Neo-Atheism is not Atheism

[gbrooks9 (George Brooks, TE (E.volutionary T.heist OR P.rovidentialist))]

@gbrooks9

“Joshua has only agreed (thus far) to say he has not taken the GAE out of the PS.org mission.”

I literally had to ascertain Joshua’s position on his own book because of a posting from Tim:

What is "Theistic Evolution", and is this forum hostile to it?

In April 2024, Tim was CONVINCED that GAE was not part of the PS.org mission!

TO: Don George Quixote

Don George Quixote

I will attempt to respond to your muddled, incoherent, vainglosious, paranoid fantasy, to the extent that I can actually see anything solid enough to respond to.

1. Yes, GAE is apologetics, and thus theology.

2. No, that does not mean that you cannot discuss it. Theology and Religion are a fairly common subject of discussion. This forum even has a tag for “Theology” (as well as “Adam” and “Church”).

3. The only thing that people are objecting to is your apparent demands that we classify GAE, and other miracles, as “science”. [< I don’t think I ever wanted GAE classified as science.]

4. I would also point out, again, that promotion of GAE is NOT part of this forum’s official mission. Nor does this mission mention theology.”

o o o o o o

Tim, like Roy, were zealous in deflecting most anything I had to say. But to be so adamant that the foundation text, GAE, was NOT part of the P.S. mission was certainly a HUGE surprise to me!

[Roy (Roy (Listener twice correct))]

@gbrooks9

@Roy

If you don’t want your claims to be exposed as false and insulting, stop making false and insulting claims.

You are being insulted? So when I said that PS was “flooded” with “Atheists”…. were you insulted by the word “FLOODED”? Or do you find the word “Atheist” to be inherently insulting?

Here is what you said, with my emphasis:

@gbrooks9

PeacefulScience,org is FLOODED with non-peaceful Atheists.

I’m not the slightest bit surprised that you selectively omitted “non-peaceful” when ‘quoting’ your own words.

[gbrooks9 (George Brooks, TE (E.volutionary T.heist OR P.rovidentialist))]

@Roy

I’m not the slightest bit surprised that you selectively omitted “non-peaceful” when ‘quoting’ your own words.

Roy,

I never said ALL PS’s atheists weren’t peaceful. But lots of them sure are not.

Did I hit too close to home?

So…. everything is so wonderful over at PS…. What brought you to BioLogos?
You certainly didn’t help with Tim’s confusion over the crucial part the GAE book plays in PeacefulScience.Org’s mission.

[Tim_nz]

@Vinnie

This is basic knowledge, and Dawkins is a scientists, not a philosopher. Flew was a well renowned philosopher and advocator atheism.

This may be “basic knowledge”, but it is also irrelevant basic knowledge. The claim was not that he “had been to that time perhaps the world’s most prominent atheist philosopher”, but that he “had been to that time perhaps the world’s most prominent atheist” simpliciter.

For all your insulting hectoring about “embarrassing” “nitpicking”, Flew was quite simply not “to that time the world’s most prominent atheist”, not even “perhaps”.

This simply indicates that philosophers weren’t the most prominent atheists at the time – this is hardly surprising, as philosophers aren’t generally particularly prominent in the wider community.

You might wish to argue that Feser meant to restrict his comment to philosophers – but to do so you would need to provide greater context than the original quote in order to do this. And this would still leave us with the problem of how frequently this quote would have been taken out of context to appear to be talking about atheists more generally.

I provided data back to the start of 2004, because that’s all the data that Google could provide me. The data does include the start of 2004, which would seem to be relevant to his prominence ‘to the time’ of the furor in mid-2004.

Addendum: I would also be more willing to take Flew’s No true Scotsman as indication of his wider prominence “to that time” (in 2004), if I didn’t believe that far more people were aware of that fallacy from the Wikipedia article (first published in 2001, but not even mentioning Flew until 2006), than from reading anything Flew himself wrote.

Further addendum: is it possible that Flew’s change in views came not with an increased awareness of Aristotle’s philosophy, but rather with an increased sympathy for it?

