in this video , I want to look at how the world's
leading philosopher changed his mind about God . Professor Anthony Flew is an English philosopher ,
most notable for his work related to the philosophy of religion . during the course of his
career he taught at the universities of Oxford , Aberdeen (Scotland) , Keel , Reading and at York university
in Toronto . for much of his career , Anthony Flew was known as a strong advocate of atheism arguing
that one should presuppose atheism until empirical evidence of a god surfaces . he also criticized the
idea of life after death , the free will defense to the problem of evil and the meaningfulness of
the concept of god . however in 2004 , he changed his position , he changed his mind and stated
that he now believed in the existence of an intelligent creator of the universe . shocking
his colleagues and fellow atheists . in order to further clarify his personal concept of god ,
Anthony Flew openly made an allegiance to deism more specifically a belief in the Aristotelian god
which he will define in his book in a second . and dismissed on many occasions any call to convert
to christianity , islam or any other religion . he stated that in keeping with his lifelong
commitment to go wherever the evidence leads . he now believed in the existence of a god . i just
want to quote some passages from his last book "THERE IS NO GOD" where the N has been crossed
off gotten "THERE IS A GOD : how the world's most notorious atheist changed his mind" by Anthony Flew .
and I've read all this book and I wanted to quote some of the juicier passages from it . in
chapter four entitled "a pilgrimage of reason" he writes : let us begin with a parable , imagine
that a satellite phone is washed ashore on a remote island inhabited by a tribe that has never
had contact with modern civilization . the natives play with the numbers on the dial pad and hear
different voices upon hitting certain sequences . they assume first that it's the device that
makes these noises , some of the cleverer natives , the scientists of the tribe assemble
an exact replica and hit the numbers again . they hear the voices again , the conclusion
seems obvious to them . this particular combination of crystals and metals
and chemicals produce what seems like human voices and this means that the voices are simply
properties of the device . but the tribal sage (by sage Flew probably means a philosopher) a tribal
sage summons the scientists for a discussion . he has thought long and hard on the matter
and has reached the following conclusion : the voices coming through the instrument must
be coming from people like themselves , people who are living and conscious although speaking in
a different language . instead of assuming that the voices are simply properties of the handset , they
should investigate the possibility that through some mysterious communication network they
are in touch with other humans . perhaps further study along these lines could lead to a greater
understanding of the world beyond their island . but the scientists simply laugh at the
sage and say , look when we damage the instrument the voices stop coming , so they're
obviously nothing more than sounds produced by a unique combination of lithium and printed
circuit boards and light and missing diodes . and a parable . in this parable we see how
easy it is to let preconceived theories shape the way we view evidence ,
instead of letting the evidence shape our theories . a copernican leap may thus
be prevented by a thousand ptolemaic epicycles . defenders of ptolemy's geocentric model of the
solar system resisted copernicus's heliocentric model by using the concept of epicycles to
explain away observations of planetary motion that conflicted with their model . and in this it seems
to me lies the peculiar danger , the endemic evil of dogmatic atheism . (remember Anthony Flew was himself
a dogmatic atheist) . take such utterances as quote : we should not ask for an explanation of how it is
that the world exists , it is here and that's all . or : since we cannot accept a transcendent source
of life , we choose to believe the impossible that life arose spontaneously by chance
for matter . or : the laws of physics are lawless laws that arise from the void , end of
discussion . these quotes look at first sight like rational arguments that have a special
authority because they have a no-nonsense air about them . of course this is no more sign
that they are either rational or arguments . and then the next quote : as for my new position
on the classical philosophical debates about god , in this area i was persuaded above
all by the philosopher David Conway's argument for god's existence in his book "The Recovery of
Wisdom : From Here to Antiquity in Quest of Sophia" Conway is a distinguished British Philosopher
at Middlesex University , who is equally at home with classical and modern philosophy . the god whose
existence is defended by Conway and myself (writes Flew) is the god of aristotle .Conway writes : in sum ,
to the Being whom he considered to be the explanation of the
world and its broad form , Aristotle ascribed the following attributes : immutability , immateriality ,
omnipotence , omniscience , oneness or indivisibility , perfect goodness and necessary existence . there is
an impressive correspondence between this set of attributes and those traditionally ascribed
to god within the judeo-christian tradition , it is one that fully justifies us in
viewing Aristotle as having had the same divine being in mind as the cause of the world that is
the object of worship of these two religions . end quote . for some reason Flew doesn't even think about
Islam but obviously this applies to Islam as well . so that clarifies Flew's own concept
of god that he embraced after leaving atheism . and now some of the reasons , the scientific reasons
why he began to embrace theism or belief in god and he quotes Paul Davis the famous
astrophysicist : Paul Davis highlights the same problem he writes . he observes that most
theories of biogenesis (biogenesis is the idea of life just coming about , apparently out
of nowhere) most theories of biogenesis have concentrated on the chemistry of life . but
life is more than just complex chemical reactions . the cell also is an information storing processing
and replicating system . we need to explain the origin of this system , of this information and the
way in which the information processing machinery came to exist . he emphasizes the fact that the
gene is nothing but a set of coded instructions with a precise recipe for manufacturing proteins .
