Philosophy without God? God without Philosophy?: Critical Reflections on Antony Flew's God and Philosophy1

1. I want to thank Mark Cauchi, Mohamed Khimji, Avron Kulak, Terri Kulak, Nancy Levene, and Roderick A. Macdonald, together with the anonymous reader of the journal, for their critical comments on my article.

Abstract

In this paper it is argued that, while the case that Antony Flew makes against philosophically invalid arguments for the existence of God is generally sound, he fails to comprehend the power and cogency of the ontological argument. Thus, his conception of the grounds of morality, separate from the biblical tradition of theology, is by no means compelling. This paper aims to show that the rational (i.e. the non-reductive) concept of morality that Flew rightly claims to uphold is not only consistent with but also presupposes, paradoxically, the ontological argument for the existence of God. Central ideas of Kant and, above all, of Spinoza are called upon to show that the nexus between morality and theology, between philosophy and God, is that central to the ontological argument. The conclusion of the paper is that, just as philosophy without God is empty, so God without philosophy is blind.

Notes

Notes

1. I want to thank Mark Cauchi, Mohamed Khimji, Avron Kulak, Terri Kulak, Nancy Levene, and Roderick A. Macdonald, together with the anonymous reader of the journal, for their critical comments on my article.

2. Antony Flew, God and Philosophy (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2005), 91, 117.

3. See my study: Brayton Polka, Spinoza, the Bible, and Modernity (vol. 1: Hermeneutics and Ontology; vol. 2: Politics and Ethics), forthcoming from Lexington Books.

4. Spinoza indicates in the Theologico-Political Treatise that the only way in which he can attain his explicitly stated goal of separating philosophy from religion, reason from faith, without returning to the hierarchical dependence of one on the other in the tradition of medieval scholastic philosophy (e.g. Aquinas) and, we could add, in the tradition of modern philosophy (e.g. Flew), is to show that they possess the same content—the knowledge and love of God—consistent with the Bible.

5. Flew cites “Spinoza's saintly contempt” for those who avoid evil actions and follow the will of God solely from the fear of eternal damnation and the expectation of divine reward and not from the love of God (124). The critique here of action (i.e. passion), when determined by a good (telos or end) that is external to desire, is consistent with the general critique of final causes that we find in Spinoza and, in particular, with what he writes in Ethics V.42 about beatitudo or blessedness, which I summarize in the following terms. Blessedness is not the reward (or end) of virtue, but virtue itself. We do not take joy in virtue because we restrain our lusts. Rather, because we take joy in virtue we can restrain our lusts. In other words, beatitudo is not the end for which we act. Rather, beatitude is virtus (or power) itself. Beatitude is not the (heavenly or passive) end of action but the active way of life. Beatitude is not the reward of virtue but the virtuous action of making the love of God and neighbor necessary to our existence.