British philosopher, Oxford professor, and former leading apologist for atheism Anthony Flew probably regrets having announced his change of mind. I say this because the news that he has sacked his high-profile and long-standing atheistic views to embrace the idea of some kind of being acting behind the origin of life and cosmos, may be driving traditional Christians to triumph more than the situation actually merits.
Unfortunately, Flew's realization, at age 81, that an intelligent purposeful god of some sort has acted and is acting in the universe is, as all his previous views have been, based upon scientific observation and, of course, philosophical postulation. The truth is that in this Flew is not far distant from many contemporary religious thinkers who, perhaps without actually meaning to, end up attempting to establish the existence and creatorship of God through basically the same means; a means that has its place, but not exclusive of divine revelation.
Consistent with this, what's most interesting to me about Anthony Flew's experience is that the evidence that seems to have been most influential in nudging his change from atheism to a species of theism goes something like this: The highly organized complexity of the DMA configurations needed to engender human life, as they are observed on this planet, seem to demand the presence of an intelligent designer who also possesses the power to bring his designs into being. (For more information on Flew, do an Internet search on Google using the key name "Anthony Flew.")
To those who have come to trust in the reality of divine revelation, it is rather obvious that human beings, unaided by such revelation, do not have and by the nature of things certainly will never have sufficient perspective, insight, and thus interpretive skill to be able to conclusively trust their take on issues like the origin of cosmic being and consciousness, even if they use their most sophisticated ways of observing and thinking.
We have repeatedly seen the most plausible ways of explaining reality proved wrong, and we've seen too many changes of mind not to know that there must be other better ways of "knowing." We've come to realize that what is known is obviously so partial and continues to be so incomplete that, given the complexity of the universe, and the fact that "Someone" intelligent and purposeful must have been in existence to design and create it, it is the highest privilege of humans to somehow come into communication with this Someone.
The truth is that the struggles of Anthony Flew are, to one degree or another, the struggles of all who have felt the tug of our science and matterdominated age.
As many Seventh-day Adventists know, during the last three years especially, representatives from the church's scientific, educational, and administrative circles have met to wrestle with the issues that recent naturalistic, scientific thought have brought to bear upon Christian faith.
It was not the purpose of these councils (three international conferences in the United States and a number of other more localized meetings around the globe) to change our minds about the foundational givens of a more literal, biblical, creationist faith.
However, the need has increasingly been felt for a round-table dialogue that would help to clarify issues and bring into a more penetrating light what we and our community of faith are in fact facing, and how we might better relate to such challenges among ourselves, especially in our educational institutions and local churches.
In this Ministry issue, we are beginning to give a comprehensive report on the results of this dialogue. You will notice the transcript of a welcoming and summative speech given by Church General Vice President Lowell Cooper at the outset of the third and final international conference in Denver, Colorado, last August. Dr. Cooper ably handled the challenge of coordinating this complex dialogue process.
In this issue, you will also see largely untouched transcripts of two related actions, growing out of the three conferences, taken by appropriate Church bodies.
Most significantly, during the next year or more, Ministry will be publishing, at the rate of at least one article per month, edited versions of some of the papers that were presented at the three international conferences, and some that were presented at the other venues. While these article-papers will be almost exclusively representative of the official positions of the Seventh-day Adventist Church on the issue of origins, they will be highly informative and helpful in facing the challenges that any pastor may encounter these days in his or her ministry.
