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A Philosophical, Scientific and Theological Defense for the Notion That a God Exists

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Hal Flemings has presented a very persuasive case for the reasonableness of God's existence. Flemings' approach is innovative, refreshing and hardly ever encountered in other books belonging to this genre. He initiates his discussion of theistic and atheistic arguments by seeking to clarify what the term "God" means. I believe you will find the answers he supplies in the first chapter of his work to be quite informative. Flemings then proceeds to review what deists, theists, pantheists and agnostics have argued with respect to God's existence. These arguments are handled in an objective and balanced way: the author is not interested in simply pontificating. This also makes his book a pleasure to read. Flemings' book contains 10 chapters including a discussion of holy books that different religions use and there is a chapter dealing with the problem of evil. I especially enjoyed the chapter about the various arguments that have been posited to prove God's existence. Flemings handles the ontological, teleological, anthropological and scientific arguments for God with the utmost care and skill. I encourage you to purchase this book, if you have ever wondered whether there is logical, scientific or theological evidence that points to the existence of a loving and benevolent, all wise Creator. The information contained in this work can also be employed to help non-theists seriously reflect on the question as well as the reality of God.

Edgar Foster

University of Glasgow

I have found it interesting that people reviewing works bashing the Watchtower get 5 stars, if they don't agree with Watchtower views. This to me raises red flags. Of course we are all entitled to a view point and I suppose from a psychological point of view we would rate such works as high or agreeable. However, I feel the previous reviewer was grossly unfair and not a true representation of the authors work. Also, upon reviewing the reviews of the last person the pattern blatantly exposed his\her intentions.

Hal Flemings has produced a short book with a long title, though he still falls short of Rolf Furuli's _The Role of Theology and Bias in Bible Translation: With a Special Look at the New World Translation of Jehovah's Witnesses_. One of the most amusing erroneous statements made in the book is the following: "I have attempted to let dissenting voices be `heard' in this work. It would be an understatement [sic] to say that every voice and every point of view has been presented. My critics will be sure to note that" (85). His book, if I may borrow his words, "cannot be trivialized, though it may be ridiculed" (3).

For a work of scholarship, the book suffers from various technical defects. Minor typographical and grammatical errors occur throughout. Foreign expressions are sometimes underlined, sometimes not. There is a curious blend of American and British spelling and punctuation conventions. The references are a blend of generally accepted authorities and an authority uniquely authoritative to the author, namely, the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of Jehovah's Witnesses. The Jehovah's Witnesses' primary answer to the question of suffering is first introduced, of all things, as a "summary" of Flemings' discussion of natural disasters (102). In one instance, no reference is provided for a quote (103).

In some ways, it would be preferable to believe in no God for the right reasons rather than to believe in the wrong kind. This is the central problem with Jehovah's Witness apologist Hal Fleming's book. He asks the reader to define the term "God" as "Creator" and view any other predicates as superfluous. Then, in dealing with objections to the notion that God exists, he develops the relatively unique argument that what people are really objecting to is the kind of God that is said to exist. Some of the strongest objections vanish when God is defined differently. For example, the argument against the existence of God derived from the existence of suffering does not trouble Flemings. The argument does not disprove his God's existence; rather, it disproves conventional beliefs concerning either his omnipotence or his goodness. And Flemings has no problem with a God who limits his omnipotence to allow innocents suffer in order to prove how badly some do without him and how loyal others can be in the midst of their agony, who lets innocents suffer for the sins of their parents (such as Adam and Eve), who picks favorites out of his children and lets them exterminate some of his other children, who terrifies his children with dark and confusing prophecies, and who weighs them down with externally imposed lists of sins and rules of conduct that are sometimes as confusing and variously interpreted as the prophecies. Flemings places God within heaven-time as opposed to the space-time of this universe (71), makes God ignorant (93-4), and makes God mutable, not in the dynamic sense advocated by philosophers like Whitehead, but in the primitive sense found in the Old Testament wherein Yahweh changes his mind when humans reason with him (94). His goal seems to be, not only to prove the existence of his "non-religious" God (2-3), but also to rebuild everyone else's conception of God from the ground up after the Jehovah-model of his faith.

Flemings claims the Protestant Bible provides a "non-circular argument" for the existence of God. The presence in the Bible of scientific and prophetic insights before modern discoveries and historical fulfillments is thought to be evidence of its divine Originator. Consider one of Flemings' examples: "Was there a Big Bang? The Bible does not describe such a beginning but it stated-long before scientific discovery-that the universe is expanding, that is `stretching out'. We discern that from a number of passages like the following:
Isaiah 40:22(b) `He [God] stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in.'-_New International Version_" (108).
Ignore the lack of a comma to join, in connection with the correlative conjunction, the two clauses in what should be the second (compound) sentence, the shift in tense, and the departure from the usual convention of setting off the parenthetical expression "that is" with commas on both sides. Is this image really supposed to be a description of the universe's expansion? Should we take this literally? Since Flemings makes God locally present in heaven-space "and thus not omnipresent" (94), we can deduce that he would not take literally the part about God `living in' the tent of heaven that God spreads out for himself. Those acquainted with Jehovah's Witnesses' religion know that he does not take the opposite image literally either. When the heavens are rolled up (Isaiah 34:4; Revelation 6:14), this is not understood by Flemings to refer to the contraction and collapse of the universe. Furthermore, one wonders why scientific knowledge, prophecy, or mere prognostication, even if proven to not be artistic or pious fictions like the so-called prophecies of Roman dominion in Vergil's _Aeneid_, proves God's existence. Are there not other possible explanations?

As one of his examples of "historical anticipations," Flemings refers to the foretold and subsequent desolation of Babylon. Even if we accept his claim that this is an example of a fulfilled prophecy, this hardly establishes the whole library of writings that he wants to give priority to as being what he claims. In addition, what of the similar prophecy that Tyre would be destroyed and "never" rebuilt (Ezekiel 26:13-14)? Tyre was indeed destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar and then completely by Alexander, but it was rebuilt (Mark 3:8; 7:24). I suppose it should be noted that the spiritual, literary, and psychological merits of such holy writings have never really been tied to their accuracy as books of history or science. They are true in the mythical and poetic sense, even if not in the limited modern sense of the word "true." Flemings' misreads the other holy books of the world as badly as he does the Bible, though with a different objective.

Flemings criticizes the Buddha for not knowing the cause of earthquakes. According the source Flemings cites, the Buddha thought the earth rests on water and wind, and the movement of these substances causes the earth to quake. This stands in marvelous contrast the Bible, wherein we discover that the earth rests on pillars and shakes when they do (Job 9:6). Flemings disproves Islamic claims to inspiration by pointing out that the _Quran_ asserts that the unborn know "nothing" before birth, when in fact, according to neurologists, unborn infants do have some knowledge and that the _Quran_ asserts that "all" plants are hermaphroditic, when in fact this is only true of some. Should, for example, Jesus be held to strict standards of accuracy with regard to his horticultural statements (Matthew 13:31-32)?

The book still contains much that is of value, if only the sectarian and contentious elements were stripped away, and if the actual philosophical, theological, and scientific parts were fleshed out. In 2003, another book related to this subject was produced by Armand M. Nicholi Jr. entitled _The Question of God_. Perhaps, Flemings could benefit from the literary company of men like Nicholi. Indeed, one hopes he will maintain his "taste for acquiring knowledge in science, philosophy, foreign languages and religion" (IX) and will not lose sight of the observation he quotes: "[R]eligious creationists and scientific materialists are equally dogmatic and insensitive. By their arrogance, they bring both science and religion in disrepute" (4).