Despite all this, Flew has not retracted his belief in God, as far as I can tell. But in response to theists citing him in their favor, Flew strangely
calls his "recent very modest defection from my previous unbelief" a "more radical form of unbelief," and implies that the concept of God might
actually be self-refuting, for "surely there is material here for a new and more fundamental challenge to the very conception of God as an omnipotent
spirit," but, Flew says, "I am just too old at the age of nearly 82 to initiate and conduct a major and super radical controversy about the
conceivability of the putative concept of God as a spirit." This would appear to be his excuse for everything: he won't investigate the evidence
because it's too hard. Yet he will declare beliefs in the absence of proper inquiry. Theists would do well to drop the example of Flew. Because his
willfully sloppy scholarship can only help to make belief look ridiculous.
|