Page 23 - Allah is Known through Reason

the ‘philosophically unfavourable’ fact for the materialists, that is, the exis-

tence of a Creator. The renowned atheist philosopher Antony Flew com-
ments on the issue:
Notoriously, confession is good for the soul. I will therefore begin by
confessing that the Stratonician atheist has to be embarrassed by the con-
temporary cosmological consensus. For it seems that the cosmologists are
providing a scientific proof of what St. Thomas contended could not be
proved philosophically; namely, that the universe had a beginning. So
long as the universe can be comfortably thought of as being not only
without end but also without beginning, it remains easy to urge that its
brute existence, and whatever are found to be its most fundamental fea-
tures, should be accepted as the explanatory ultimates. Although I
believe that it remains still correct, it certainly is neither easy nor com-
fortable to maintain this position in the face of the Big Bang story. 4
Many scientists who do not blindly condition themselves to be athe-

From Non-Being to Being 23