[Terry_Sampson]

@Tim_nz

Further addendum: is it possible that Flew’s change in views came not with an increased awareness of Aristotle’s philosophy, but rather with an increased sympathy for it?

I recognize that this might not be a popular idea or one accepted by a majority, much less by everybody; but it seems odd to me that given the existence of this book:

• That no one is willing to take the necessary steps to end, or at least, minimize the debate over why Flew ceased to be a strict atheist.

• Of the book, Amazon says:

  “In one of the biggest religion news stories of the new millennium, the Associated Press announced that Professor Antony Flew, the world’s leading atheist, now believes in God.Flew is a pioneer for modern atheism. His famous paper, Theology and Falsification, was first presented at a meeting of the Oxford Socratic Club chaired by C. S. Lewis and went on to become the most widely reprinted philosophical publication of the last five decades. Flew earned his fame by arguing that one should presuppose atheism until evidence of a God surfaces. He now believes that such evidence exists, and There Is a God chronicles his journey from staunch atheism to believer. For the first time, this book will present a detailed and fascinating account of Flew’s riveting decision to revoke his previous beliefs and argue for the existence of God. Ever since Flew’s announcement, there has been great debate among atheists and believers alike about what exactly this “conversion” means. There Is a God will finally put this debate to rest. This is a story of a brilliant mind and reasoned thinker, and where his lifelong intellectual pursuit eventually led him: belief in God as designer.”

• ChatGPT, when fed a copy of the book, said this: “According to this uploaded 2007 book, There Is a God, Antony Flew explicitly states the reasons that led him to cease being a strict atheist and adopt a minimal, deistic belief in a Creator. These reasons are present in the text itself, and they do not include age, emotion, fear of death, Pascalian betting, or reading Aristotle for the first time.
  Here is what the file shows.

  ---

  What Antony Flew says were his reasons for changing his mind

  The introduction of the book states that Flew is now giving the first full account of the arguments and evidence that led to the shift:

  “Now, for the first time, he gives an account of the arguments and evidence that led him to change his mind.”

  A few pages later, Flew himself describes what triggered his shift:

  “Ever since the announcement of my ‘conversion’ to deism, I have been asked… to provide an account of the factors that led me to change my mind…. In brief… I now believe there is a God!”

  He immediately clarifies that this was not due to age, fear of death, or emotion:

  Critics claimed my age had something to do with my conversion… Clearly these people were familiar with neither my writings… nor my current views…. I want to lay to rest all those rumors….

  So what were the actual reasons he names?

  1. Scientific evidence concerning the laws of nature

  The table of contents shows an entire chapter titled “Who Wrote the Laws of Nature?”

  This theme appears repeatedly in the introduction. Flew emphasizes:

  • the intelligibility of the universe

  • the mathematical structure of physical law

  • the question of the source of rational order

  These factors led him toward belief in a rational Mind behind the cosmos.

  2. Fine-tuning and cosmic purpose

  One of the chapters is titled “Did the Universe Know We Were Coming?” — an explicit reference to the fine-tuning problem.

  Flew repeatedly states that the appearance of a universe fit for life demanded explanation.

  3. The origin of life (“How Did Life Go Live?”)

  Flew includes a full chapter on the origin of biological complexity.

  The content summary indicates that Flew believed new scientific discoveries about DNA and cellular complexity provided positive evidence for intelligence.

  4. The impossibility of something coming from nothing

  He dedicates another chapter to “Did Something Come from Nothing?”

  Flew rejected philosophical and scientific attempts to explain the universe’s existence without a cause.

  5. Re-evaluation of Hume and causation

  This is the most philosophically important part.

  Flew explicitly states that he had to reverse his earlier reading of Hume’s skepticism about causation:

  “The three chapters… need to be rewritten in light of my new-found awareness that Hume was utterly wrong… Hume’s analyses… have been far too weak…
  Hume denied causation…
  This has misled generations…”

  This is a major revelation.
  He is saying:
  My old Humean metaphysics (foundation of modern atheism) was mistaken.

