Agnosticism

Though there are a couple of references in The Oxford English Dictionary to
earlier occurrences of theword ‘agnostic’, it seems (perhaps
independently) tohave beenintroduced by T. H. Huxley at aparty in London
to found the Metaphysical Society,whichflourished for over adecade and
towhich belonged notable thinkers andleaders ofopinion. Huxley thought
that as many of these people liked to describe themselves as adherents of
various ‘isms’ he would invent one forhimself. He took itfrom a
description in Acts 17:23 of an altarinscribed ‘to an unknown God’. Huxley
thought that we would never be able to know about theultimate origin and
causes of theuniverse. Thus he seems tohave beenmore like a Kantian
believer in unknowable noumena than like a Vienna Circleproponent of the
view that talk of God is noteven meaningful. Perhaps such alogical
positivist should beclassified as neither a theist nor an atheist, but her
view would be just asobjectionable to a theist. ‘Agnostic’ ismore
contextual than is ‘atheist’, as it can be used in a non-theological way,
aswhen acosmologist might say thatshe isagnostic aboutstringtheory,
neither believing nor disbelieving it. In this article I confine myself to
the use of ‘agnostic’ in atheological context.Huxley'sagnosticism seems
nevertheless to go with anextreme empiricism, nearer to Mill's methods of
induction than torecent discussions of thehypothetico-deductive and
partly holistic aspect oftesting oftheories. Though we might not be able
toprovethe existence of God might we be able to disprove it? Many
philosophers hold thatthe existence of an omnipotent, omniscient and good
God is empirically refuted bythe existence ofevil and suffering, and so
would be happyto be called atheists rather thanagnostics.Of course the
existence of a non-benevolentcreator God would not be so refutable and
atheism wouldhave todepend on arguments other than that of the mere
existence ofevil. Morecommonlythe theist willcontinue to include
benevolence in the concept of God and attempt to deal with theproblem of
evil with the help of variousauxiliary orevenad hochypotheses or
considerations,much as ascientist may attempt, often successfully, to
shore upagainst empirical refutation apreviouslywelltestedtheory.
Bayesian considerations may determine rationally, though roughly, the
appropriate degree of belief or unbelief.