As an undergraduate student in philosophy many students, including myself, had to read atheist Antony Flew's famous article "Theology and Falsification." This article contained Flew's very famous "parable of the gardnener." Flew's gardener parable says this: If we walk into a garden and see weeds overgrowing the cultivated plants, then we can assume that either the gardener has abandoned the place or, as Flew believed, there really is and was no "gardener" in the first place. The world, argued Flew, is like an untended garden. It is beautiful and incredible, but no one made it and no one is watching over it. Things like natural disasters, evil, and other disruptive events make it impossible to believe in God. For an example of Flew arguing for atheism against William Lane Craig see their debate.
But now, at age 81, Flew has openly stated that he believes in God. Today we read: "At age 81, after decades of insisting belief is a mistake, Antony Flew has concluded that some sort of intelligence or first cause must have created the universe. A super-intelligence is the only good explanation for the origin of life and the complexity of nature, Flew said in a telephone interview from England."
In the August/September issue of Britain's Philosophy Now magazine Flew wrote, "It has become inordinately difficult even to begin to think about constructing a naturalistic theory of the evolution of that first reproducing organism."
The news article writes: "Flew told The Associated Press his current ideas have some similarity with American "intelligent design" theorists, who see evidence for a guiding force in the construction of the universe. He accepts Darwinian evolution but doubts it can explain the ultimate origins of life. " Flew says it's too bad if followers of his are upset by his new belief. He states, "My whole life has been guided by the principle of Plato's Socrates: Follow the evidence, wherever it leads." Apparently the evidence of intelligent design in the universe has led Flew back to the existence of a gardener.
Now it will be fun to watch the atheists at infidels.org scramble to deconstruct Flew's theism.
