Wednesday, December 15, 2004

"The Rumors of My Importance Have Been Greatly Exaggerated"

That, I think, is a fitting epithet for Anthony Flew, in reference to his recent "conversion" from atheism to some form of deism. I had been thinkin of posting about this for some time, since I first read of his "conversion" on an evangelical website a couple months ago. Fortunately, I never got around to posting about it, because several people already have, and have said everything I would have wanted to say, only they said it better than I would have. Lindsay of Majikthise, for instance, points out that the conversion can hardly be said to be on strong philosphical or scientific grounds, with Flew being "vague about which data he found so persuasive" and admitting "that he hasn't kept up with the scientific literature". Then there are these nice comments from Juan Sanchez:
What's befuddling is why any of these considerations are supposed to provide any support whatever for the God hypothesis. To think that they do seems to rely on a kind of ignotum per ignotius: We have no satisfying account of complex phenomenon X, so we explain it in terms of, even more complex phenomenon Y, a mind capable of consciously producing X. Why is this supposed to be satisfying? Why, in the absence of a culture in which religion is pervasive, would anyone resort to this kind of explanation? Indeed, why would anyone count it as an explanation at all?
Just to be fair to Flew, this sort of thing happens to be fairly common in both philosophy and some sciences. Think of dynamic systems theory (let's substitute equations we don't understand for phemomena we don't understand) or quantum theories of consciousness. Still, Cole seems to be exactly right. Flew is no scientist, and his knowledge of biology should by no means be taken as authoritative. He's just a philosopher who became mildly famous for being an atheist, who has decided not to be an atheist anymore, and for what appear to be bad philosophical reasons.

Which brings me to my favorite comments, which are from Sean Carroll of Preposterous Universe. There he writes:
First, I had barely heard of Flew before the current dust-up, so I'm certainly not an expert on his views. Second, who cares?
The answer to the question seems to be evangelicals, and not many others. I did see a mention of Flew's conversion, and its importance, on a Mormon blog, but all the other mentions have been by evangelical Christians. The first sentence, however, seems to me to be more appropriate. I've barely head of Flew, as well, and I can't find any reason for anyone to take his "conversion" seriously.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think one possible reason for the question as to why some evangelicals are taking the 'conversion' so seriously is that evangelicals tend to take everything seriously.

But more seriously, I think they find it heartening, as a sign that headway can actually be made. Flew earned part of his reputation by (at various times) arguing that theism was unintelligible or unexplanatory, that there was no evidence that could reasonably support theism, that rationality required a fundamental presumption in favor of atheism. And his 'conversion' is a sign that even such entrenched atheistic positions are susceptible to an evidentialist approach to theism (which most evangelicals support). In turn, this might perhaps strengthen the hand of the evidentialists in their debate against the presuppositionalists (who, very roughly, argue that the only real way to make headway is simply to present the total theistic worldview in such a way as to exhibit its strengths).

And actually, there's perhaps reason to be impressed by the conversion, even if one draws from it only the conclusion that it's hard to eliminate theism. Unlike the vast majority of philosophical atheists, Flew wasn't a mere dabbler in the issue, and that he is unsatisfied with atheist philosophy of religion is at the very least interesting.

Shouldn't the Cole quote actually be attributed to Julian Sanchez? Or am I misreading something? 

Posted by Brandon

Anonymous said...

Since it appears from Flew's own comments that the "evidence" which convinces him is pretty poor, he seems like a particularly bad example to use in support of an evidentialist perspective. Evidence certainly can convince (though it has hardly convinced him of the truth of Christianity, about which he seems to hold the same view), but if only by flawed reasoning (as appears to be the case with Flew), then what does that say about the evidentialist view?

Oh, and you're right about the Cole thing. I made the correction. 

Posted by Chris

Anonymous said...

Well, I think so far it's been less bad than extremely vague; it really isn't clear why the sort of considerations Flew keeps throwing out have suddenly won him over.

(A lot of evangelical evidentialists tend to be intelligent design theorists of one sort or another, so they could easily read Flew's vague claims to their satisfaction. The problems with this wouldn't necessarily reflect on the evidentialist position itself, which is just a methodology; but an evidentialist who uses intelligent design theorist as part of the evidential arguments wouldn't have any problems with taking Flew's conversion as something of a triumph.) 

Posted by Brandon

Anonymous said...

The "evidence" that led him to his "conversion" seems to have to do with the evolution of complex molecules, which leads one to believe that he's read Michael Behe, or someone like him. That doesn't leave me with much confidence that the "evidence" is sound (especially since there are plenty of models, which can sever as existence proofs, of such evolution). 

Posted by Chris

Anonymous said...

I'm not sure what you mean by evidence being 'sound'; evidence is just evidence. To account something to be a bad philosophical reason for a position, all sorts of things have to be examined: what precisely is being claimed for the evidence, whether this is intended to be put forward as a scientific hypothesis (Behe) or not (first induction or second induction, in old philosophy-of-science terms), what aspect of the issue Flew sees as being critical in the inference, what positions were considered as alternatives, etc. And there is a vast difference between something being a good philosophical reason that's extremely weak and something being a bad philosophical reason; and there really isn't much so far on which to determine the status of Flew's reason (although I'll be putting up a post later day on what sort of inference I think Flew may be making). 

Posted by Brandon

Anonymous said...

You're right, I should just wait until he actually gives an argument. I'm assuming that he's using what is essentially Behe's argument, which may be valid, but is unsound because both of its premises are false. Behe's argument (and most contemporary scientific design arguments) make use the following premises:

P1 If it is impossible for a system to have evolved using natural selection, then evolution must be false and design true.

P2 There is some system X (e.g., bacterial flagella) that could not have possibly evolved through evolution.

The conclusion is then that evolution is false and design true. The problem is that the failure of evolution doesn't imply design (there could be any number of other ways things could have come about) and that so far, each of Behe's irreducibly complex systems have been modeled, meaning that there are existence proofs of possible evolutionary mechanisms. However, Flew may not be using this argument (I hope, with a training in philosophy, that he is not). 

Posted by Chris

Anonymous said...

Still, it is very clear that Flew has, quite rationally, not become a theist, nor really a deist, but at most a sort of pandeist - equating the designer with the design, inactive and not interfering with its parts. Pandeism is an interesting direction in that it rightly dismisses the silliness of a God who, in the vastness of this universe, chooses to nit at humankind.