The Invisible Gardener: Flew on God

For today’s Atheism for Lent taster I want to introduce you to Anthony Flew. Flew was an analytic philosopher who wrote a famous short essay called “Theology and Falsification” (which can be found in the book New Essays in Philosophical Theology). It has been called the most widely read philosophical publication of the last 60 years… which means that over 100 people have read it!

The essay begins with a fascinating little parable originally crafted by John Wisdom,

Two people return to their long neglected garden and find, among the weeds, that a few of the old plants are surprisingly vigorous. One says to the other, ‘It must be that a gardener has been coming and doing something about these weeds.’ The other disagrees and an argument ensues. They pitch their tents and set a watch. No gardener is ever seen. The believer wonders if there is an invisible gardener, so they patrol with bloodhounds but the bloodhounds never give a cry. Yet the believer remains unconvinced, and insists that the gardener is invisible, has no scent and gives no sound. The skeptic doesn’t agree, and asks how a so-called invisible, intangible, elusive gardener differs from an imaginary gardener, or even no gardener at all.

In many ways this parable captures a move that remains popular in some religious circles, namely the strategy of protecting the claim that God exists from anything that would falsify it. The parable implies that this retreat into a definition that insulates itself from critique, ends up with a God that doesn’t look any different from no God at all.

This essay is located in the first week of the course because it helps to set up many of the readings that come later. Readings which imply that such a position doesn’t mark the end of theology, but rather provides a clearing for a much more interesting theology to grow.

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