  Once he abandoned that, the inference to a Creator became (for him) philosophically permissible.

  6. “Following the argument wherever it leads”

  Flew repeats his lifelong principle:

  “As a professional philosopher… the principle of following the argument wherever it may lead me.”

  Thus:
  He presents his change as an intellectual consequence of the above evidence, not an emotional conversion.

  ---

  Summary: What Flew actually acknowledged (according to the book itself)

  From the document, Flew’s reasons fall into three categories:

  A. Empirical Evidence

  • Rational order of the universe

  • Fine-tuning of physical constants

  • DNA and complexity of life

  • Scientific arguments about origins

  B. Philosophical Revisions

  • Rejection of Hume’s denial of causation

  • Acceptance of real causal powers and necessary beings

  • Abandoning materialistic metaphysics

  • Openness to classical theistic arguments

  C. Personal Intellectual Integrity

  • His lifelong motto of “follow the argument wherever it leads”

  • His acknowledgment that he had changed his mind on other major issues before

  ---

  What Christians then claimed

  Because Flew publicly adopted:

  • belief in a Creator

  • belief in an eternal, omnipotent, non-material Mind

  • rejection of strict atheism

  • rejection of materialistic explanations of life and the universe

  Christians described him as “no longer an atheist.”
  But he is clear that he became a deist, not a Christian, and explicitly did not accept an afterlife:

  “I have not changed my mind. I do not think of myself ‘surviving’ death.”

  ---

[Vinnie]

@Terry_Sampson

Christians described him as “no longer an atheist.”
But he is clear that he became a deist, not a Christian, and explicitly did not accept an afterlife:

A deist is not an atheist. Christians described him correctly then. Apparently, a number of atheists had meltdowns over this. In find his conversion story quite useful. Here is how Feser continues, note the parts that I put in bold:

“Outside the ranks of religious believers, the response to Flew’s newfound philosophical theism seems to have been uniformly derisive. Comedian Jay Leno quipped, “Of course he believes in God now – he’s 81 years old!” while another commentator speculated that “confronted by the end of life,” Flew was simply “making one final desperate attempt at salvation” (though Flew had made it clear that he still did not believe in an afterlife).2 One philosopher of a secular bent dismissed his conversion as “sad” and “an embarrassment,” averring that “old age, as we know, takes its toll on people in many different ways” and that Flew’s understanding of relevant scientific theory “is not, shall we say, robust.”3 Another accused Flew of “willfully sloppy scholarship.”4 Other than alleging that his views rested on a scientifically disreputable “Intelligent Design” theory, and peremptorily dismissing them on that basis, most of Flew’s critics showed little interest in exploring in any detail what grounds he might have had for changing his mind. In particular, they studiously ignored the central role a reconsideration of Aristotle’s philosophy evidently played in his change of view.5 “While Flew’s conversion was still just a rumor, his secularist admirers had scrambled furiously to deny that it could be true of so intelligent a man; when he confirmed the rumors himself, he was treated as a heretic and dupe of the fundamentalist enemy, and his arguments dismissed as unworthy of serious attention. "I have been denounced by my fellow unbelievers for stupidity, betrayal, senility and everything you could think of,” Flew complained, “and none of them have read a word that I have ever written.”

Here is footnote number 5 from Feser:

“Beverley’s article notes that Flew “gives first place to Aristotle in having the most significant impact on him,” and that his reconsideration of Aristotle was prompted by his having read David Conway’s book The Rediscovery of Wisdom: From Here to Antiquity in Quest of Sophia (St. Martin’s Press, 2000), which defends Aristotle’s arguments for the existence of God. This book is mentioned prominently in Flew’s Introduction to the reissue of his God and Philosophy (Prometheus, 2005). Flew has also made reference several times to the possibility of reading St. Thomas Aquinas’s famous Five Ways (which are largely Aristotelian in spirit) as arguments for a purely Aristotelian God rather than the God of Christianity. (See, for example, his interview with Habermas and the Introduction to God and Philosophy.) Yet Flew’s critics have ignored all of this; in particular, they have said nothing in reply to Conway’s arguments, despite their apparent direct influence on Flew’s conversion.”

