainly shows it was written “with Roy Abraham Varghese.”  And the practice of getting help with  the writing of a book is extremely  common. Walk into any bookstore  and see how many autobiographies  are written “with” another writer.

In any event, Flew shot back this  response: “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.”3

The credibility of Flew’s response is  enhanced by his reputation for integrity, which is as solid as a blacksmith’s  anvil. Not even Christian scholars  questioned that when Flew was an  atheist.

Even before the New York Times magazine article was written, the following facts were well known and  undisputed: The world’s leading atheist  had changed his mind and announced  his belief in God. He made that  announcement himself, in person and  in public. No one made it for him. He  did it at a symposium that was videotaped at New York University, and he  granted several interviews afterwards  in which he discussed his reasons.  Those are the same reasons explained  in his book. So there has never been  any doubt that the thinking reflected  in the book came from the mind of  Antony Flew.

Flew’s Position on Religion

C. S. Lewis stopped being an atheist before he became a Christian. That’s  where Flew is now. He accepts the  existence of God, but is still pondering religious claims based on “divine  revelation.” And he says, “I think that  the Christian religion is the one religion that most clearly deserves to be  honored and respected . . . .” But Flew  still has questions. So he asked Bishop  N. T. Wright to address those questions in an appendix. (Bishop Wright  is the author of the highly acclaimed  740-page book, The Resurrection of the  Son of God.) The questions are: How  do we know that Jesus existed? What  grounds are there for claiming, from  the texts, that Jesus is God Incarnate?  What evidence is there for the resurrection of Christ?

Following the Bishop’s responses to  those questions, Flew wrote: “I am very  much impressed with Bishop Wright’s  approach, which is absolutely fresh.  He presents the case for Christianity  as something new for the first time.” In my opinion, the appendix by  Bishop Wright is worth the price of  the book.

A Qualified Recommendation of the Book

Over the past 50 years I have read  hundreds of essays, articles and books  on both sides of the God debate. Most  arguments for God’s existence can be  loosely divided into two broad categories: those based on scientific observation and those based on personal  experience. After Francis Bacon formulated the scientific method, he said  the best proof is still “personal experience.” The path of science may lead  to belief in a Creator, but the path of  experience to faith in a Savior.

I would put Flew’s book on the  “must read” list in the first category— books that purport to prove the existence of a Creator through science and  reason. However, I will not pretend  that I understood all of it. I very much  enjoyed those parts I did understand.  But there is much in the book outside  my body of knowledge. I am among  the more than ninety-nine percent  of the people on this planet who are  not experts in physics, geology, chemistry, biology and astronomy. I know  very little about DNA, which played  a major role in Flew’s thinking. And  I don’t have sufficient time to read,  study, understand, verify, analyze,  and draw confident conclusions from  the massive volumes of complex data  relied on by scientists who take conflicting positions in the God debate.

I’m glad to know that many of  the world’s most esteemed scientists  believe in God. 4  At least that proves  a superior knowledge of science is not  a barrier to faith. But my own faith is  the result of experience gained from a  personal “act as if ” experiment.5  C. S. Lewis said that’s what faith is, “really  finding out by experience that it is  true.”6 The famous doctor, psychologist, philosopher, and Harvard professor William James observed many  years ago that our most important  beliefs are acquired that way—by acting as if something is true before we  really know it is. Of course we didn’t  need William James to tell us that. We  all say, “Experience is the best teacher,” and “There is no substitute for  experience.”

Two essential parts of an experiment in faith are to pray and to practice charity. So far as we know, Antony  Flew may be engaged in that kind  of experiment right now. If he is, we  wouldn’t necessarily know about it.  He may be following the instructions  of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount:  to pray in secret and not to make a  show of charity (Mt 6:1-6). Let us  hope that is what Flew is up to. And  let us pray he will finally agree with  his old friend, C. S. Lewis.

1 Copyright 2007 John R. Scott. This review contains some material from a forthcoming book.
2 Mark Oppenheimer,  “The Turning of an Atheist,” New York Times, November 4, 2007.
3 As quoted by Steve Laube, the literary agent for the book, as found on the website of Amazon.com
4 For examples of highly esteemed scientists who believe in God, see the section “Science and Religion” in the review of “Four Books by Three Atheists,” I summarized my experience in “Another Atheist Finds God,” Christian Ethics Today, Fall 2005, 15
6 C. S. Lewis,  Mere Christianity(HarperCollins edition, 2001), 146. 

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