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My ‘conversion’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 July 2009

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Abstract

In a preceding article, Phillip E. Johnson notes that ‘famed atheist philosopher Antony Flew’ has announced that he has ‘converted to philosophical theism (though not to Christianity or any other specific religion, at least as yet), on the basis of scientific discoveries and related reasoning, which [have] convinced him that there is an intelligent designer of the natural universe’. Here, Flew sets out his position more clearly.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 2005

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References

Notes

1 Swinburne, RichardThe Coherence of Theism (Oxford: Clarendon, 1977) p.2.Google Scholar

2 Since then he has apparently transferred his allegiance to the Greek Orthodox Church.

3 See The Mystery of Salvation: The Story of God's Gift (A Report by the Doctrine Commission of the Church of England), (London: Church House Publishing, 1995), p.180.Google Scholar

4 The Spectator for 13/20 2003, p.20.Google Scholar

5 Aquinas, Summa Theologica, III Supp: 94 13.Google Scholar

6 Prometheus Books, 2003.

7 Varghese, Roy Abraham, The Wonder of the World: a Journey from Modern Science to the Mind of God (Fountain Hill, AZ: Tyr 2004), pp.23.Google Scholar

8 Conway, DavidThe Rediscovery of Wisdom: From Here to Antiquity in Quest of Sophia (London: Macmillan, 2000), pp.23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 ‘Justice’ here is to be understood as what Thomas Jefferson and other Founding Fathers of the American Republic meant by the word. It is, therefore, most emphatically not the ‘Social’ Justice of John Rawls and his apostles.

10 Nicomachean Ethics, X, viii, 7.Google Scholar

11 See article by John Gaskin published as guest article in Philosophical Writings, No. 13, Spring 2000.Google Scholar

12 For some understanding of the difficulties of investigating putative communications from incorporeal spirits see, for instance, Readings in the Philosophical Problems of Parapsychology Edited by Flew, Antony, Prometheus 1987.Google Scholar

13 For a critique of this belief see my Gifford Lectures on The Logic of Mortality (Oxford: Blackwell, 1987)Google ScholarMerely Mortal: Can You Survive Your Own Death? (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2001)Google Scholar was a reissue of the same work. Here l regret that l failed to exploit the opportunity of this reissue to correct the misprints in the original. I hope — if I am spared — to produce a second edition which will take account of all the relevant recent critical literature.

14 Oxford, O.U.P., 1996.