Antony Flew, Science & God

2015-11-11

Lecture to sixth form philosophy students at Downe House School, 10th November 2015. Antony Flew, Science & God - Handout Antony Flew: ‘Science qua science cannot furnish an argument for God’s existence. But… the laws of nature, life with its teleological organization, and the existence of the universe – can only be explained in the light of an Intelligence that explains both its own existence and that of the world. Such a discovery of the Divine does not come through experiments and equations, but through an understanding of the structure they unve...

Lecture to sixth form philosophy students at Downe House School, 10th November 2015.

Antony Flew, Science & God - Handout

Antony Flew: ‘Science qua science cannot furnish an argument for God’s existence. But… the laws of nature, life with its teleological organization, and the existence of the universe – can only be explained in the light of an Intelligence that explains both its own existence and that of the world. Such a discovery of the Divine does not come through experiments and equations, but through an understanding of the structure they unveil and map.’

Cosmological Argument from the Finite Past

1) There was a first physical event

2) Every physical event has a cause outside of itself

2i) Anything contingent must have a cause outside of itself

2ii) Physical events are contingent

2iii) Therefore, every physical events must have a cause outside of itself

3) Therefore, the first physical event had a cause outside of itself

4) The cause of the first physical event can’t have been a physical cause

5) Therefore, the first physical event had a non-physical cause outside of itself

Dallas Willard: ‘the dependent character of all physical states, together with the completeness of the series of dependencies underlying the existence of any given physical state, logically implies at least one self-existent, and therefore nonphysical, state of being.’ - ‘The Three-Stage Argument for the Existence of God’, www.dwillard.org/articles/artview.asp?artID=42

Fine Tuning Design Argument

1) The fine-tuning of the universe is due to either physical necessity, chance, or design.

2) It is not due to physical necessity or chance.

3) Therefore, it is due to design.

1) Things exhibiting ‘specified complexity’ are probably designed

2) The ‘fine tuning’ of the universe exhibits ‘specified complexity’

3) The ‘fine tuning’ of the universe was probably designed

Design Argument from Biological Information

1) Things exhibiting ‘specified complexity’ are probably designed

2) Life depends upon the ‘specified complexity’ of functional information encoded in genetic and epigenetic biological structures

3) Therefore, the best explanation of life includes an appeal to design

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