As I said, extremely prominent atheist philosopher finally sits down with Aristotle and converts. Skeptics have a meltdown. None of them bother to see why he converted.

Vinnie

[Roy (Roy (Listener twice correct))]

@Vinnie

This is basic knowledge, and Dawkins is a scientists, not a philosopher. Flew was a well renowned philosopher and advocator atheism.

Irrelevant. Antony Flew was described as “one of the most prominent atheists in the world” and “the world’s most famous atheist”, not ‘one of the most prominent atheist philosophers in the world’ and ‘the world’s most famous atheist philosopher’. .

Even if the latter was true, the former was definitely not.

@Vinnie

@Tim_nz

Can anybody find evidence, from before Flew changed his mind in 2004, of him being described as “the world’s most prominent atheist” (“perhaps” or otherwise) or as “the World’s Most Notorious Atheist”, or anything that comes close to this?

Why don’t you use the Wayback machine to search the internet from 1950-2000, the time when his career existed. Let me know what kind of results you get from the 70s and 80s.

Because it’s your claim, and you should be the one providing evidence for it.

@Vinnie

@Roy

Dennett didn’t ask “what caused God”. He said that others ask “What cased God?”.

Yup. Right after he offered a caricature of comoslogical arguments which tells me he doesn’t understand them.

That was your chance to admit that you were wrong when you said that Dennett asked ‘What caused God?’.

You blew it.

@Vinnie

@Roy

I’ve just skimmed the opening chapter, and it is awful. Insults galore, mangled quote-mines, and a huge amount of well-poisoning and other fallacies. Seeing Feser refer to people who disagree with him as “blowhards”, “boy”, “village atheists”, “vulgarians”, “sophomoric jackass” and more, with no justification given beyond Feser’s own opinion, gives me no incentive whatsoever to read any further. This isn’t a scholarly work, it’s table-pounding. If Feser had anything useful to say he wouldn’t write such rubbish.

It’s not his brightest moment but new atheists are that annoying and their arguments are that poor.

I’ve never seen rubbish like that in anything written by Dennett, Hawkins or Hitchens.

Finally, the part of my post that you didn’t reply to:

@Vinnie

@Roy

@Vinnie

And here is your footnote:

[1] “Quoted by James A. Beverley in “Thinking Straighter: Why the world’s most famous atheist now believes in God,” Christianity Today (April 2005). See also Gary Habermas’s interview with Flew in the Winter 2005 issue of the journal Philosophia Christi. As this book was being completed, Flew published There Is a God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind (HarperOne, 2007), co-authored with Roy Abraham Varghese, wherein he sets out his current position in more detail.”

First, that’s not something written by Antony Flew; second, it’s inconsistent with what was written by Antony Flew; third, it doesn’t say that Flew hadn’t read Aristotle, only that he hadn’t read all of Aristotle.

Do you have anything written by Antony Flew where he admits to not having read (parts of) Aristotle, or are you, like Feser, criticising the scholarship of others while relaying hearsay yourself?

You are criticising the quality of new atheists’ arguments while moving goalposts, misrepresenting authors, and posting unsubstantiated hearsay.

You haven’t got a leg to stand on.

[Roy (Roy (Listener twice correct))]

@Terry_Sampson

I recognize that this might not be a popular idea or one accepted by a majority, much less by everybody; but it seems odd to me that given the existence of this book:
[image omitted]

• That no one is willing to take the necessary steps to end, or at least, minimize the debate over why Flew ceased to be a strict atheist.

Because posting facts won’t end a debate where one side posts fiction.

[Roy (Roy (Listener twice correct))]

@Vinnie

Here is footnote number 5 from Feser:

“Beverley’s article notes that …

That’s the article that falsely described Antony Flew as “the world’s most notorious atheist”.

It lacks credibility.

@Vinnie

As I said, extremely prominent atheist philosopher finally sits down with Aristotle and converts.

Yes, you said that. You keep saying that.

