III
Before moving on to a consideration of some twen-
tieth-century formulations of agnosticism and to a
critical examination of all forms of agnosticism, let us
consider briefly a
question that the above charac-
terization of Huxley and Stephen certainly should give
rise to.
Given the correctness of the above criticisms
of Judaism and Christianity,
do we not have good
grounds for rejecting these religions and is not this
in
effect an espousal of atheism rather than agnosticism?
We should answer differently for Huxley than we
do for Stephen. Huxley's
arguments, if correct, would
give us good grounds for rejecting
Christianity and
Judaism; but they are not sufficient by themselves
for
jettisoning a belief in God, though they would require
us to
suspend judgment about the putative knowledge-
claim that God exists and created the world. But it must
be
remembered that agnosticism is the general claim
that we do not know and
(more typically) cannot know
or have good grounds for believing that there
is a God.
But to accept this is not to accept the claim that there
is
no God, unless we accept the premiss that what
cannot even in principle be
known cannot exist. This
was not a premiss to which Huxley and Stephen
were
committed. Rather they accepted the standard agnostic
view that
since we cannot know or have good reasons
for believing that God exists we
should suspend judg-
ment concerning his
existence or nonexistence. More-
over, as we
shall see, forms of Jewish and Christian
fideism when linked with modern
biblical scholarship
could accept at least most of Huxley's arguments
and
still defend an acceptance of the Jewish or Christian
faith.
Stephen's key arguments are more epistemologically
oriented and are more
definitely committed to an
empiricist account of meaning and the limits of
con-
ceivability. As we shall see in
examining the conten-
tions of some
contemporary critics of religion, it is
more difficult to see what, given
the correctness of
Stephen's own account, it could mean to affirm, deny,
or even doubt the existence of God. The very
concept
of God on such an account becomes problematical. And
this makes what it would be to be an agnostic, an
atheist, or a
theist problematical.
The cultural context in which we speak of religion
is very different in the
twentieth century than it was
in the nineteenth (cf. MacIntyre, Ricoeur).
For most
twentieth-century people with even a minimal amount
of
education, the authority of science has cut much
deeper than it did in
previous centuries. The cosmo-
logical
claims in the biblical stories are no longer taken
at face value by the
overwhelming majority of edu-
cated people both
religious and non-religious. Theolo-
gians
working from within the circle of faith have
carried out an extensive
program of de-mythologizing
such biblical claims. Thus it is evident that
in one quite
obvious respect the nineteenth-century agnostics have
clearly been victorious. There is no longer any serious
attempt to defend
the truth of the cosmological claims
in the type of biblical stories that
Huxley discusses.
However, what has not received such wide accept-
ance is the claim that the acceptance of such a de-
mythologizing undermines Judaism and
Christianity
and drives an honest man in the direction of agnos-
ticism or atheism. Many would claim
that such de-
mythologizing only
purifies Judaism and Christianity
of extraneous cultural material. The
first thing to ask
is whether or not a steady recognition of the fact
that
these biblical stories are false supports agnosticism as
strongly
as Huxley thinks it does.
Here the new historical perspective on the Bible is
a crucial factor. The
very concept of the authority of
the Bible undergoes a sea change with the
new look
in historical scholarship. It is and has been widely
acknowledged both now and in the nineteenth century
that Judaism and
Christianity are both integrally linked
with certain historical claims.
They are not sufficient
to establish the truth of either of these
religions, but
they are necessary. Yet modern historical
research—to
put it minimally—places many of these
historical
claims in an equivocal light and makes it quite im-
possible to accept claims about the literal
infallibility
of the Bible. Conservative evangelicalists (funda-
mentalists) try to resist this tide
and in reality still
battle with Huxley. They reject the basic findings
of
modern biblical scholarship and in contrast to mod-
ernists treat the Bible not as a fallible and
myth-laden
account of God's self-revelation in history but as a fully
inspired and infallible historical record. Conservative
evangelicalists
agree with modernists that revelation
consists in God's self-disclosure to
man, but they further
believe that the Bible is an infallible testimony of
God's
self-unveiling. Modernists by contrast believe that we
must
discover what the crucial historical but yet divine
events and realities
are like by a painstaking historical
investigation of the biblical
material. This involves all
the techniques of modern historical research. The vari-
ous accounts in the Bible must be sifted by
methodical
inquiry and independently acquired knowledge of the
culture
and the times must be used whenever possible.
