Antony Flew died on April 8, 2010 after a career that earned him the reputation of being one of the most acute critics of theology and theological discourse in the Anglo-American philosophical tradition.

The excerpt here, from “Theology and Falsification” (1950) represents Flew’s attempt to examine the statement “God loves us,” against the background of Christian theodicy–the belief that the goodness of God can be reconciled with the seeming contradiction that there is natural and moral evil in the world he created.  With his later essay, “The Presumption of Atheism” (1984) it is one of the most popular contributions to the philosophy of religion ever written.

Courted at the end of his life by a variety of evangelical Christian groups, and in declining health after 2003, Flew is sometimes represented as a “convert” to Christianity, specifically deistic theism, who came finally to accept the “complexity” arguments associated with the “intelligent design” proponents.  The history of this…