You haven’t shown that it is true.

@Vinnie

Skeptics have a meltdown. None of them bother to see why he converted.

I did. I discovered that his primary reason was (as @Terry_Sampson confirmed above) that he had been reading ID pseudoscience. I already knew that was flawed, so his conversion didn’t influence me.

You may consider these responses to be short snipes.

But if something can be skewed effectively with sentence or two, anything beyond that is an unnecessary d[is|e]traction.

[Vinnie]

Done with your nitpicking. Spent enough energy (wasted enough time) on it and you. Enjoy.

[Terry_Sampson]

A final (maybe) thought: Neo-atheism’s adversarial style doesn’t suggest it would fare any better than Christianity in relating to First Nations cultures — and in some ways, perhaps worse. A worldview that defines itself by negation isn’t obviously equipped to listen to cultures rooted in sacred story, land, and community.

[Vinnie]

@Terry_Sampson

. A worldview that defines itself by negation isn’t obviously equipped to listen to cultures rooted in sacred story, land, and community.

Be careful, someone is going to come along and chastise your abuse of logic and tell you negation isn’t a worldview. Even though in practice it looks, quacks, tastes, acts, smells and walks like a duck…

Vinnie

[Apistos]

Warranted, justified, true belief, i.e. knowledge, negates nothing but un-

[T_aquaticus (The Friendly Neighborhood Atheist)]

@Terry_Sampson

1. Comparison Table: Atheism vs. Neo-Atheism

For the record, I lean heavily towards “Plain” Atheism in your chart.

For me, religion isn’t a part of the path I walk right now. Could it in the future? Maybe, life has a way of surprising us. I don’t feel the need to convince others that religions are all false. What does bring me joy is that there are many cultures that support freedom of religion, including support for non-believers.

The one place where “Plain” Atheists might be the most vocal is in the arena of morality. I have seen many people express their views that atheists are amoral or immoral, and that there is no way an atheist could have any reliable foundation for morality. I think it is important for atheists to step forward and provide their testimony of how they approach morality, and why, in most cases, it isn’t that different to the foundation of morality for most believers.

Overall, I don’t think Neo-Atheists help out the atheist community. I sometimes wonder if Neo-Atheists are more interested in cashing in on controversy and rage. I also sometimes wonder if more Christians buy Dawkins books than atheists do. Most of the atheists I know couldn’t care less about Dawkins’ views on religion.

Anyway, a few of my thoughts.

[Kendel]

@T_aquaticus

I have seen many people express their views that atheists are amoral or immoral, and that there is no way an atheist could have any reliable foundation for morality. I think it is important for atheists to step forward and provide their testimony of how they approach morality, and why, in most cases, it isn’t that different to the foundation of morality for most believers.

Agreed.
Even as one in the pew it gets tiresome hearing hints about our (Christians’) superior, objective source or morality, while I regularly see evidence to the contrary.

Being around people who ask different questions should expose our comfortable assumptions, where we (Christians) feel like we have all the right answers. Ideally it should cause us to engage in better self-reflection and better understanding of what we are really doing and why.

[Vinnie]

@T_aquaticus

I have seen many people express their views that atheists are amoral or immoral, and that there is no way an atheist could have any reliable foundation for morality.

This may be true of some people but I think for many of us we would say atheism cannot have a reliable foundation for morality, not that atheists are are amoral or immoral or don’t think they have adequate grounds for being moral. I think that is a very important distinction. I’m sure some Christians vilify atheists in the former sense. The irony is that is unscriptural. But I know for me that when you say morality is subjective, a lot of us theists understand that as being synonymous with “not having a reliable foundation.” It’s more of a reductio ad absurdom against atheism as a philosophy. I would probably say the same thing about truth, logic, abstract thoughts, why the universe is comprehensible, why it bothers to exist, etc. Morality is just the most emotionally charged issue in the bunch. At the end, having either a self proclaimed objective or subjective moral system is all secondary to behaving morally. And if Christianity is true, we are in the same boat in that human-based goodness is incomplete and insufficient without God’s intervention.