Conservative evangelicalism is still strong as a cul-
tural phenomenon in North America, though it is
steadily losing
strength. However it is not a serious
influence in the major seminaries and
modernism has
thoroughly won the day in the intellectually respect-
able centers of Jewish and Christian
learning. Huxley's
arguments do come into conflict with conservative
evangelicalism and his arguments about the plain fal-
sity, utter incoherence, and sometimes questionable
morality of
the miracle stories and stories of Jesus'
actions would have to be met by
such conservative
evangelicalists. But the modernists would be on
Huxley's side here. So, for a large and respectable
element of the Jewish
and Christian community,
Huxley's arguments, which lead him to reject Christi-
anity and accept agnosticism, are
accepted but not
taken as at all undermining the foundations of
Judaism
or Christianity.
Huxley's sort of endeavor, like the more systematic
endeavors of David
Strauss, simply helps Christians rid
the world of the historically
contingent cultural trap-
pings of the
biblical writers. Once this has been cut
away, modernists argue, the true
import of the biblical
message can be seen as something of decisive
relevance
that transcends the vicissitudes of time.
However, this is not all that should be said vis-à-vis
the conflict
between science and religion and agnos-
ticism. It is often said that the conflict between science
and
religion came to a head in the nineteenth century
and now has been
transcended. Science, it is averred,
is now seen to be neutral concerning
materialism or
any other metaphysical thesis and theology—the
en-
terprise of attempting to provide
ever deeper, clearer,
and more reasonable statements and explications of
the
truths of religion—is more sophisticated and less vul-
nerable to attacks by science or
scientifically oriented
thinkers. Still it may be the case that there
remain some
conflicts between science and religion which have not
been
overcome even with a sophisticated analysis of
religion, where that
analysis takes the religions of the
world and Christianity and Judaism in
particular to
be making truth-claims.
Let us consider how such difficulties might arise.
Most Christians, for
example, would want to claim as
something central to their religion that
Christ rose from
the dead and that there is a life after the death of
our
earthly bodies. These claims seem at least to run
athwart our
scientific understanding of the world so
that it is difficult to know how
we could both accept
scientific method as the most reliable method of settling
disputes about the facts and accept these central
Christian
claims. Moreover, given what science teaches
us about the world, these
things could not happen or
have happened. Yet it is also true that the by
now
widely accepted new historical perspective on the
Bible recognizes
and indeed stresses mythical and po-
etical
strands in the biblical stories. And surely it is
in this non-literal way
that the stories about demons,
Jonah in the whale's belly, and Noah and his
ark are
to be taken, but how far is this to be carried with the
other
biblical claims? Are we to extend it to such
central Christian claims as
“Christ rose from the
Dead,” “Man shall
survive the death of his earthly
body,” “God is in
Christ”? If we do, it becomes com-
pletely unclear as to what it could mean to speak of
either the
truth or falsity of the Christian religion. If
we do not, then it would
seem that some central Chris-
tian
truth-claims do clash with scientific claims and
orientations so that there
is after all a conflict between
science and religion.
Given such a dilemma, the agnostic or atheist could
then go on to claim that
either these key religious
utterances do not function propositionally as
truth-
claims at all or there is indeed
such a clash. But if
there is such a clash, the scientific claims are
clearly
the claims to be preferred, for of all the rival ways
of
fixing belief, the scientific way of fixing belief is
clearly the most
reliable. Thus if there are good empir-
ical,
scientific reasons (as there are) for thinking that
people who die are not
resurrected, that when our
earthly bodies die we die, and that there is no
evidence
at all, and indeed not even any clear meaning to the
claim
that there are “resurrection bodies” and a
“res-
urrection
world” utterly distinct from the cosmos, we
have the strongest
of reasons for not accepting the
Christian claim that “Christ
rose from the Dead.” The
scientific beliefs in conflict with
that belief are ones
that it would be foolish to jettison. But it is
only
by a sacrifice of our scientific way of conceiving of
things that
we could assent to such a central religious
claim. Thus it is fair to say
that our scientific under-
standing drives
us in the direction of either atheism
or agnosticism.
