Antony Flew

"Since the beginning of my philosophical life I have followed the policy of Plato's Socrates: We must follow the argument wherever it leads." – Antony Flew

Following on from my last post, perhaps I should briefly say something about who Antony Flew was and some of his life events.

He was born to a Methodist minister, studied at Oxford University and became an academic working in the philosophy department at various universities; he followed the analytic philosophy tradition and had a particular interest in the philosophy of religion. During most of his life he was an outspoken Atheist, but towards the end of his life he changed his mind. He is perhaps best known for developing the ‘No true Scotsman’ fallacy.

During his life be became friends with Gary Habermas and in early 2004 he took part in a dialogue on the resurrection held at California Polytechnic State University. Soon after this he spoke to Habermas and told him that he was considering becoming a theist, which he didn’t at that time. However, by the end of 2004 he openly said that he had become a deist after a similar vein to the founding fathers of America like Thomas Jefferson. As a deist he remained sceptical of Christianity and Islam, maintained that God is unknowable and rejected the idea of an afterlife.

Flew’s deism was based on an acceptance of teleological arguments and particularly that of Intelligent Design which he advocated teaching in British schools.