I wonder if he ever accepted Christ. Does anyone know?
No one was quite sure what Antony Flew believed in the end. Even the paper he promised to write in legacy was to be anonymous. However, having a father who harks from the same atheistic community of sciences, I can suspect why with reasonable accuracy.
My relationship with my father was of no real consequence until I got serious about Jehovah’s Witnesses. That’s when the shit hit the fan. From then on it’s been one debate to another over the mere existence of God, going on well over 40 years. Then, as recent as a couple of years ago, he sent me some email testimonial by an atheistic nuclear physicist, once raised in the WT faith. Not to be outdone, I replied, sending him the interview between Flew and Dr. Gary R. Habermas, Professor of Philosophy and Theological editor for “Philosophia Christi,†wherein Flew was being pushed to conclude where his theism would lead him:
HABERMAS: C. S. Lewis explained in his autobiography that he moved first from atheism to theism and only later from theism to Christianity. Given your great respect for Christianity, do you think that there is any chance that you might in the end move from theism to Christianity?
FLEW: I think it’s very unlikely, due to the problem of evil. But, if it did happen, I think it would be in some eccentric fit and doubtfully orthodox form: regular religious practice perhaps but without belief. If I wanted any sort of future life I should become a Jehovah’s Witness. But some things I am completely confident about. I would never regard Islam with anything but horror and fear because it is fundamentally committed to conquering the world for Islam. It was because the whole of Palestine was part of the land of Islam that Muslim Arab armies moved in to try to destroy Israel at birth, and why the struggle for the return of the still surviving refugees and their numerous descendents continue to this day.
HABERMAS: I ask this last question with a smile, Tony. But just think what would happen if one day you were pleasantly disposed toward Christianity and all of a sudden the resurrection of Jesus looked pretty good to you?
FLEW: Well, one thing I’ll say in this comparison is that, for goodness sake, Jesus is an enormously attractive charismatic figure, which the Prophet of Islam most emphatically is not.
Thanks BB.
Warm Christian Love
Bangalore