Some contemporary theologians have responded to
such contentions by arguing
that there are good con-
ceptual reasons why
there could not be, appearances
to the contrary notwithstanding, such a
conflict.
“Christ” is not equivalent to
“Jesus” but to “the son
of God”
and God is not a physical reality. Christianity
centers on a belief in a
deity who is beyond the world,
who is creator of the world. But such a
reality is in
principle, since it is transcendent to the cosmos, not
capable of being investigated scientifically but must
be understood in some other way. God in his proper
non-anthropomorphic forms is beyond the reach of
evidence. Only crude
anthropomorphic forms of
Christian belief could be disproved by modern
scien-
tific investigations.
To believe that Christ rose from the dead is to be
committed to a belief in
miracles. But, it has been
forcefully argued by Ninian Smart, this does not
com-
mit us to something which is
anti-scientific or that can
be ruled out a priori
(Smart [1964], Ch. II; [1966], pp.
44-45). A miracle is an event of divine
significance
which is an exception to at least one law of nature.
Scientific laws are not, it is important to remember,
falsified by single
exceptions but only by a class of
experimentally repeatable events. Thus we
can believe
in the miracle of Christ's resurrection without clashing
with anything sanctioned by science. It is a dogma,
the critic of
agnosticism could continue, to think that
everything that can be known can
be known by the
method of science or by simple observation. A thor-
oughly scientific mind quite devoid of
credulity could
remain committed to Judaism or Christianity, believe
in God, and accept such crucial miracle stories without
abandoning a
scientific attitude, i.e., he could accept
all the findings of science and
accept its authority as
the most efficient method for ascertaining what is
the
case when ascertaining what is the case comes to
predicting and
retrodicting classes of experimentally
repeatable events or processes.
Christians as well as agnostics can and do recognize
the obscurity and
mysteriousness of religious claims.
The Christian should go on to say that
a nonmysterious
God, a God whose reality is evident, would not be the
God of Judeo-Christianity—the God to be accepted
on faith with
fear and trembling. It is only for a God
who moves in mysterious ways, that
the characteristic
Jewish and Christian attitudes of discipleship, adora-
tion, and faith are appropriate. If the
existence of God
and what it was to act in accordance with His will
were perfectly evident or clearly establishable by hard
intellectual work,
faith would lose its force and ration-
ale.
Faith involves risk, trust, and commitment. Judaism
or Christianity is not
something one simply must be-
lieve in if one
will only think the matter through as
clearly and honestly as possible.
What is evident is that the agnosticism of a Huxley
and a Stephen at
least—and a Bertrand Russell as
well—rests on a
philosophical view not dictated by
science. James Ward saw this around the
turn of the
century and argued in his Naturalism and
Agnosticism
that agnosticism “is an inherently unstable
position”
unless it is supplemented by some general
philosophical
view such as materialism or idealism (p. 21). Yet it is
just such overall views that Huxley and Stephen were
anxious to
avoid and along Humean lines viewed with
a thoroughgoing skepticism.
In sum, the claim is that only if such an overall
philosophical view is
justified is it the case that there
may be good grounds for being an
agnostic rather than
a Christian or a Jew. The overall position
necessary
for such a justification is either a position of empiricism
or materialism and if it is the former it must be a form
of empiricism
which in Karl Popper's terms is also a
scientism. By this we mean the claim
that there are
no facts which science cannot explore: that what can-
not at least in principle be known by the
method of
science cannot be known. Where alternatively scien-
tism is part of a reductive materialist
metaphysics,
there is a commitment to what has been called an
“existence-monism,” namely, the view that there is
only one sort of level or order of existence and that
is spatiotemporal
existence. That is to say, such an
existence-monist believes that to exist
is to have a place
in space-time. In support of this, he may point out
that we can always ask about a thing that is supposed
to exist where it exists. This, it is claimed, indicates
how
we in reality operate on materialist assumptions.