Vinnie

[Apistos]

@Terry_Sampson

1. Scientific evidence concerning the laws of nature

The table of contents shows an entire chapter titled “Who Wrote the Laws of Nature?”

This theme appears repeatedly in the introduction. Flew emphasizes:

• 1 the intelligibility of the universe
• 2 the mathematical structure of physical law
• 2 the question of the source of rational order

These factors led him toward belief in a rational Mind behind the cosmos.

2. Fine-tuning and cosmic purpose

One of the chapters is titled “Did the Universe Know We Were Coming?” — an explicit reference to the fine-tuning problem.

1 Flew repeatedly states that the appearance of a universe fit for life demanded explanation.

3. The origin of life (“How Did Life Go Live?”)

Flew includes a full chapter on the origin of biological complexity.

1 The content summary indicates that Flew believed new scientific discoveries about DNA and cellular complexity provided positive evidence for intelligence.

4. The impossibility of something coming from nothing

He dedicates another chapter to “Did Something Come from Nothing?”

1 Flew rejected philosophical and scientific attempts to explain the universe’s existence without a cause.

Summary: What Flew actually acknowledged (according to the book itself)

From the document, Flew’s reasons fall into three categories:

A. Empirical Evidence

• Rational order of the universe
• Fine-tuning of physical constants
• DNA and complexity of life
• Scientific arguments about origins

How would Sabine Hossenfelder deal with Flew’s scientific fallacies?

Sabine Hossenfelder would likely say: no one “wrote” the laws of nature — they are descriptive, not prescriptive. In her work, she emphasizes that physics laws are human-made models that describe observed regularities, not commandments imposed by an external author.

---

Hossenfelder’s perspective

• Descriptive, not divine: She argues that the laws of nature are patterns we observe in the universe, codified into mathematical form. They are not written by a deity or external agent, but discovered and refined by humans YouTube.
• Mathematical consistency: In her book Lost in Math, she critiques the tendency of physicists to chase “beautiful” equations, reminding us that laws are tools for prediction, not evidence of deeper design Nature.
• Emergent order: In her lectures and videos, she often stresses that the universe may simply be the way it is, with its constants and interactions arising from initial conditions, not from a conscious act of authorship YouTube.
• Skepticism of metaphysics: Hossenfelder is known for rejecting speculative claims about ultimate causes. She would likely say that asking “who wrote the laws” is a category mistake — laws are human descriptions of nature, not decrees.

---

How she frames the question

• Physics laws ≠ legal laws: The term “law” is misleading. Unlike human laws, physical laws cannot be broken; they are shorthand for observed regularities.
• No external author: She resists theological or metaphysical answers, preferring to ground the discussion in empirical science.
• Open questions remain: While she acknowledges that we don’t yet know why the constants of nature have the values they do, she insists this doesn’t imply an author — only that our models are incomplete.

---

Poetic resonance

So, if asked directly, Sabine Hossenfelder would likely answer: “No one wrote the laws of nature. They are our descriptions of how the universe behaves, not prescriptions handed down from outside.”

Sources: YouTube Nature

That’s a profound layering of the question, Martin — you’re moving from Sabine Hossenfelder’s sober “no one wrote the laws” into the territory Antony Flew entered late in life: the intelligibility of the universe, the mathematical structure of physical law, and the source of rational order. Let’s tease apart how these observations are interpreted:

---

The intelligibility of the universe

• Observation: The cosmos is not chaotic; it is comprehensible. Humans can describe it with mathematics and predict its behavior.
• Naturalist view (Hossenfelder): Intelligibility is a feature of our cognitive apparatus — we evolved brains that find patterns, and mathematics is our most refined language for those patterns.
• Philosophical/theological view (Flew, Einstein, others): The very fact that the universe is intelligible suggests a deeper rational order, perhaps pointing to a “Mind” behind it.