most important these genetic instructions are not the kind of information you find in
thermodynamics and statistical mechanics rather they constitute semantic information .
in other words , they have a specific meaning . these instructions can be effective only in a
molecular environment capable of interpreting the meaning in the genetic code . the origin question
of biogenesis rises to the top at this point , the problem of how meaningful or semantic
information can emerge spontaneously from a collection of mindless molecules subject to
blind and purposeless forces present a deep conceptual challenge . there's the end of that quote .
so you can see some of the reasons why Flew in the light of modern science abandoned atheism . and
the last quote here because there are so many . is again to do with the origin of life ,
so how do we account for the origin of life (professor Flew asks) the nobel prize winning
physiologist George Wald once famously argued that we choose to believe the
impossible that life arose spontaneously by chance . now of course this is what Flew himself
believed , this is what atheists believe . this Noble prize winning scientist says : in later
years however , he concluded that a pre-existing mind which he posits as the matrix of physical
reality compose the physical universe that breeds life. then he quotes the nobel
prize-winning professor who says as follows : how is it that
with so many other apparent options we are in a universe that possesses just that
peculiar nexus or properties that breeds life . it has occurred to me lately i must confess with
some shock at first to my scientific sensibilities that both questions might be brought
into some degree of congruence . this is with the assumption that mind rather than
emerging as a late outgrowth in the evolution of life has existed always as the matrix the
source and condition of physical reality that the stuff of which physical reality is
constructed is mind stuff . it is mind that has composed a physical universe that breeds life . so
eventually evolves creatures that know and create science , art , technology making creatures .
that's the end quote there . and then Flew says : this too is my conclusion , the only
satisfactory explanation for the origin of such end directing self-replicating life as we
see on earth is an infinitely intelligent Mind (with a capital M) . and of
course we call that mind "God" . so there we go , that's the book . it's
very interesting his arguments are based he says his whole position has not really changed , he
only goes where the evidence leads so he says that in his earlier career he didn't see any
good evidence for the existence of god he says but now with the advent of the discovery of DNA
and the role of genes and producing proteins and this the semantic nature of genes
requiring a meaningful understanding of the whole process of producing genes and life .
this goes way beyond atheism and this suggests intelligence , it suggests mind and thus it's just
God not just the DNA but a whole host of other scientific discoveries lead professor Flew to
abandon atheism and embrace this belief in god . so i think this is a great story , a great story
of a man who had the courage to admit that he was wrong . here's a man who was the world's most
notorious atheist , he spent decades arguing against believers in god , ridiculing their beliefs ,
refuting them philosophically , he came to believe that was wrong in fact god does exist because
the evidence he says led him to believe that . so there we go , that's the story of
how the world's most notorious atheist changed his mind and to my knowledge he never
actually converted to any other religion i think he was warming towards the christian
faith given his own cultural background but i don't think he ever converted to any
other religion and let's hope , let's pray that he found a merciful god who
accepted him into paradise . till next time