And note that if that
question is not apposite, “exists”
and its
equivalents are not being employed in their
standard
senses, but are being used in a secondary sense
as in “Ghosts
and gremlins exist merely in one's mind.”
Besides
existence-monism there is the even more per-
vasive and distinctively empiricist position—a position
shared by the logical empiricists, by Bertrand Russell,
and by John
Dewey—referred to as “methodological-
monism”: to wit “that all
statements of fact are such
that they can be investigated scientifically,
i.e., that
they can in principle be falsified by
observation”
(Smart [1966], p. 8).
However, critics of agnosticism have responded, as
has Ninian Smart, by
pointing out that these philo-
sophical
positions are vulnerable to a variety of fairly
obvious and long-standing
criticisms. Perhaps these
criticisms can be and have been met, but these
positions
are highly controversial. If agnosticism is tied to them,
do
we not have as good grounds for being skeptical
of agnosticism as the
agnostics have for being skeptical
of the claims of religion.
Some samplings of the grounds for being skeptical
about the philosophical
underpinnings for agnosticism
are these. When I suddenly remember that I
left my
key in my car, it makes sense to speak of the space-time
location of my car but, it is at least plausibly argued,
not of the
space-time location of my sudden thought.
Moreover numbers exist but it
hardly makes sense to
ask where they exist. It is
not the case that for all
standard uses of “exist” that to exist is to
have a place
in space-time. Methodological-monism is also beset
with
difficulties. There are in science theoretically
unobservable entities and
“from quite early times, the
central concepts of religion, such
as God and nirvana
already include the notion that what they stand for
cannot literally be observed” (Smart [1962], p. 8).
Moreover it
is not evident that we could falsify state-
ments such as “There are some graylings in
Michigan”
or “Every human being has some neurotic
traits” or
“Photons really exist, they are not simply
scientific
fictions.” Yet we do recognize them (or so at least
it
would seem) as intelligible statements of fact. Such
considerations
lead Ninian Smart to claim confidently
in his The Teacher
and Christian Belief (London, 1966)
that “it remains
merely a dogma to claim that all facts
are facts about moons and flowers
and humans and
other denizens of the cosmos. There need be no general
embargo upon belief in a transcendent reality, pro-
vided such belief is not merely based on uncontrolled
speculation” (p. 51). Smart goes on to conclude that
“the exclusion of transcendent fact rests on a mere
decision” (p. 52). So it would appear, from what has
been said
above, that agnosticism has no solid rational
foundation.
The dialectic of the argument over agnosticism is
not nearly at an end and
it shall be the burden of the
argument here to establish that agnosticism
still has
much to be said for it. First of all, even granting, for
the
reasons outlined above, that neither the develop-
ment of science nor an appeal to scientism or empiri-
cism establishes agnosticism, there are other consid-
erations which give it strong
support. David Hume's
Dialogues on Natural Religion (1779) and Immanuel
Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (1781) make it quite
evident that none of the proofs for the existence of
God work, i.e., they
are not sound or reliable argu-
ments.
Furthermore it should be noted that their ar-
guments do not for the most part depend for their force
on
empiricist assumptions and they most certainly do
not depend on the
development of science.
The most rigorous contemporary work in the philos-
ophy of religion has not always supported the detailed
arguments
of Hume and Kant but it has for the most
part supported their overall
conclusions on this issue.
Alvin Plantinga, for example, in his God and Other
Minds (1967) rejects rather thoroughly
the principles
and assumptions of both existence-monism and metho-
dological-monism and he
subjects the particulars of
Hume's and Kant's views to careful criticism,
yet in
the very course of giving a defense of what he takes
to be the
rationality of Christian belief, he argues that
none of the attempts at a
demonstration of the exist-
ence of God have succeeded. He is echoed in this claim
by such
important contemporary analytical theologians
as John Hick and Diogenes
Allen. This lack of validated
knowledge of the divine or lack of such
warranted
belief strengthens the hand of the agnostics, though
it is
also compatible with fideism or a revelationist view
such as Barth's, which
holds that man on his own can
know nothing of God but must rely utterly on
God's
self-disclosure.
