Agnosticism

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Agnosticism

Agnosticism is the belief that there is insufficient evidence to assert with confidence the existence or nonexistence of God. Although an agnostic outlook was evident in ancient Greek materialism and skepticism, the word itself was coined in 1869 by the noted British biologist and promoter of Darwinism Thomas Huxley. Agnosticism, according to Huxley, is a method of inquiry holding "that it is wrong for a man to say that he is certain of the objective truth of any proposition unless he can produce evidence which logically justifies that certainty." Though agnosticism can pertain to any truth claim, it was immediately applied to belief in God's existence. The word itself stands in contrast to the ancient doctrine of "gnosis"—that positive knowledge of God's existence and His attributes is possible.

Modern agnosticism emerged from two convergent intellectual and religious trends in Victorian culture. The first was the legacy of the eighteenthcentury German philosopher Immanuel Kant. Kant proclaimed that the limitations of human sense experience made knowledge of transcendental realities impossible. He argued against belief in God based on evidence and applied reason, but opened the possibility of such belief derived from faith. Many agnostics a century later proclaimed religious beliefs of some kind. Herbert Spencer's "Unknowable" and Matthew Arnold's "Power not ourselves that makes for righteousness" expressed religious reverence for a reality beyond the grasp of human understanding.

Kant's philosophical emphasis supported the growing prestige of science, especially in the decades after the publication of Charles Darwin's Origin of Species in 1859. Many defenders of science and empiricism felt that discoveries in biology, physics, geology, and in the new fields of anthropology and comparative religion had destroyed the foundations for belief in a supernatural God. Biblical criticism brought the doctrines of the historical religions, even when liberally interpreted, within the realm of scientific explanation. For these thinkers, including such philosophers and literary figures as John Stuart Mill, Bertrand Russell, George Eliot, and Leslie Stephen, agnosticism supported the scientific naturalism of the day while avoiding identification with either the positivism of Auguste Comte or the atheism of the Marxists.

Agnosticism has had a rich tradition in the United States, often aligning itself with reform movements and the spirit of progressivism. Robert Ingersoll, Civil War captain, lawyer, and captivating orator, preached agnosticism to large audiences while issuing biting attacks on the evils of religious orthodoxy. Mark Twain and Clarence Darrow were among hundreds of figures in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who joined their agnosticism to democratic and humanistic ideals.

Agnosticism is often interpreted as a midway position between atheism and theistic belief. From the standpoint of the traditional religious believer, agnosticism may appear as functionally identical to atheism, or as providing a safe haven for atheists wishing to hedge their bets.

An agnostic response is that both theists and atheists share a common error in making an unwarranted leap into positive assertions about the nature of ultimate reality. Rather than categorically denying God's existence, as atheists do, agnostics maintain that their view more successfully fulfills the demands of intellectual integrity. In addition, agnosticism provides a more promising framework than atheism for the development of humanitarian concerns. Defenders of agnosticism would assert that loyalty otherwise given to a Supreme Being can be readily transferred to the realm of social ideals. Agnosticism also opens the door to a sense of humility, natural piety, and cosmic reverence in its acceptance of mysteries beyond the reach of human powers.

Recent surveys indicate that more than 1.1 million Americans identify as agnostics. Of the 14 million Americans who claim "no religion," it may be assumed that many are agnostics in all but name. Furthermore, if account is made of people who formally affiliate with churches and synagogues for primarily social and not religious reasons, the number of agnostics may be considerably higher. Though contemporary agnosticism lacks the polemical spirit of its formative decades, it is broadly represented among the unchurched, in universities, in the scientific community, and in various humanistic organizations such as the American Humanist Association, the Ethical Culture Movement, the Society for Humanistic Judaism, and the Unitarian-Universalist Association.