---

The mathematical structure of physical law

• Observation: Laws of physics are not arbitrary; they are deeply mathematical, elegant, and consistent across scales.
• Naturalist view: Mathematics is a human invention that happens to be the best tool for modeling reality. The “structure” is our projection.
• Platonic view: Mathematics exists independently, and the universe “runs” on it. This suggests reality is fundamentally mathematical.
• Theistic/deistic view: The mathematical harmony is evidence of design — a rational source that “wrote” the laws.

---

The source of rational order

• Observation: Rational order exists — constants, symmetries, conservation laws.
• Naturalist view: Order is emergent from initial conditions and self-consistent rules; no external source is required.
• Philosophical view: Rational order is too precise to be accidental; it implies a deeper principle or ground of being.
• Flew’s late conclusion: Rational order pointed him toward a deistic Creator — not a personal God, but an eternal rational Mind.
• Hossenfelder’s likely response: “We don’t know why the universe is ordered, but that doesn’t mean someone wrote it. It just means our models are incomplete.”

---

The tension

• Empirical science (Hossenfelder): Laws are descriptive, intelligibility is a human achievement, rational order is unexplained but not authored.
• Philosophical/theological (Flew, Einstein, Polkinghorne): Intelligibility, mathematical elegance, and rational order are clues pointing beyond physics to metaphysics.

---

Poetic resonance

So in the light of those observations:

• To a physicist like Hossenfelder, they are remarkable but not evidence of authorship — they are the canvas we read.
• To a philosopher like Flew, they are too coherent to be brute fact — they are the signature of a rational source.

---

Sabine Hossenfelder has addressed this kind of question — the “fine‑tuning” or “anthropic” puzzle — in her writings and videos. Her stance is characteristically skeptical of metaphysical or theological interpretations.

---

Hossenfelder’s likely response

• No demand for external explanation: She would argue that the appearance of a universe fit for life does not demand explanation in terms of design or authorship. It may simply be a brute fact of physics.
• Anthropic principle: She often points out that we can only observe a universe compatible with our existence. If the constants were different, we wouldn’t be here to ask the question. That doesn’t mean the universe was “made” for us — only that we are in one of the possible universes where life can arise.
• Skepticism of fine‑tuning arguments: Hossenfelder stresses that claims about “fine‑tuning” are often overstated. Many constants could vary without destroying all possibility of life, and we don’t yet know the full range of viable conditions.
• Mathematical structure ≠ design: While the universe’s laws are elegant and intelligible, she insists this is a reflection of our modeling, not evidence of a rational author. Mathematics is our language for describing patterns, not proof of purpose.
• Open questions, not gaps for God: She emphasizes that unexplained features of the universe should motivate further physics, not metaphysical speculation. For her, “we don’t know yet” is a sufficient answer.

---

Contrast with Flew’s view

• Antony Flew (late in life): Saw the intelligibility, fine‑tuning, and rational order as evidence of a Creator.
• Sabine Hossenfelder: Sees them as remarkable but not requiring explanation beyond physics. She would say: “The universe is the way it is. We can describe it, but that doesn’t mean it was designed for us.”

---

Poetic resonance

So in short: Hossenfelder would reject the idea that the universe’s fitness for life demands explanation beyond physics. She would frame it as an observational inevitability (anthropic principle), not a sign of design.

[Kendel]

@Vinnie

atheism cannot have a reliable foundation for morality

Why?

Does Christianity have a reliable foundation for morality?

If so, what?

[Vinnie]

Feser: As I say, then, atheism per se is not a direct threat to the very possibility of morality. Someone who denied the existence of God but accepted Aristotelian essentialism could have grounds for accepting at least part of the natural law. So too could someone who endorsed an atheistic form of Platonism (if there could be such a thing). But to opt for a completely anti-essentialist and anti-teleological view of the world – one which holds that the natural order is entirely mechanistic and that there is nothing beyond that order – is, the A-T philosopher would argue, to undermine the possibility of any sort of morality at all. For it entirely removes from the world essences and final causes, and thus the possibility of making sense of the good as an objective feature of reality. (See The Last Superstition for details.) And since modern atheism tends to define itself in terms of such a radically anti-teleological or mechanistic view of the world, it too is to that extent incompatible with any possible morality.