Antony Flew's Conversion to Deism: An Update

In an earlier essay, I described Antony Flew’s apparent conversion from atheism to deism and took Professor Flew to task for accepting the arguments of the pseudoscientist Gerald Schroeder. I wished “that Professor Flew had read Mr. Schroeder’s work more carefully or had consulted critical references to Mr. Schroeder’s work before pronouncing Mr. Schroeder kosher.”

According to Richard Carrier (2005), who has become sort of an unofficial mouthpiece for Professor Flew, Professor Flew now admits that he has been “mistaught” by Mr. Schroeder and also, astonishingly, blames Richard Dawkins for his own misunderstanding of abiogenesis, or the development of life from nonliving matter.

Mr. Carrier adds further that Professor Flew appears to remain a deist but calls his new belief a “very modest defection from [his] previous unbelief.”

References.

Carrier, Richard, 2005, “Antony Flew Considers God - Sort of,” The Secular Web, http://www.secweb.org/asset.asp?AssetID=369. . .. Scroll down to “Update (January 2005).”

Young, Matt, 2004, “Antony Flew’s Conversion to Deism,” Panda’s Thumb, http://www.pandasthumb.org/pt-archives/000687.html.