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014 - Agnosticism · Theism or Atheism, The Great Alternative

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  Speaker 1: Chapter thirteen of Theism or Atheism, The Great Alternative by
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  Speaker 1: Chapman Cohen. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Agnosticism.
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  Speaker 1: The primary difficulty in dealing with agnosticism is its elusive character.
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  Speaker 1: It is a word of various and vague meanings, and
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  Speaker 1: many of those who use it seem to have no
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  Speaker 1: great anxiety to fix its meeting with any degree of precision.
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  Speaker 1: It is used now in a philosophic and now in
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  Speaker 1: a religious sense, and its use in the one connection
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  Speaker 1: is justified by its use in another. It has become,
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  Speaker 1: in the half century of its existence, as indefinite as
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  Speaker 1: religion and about as enlightening. On the one side, it
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  Speaker 1: appears as a council of mental integrity with which every
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  Speaker 1: one will agree, and on the other, the religious side,
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  Speaker 1: it will vary from a form that is identical with
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  Speaker 1: that much dreaded atheism to a religious or reverend agnosticism
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  Speaker 1: that reminds one mentally and morally of Methodism minus its creed. Indeed,
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  Speaker 1: to say that a man is an agnostic nowadays tells
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  Speaker 1: one no more than calling a man religious indicates to
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  Speaker 1: which one of the world sects he gives his adherents.
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  Speaker 1: The only aspect of agnosticism that we are here vitally
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  Speaker 1: concerned with is its relation to religion, or specifically with
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  Speaker 1: the God idea. But it will be necessary to say
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  Speaker 1: a word in passing on at least one other phase.
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  Speaker 1: And first, as to the origin of the term, the
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  Speaker 1: credit for the first use of the term has always
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  Speaker 1: been given to the late Professor Huxley. Mister R. H.
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  Speaker 1: Hutton says that Huxley first suggested the word at a
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  Speaker 1: meeting of friends in the house of mister James Knowles
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  Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty nine. Professor Huxley says that he deliberately
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  Speaker 1: adopted it because when I reached intellectual maturity and began
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  Speaker 1: to ask myself whether I was an atheist, a theist
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  Speaker 1: or a pantheist, a materialist or an idealist, a Christian
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  Speaker 1: or a free thinker, I found that the more I
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  Speaker 1: learned and reflected, the less ready was the answer, until
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  Speaker 1: at last I came to the conclusion that I had
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  Speaker 1: neither art nor part with any of these denominations except
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  Speaker 1: the last. So I took thought and invented what I
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  Speaker 1: conceived to be the appropriate title of agnostic. And he
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  Speaker 1: goes on to explain that the term was used as
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  Speaker 1: antithetical to the gnostic of church history, who knew all
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  Speaker 1: about things of which Huxley felt himself in ignorance, to
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  Speaker 1: all of which one may say that Huxley appears to
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  Speaker 1: have given himself a lot of needless trouble. In philosophy
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  Speaker 1: there was the term skeptic, and in relation to religion,
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  Speaker 1: the term atheist was ready to hand. The latter term
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  Speaker 1: certainly covered all that Huxley meant by agnosticism as applied
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  Speaker 1: to the God idea. The plain and perhaps brutal truth
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  Speaker 1: is that Huxley would just illustrating the fatal tendency of
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  Speaker 1: English public men to seek for a label that will
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  Speaker 1: mark them off from an unfashionable heresy even more clearly
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  Speaker 1: than it separates them from a crumbling orthodoxy. It is
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  Speaker 1: certainly suggestive to find in this connection a French writer
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  Speaker 1: of distinction, Monsieur Emil, Butemey pointing out that in France, Spencer,
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  Speaker 1: Mill and Huxley would all have been professed atheists the
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  Speaker 1: English people page forty four. But France is France and
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  Speaker 1: has always possessed the courage to follow ideas to their
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  Speaker 1: logical conclusion. When it comes to a definition of agnosticism,
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  Speaker 1: Professor Huxley's position becomes still more difficult of understanding. Agnosticism,
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  Speaker 1: he says, is a method, the essence of which may
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  Speaker 1: be expressed in a single principle. Positively, the principle may
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  Speaker 1: be expressed in matters of the intellect. Follow your reason
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  Speaker 1: so far as it will take you, without regard to
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  Speaker 1: any other concer iteration, and negatively, in matters of the intellect,
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  Speaker 1: do not pretend that conclusions are certain which are not
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  Speaker 1: demonstrated or demonstrable. So far as this goes, we have
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  Speaker 1: here perfectly sound advice. But why call it agnosticism? It
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  Speaker 1: is no more than the perfectly sound advice that we
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  Speaker 1: must be honest in our investigations and make no claim
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  Speaker 1: to certainty where the conditions of certainty do not exist.
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  Speaker 1: But we have no more right to call this agnosticism
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  Speaker 1: than we have to give the multiplication table a sectarian
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  Speaker 1: or party label. Nor do we believe for a moment
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  Speaker 1: that what Huxley had in view, or what other agnostics
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  Speaker 1: have in view, is no more than a council of
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  Speaker 1: intellectual perfection. What is really an issue here is one's
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  Speaker 1: attitude of mind in relation to the belief in God.
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  Speaker 1: It is in pretending to know about God that the
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  Speaker 1: theist finds himself at issue with the agnostic, and it
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  Speaker 1: is to mark himself off from them theist that the
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  Speaker 1: agnostic gives himself a special label. And the trouble of
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  Speaker 1: the agnostic is that so soon as he begins to
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  Speaker 1: justify his position, either he states the atheistic case or
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  Speaker 1: he fails altogether to make his case good. There is
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  Speaker 1: perhaps one other topic on which agnosticism may be professed,
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  Speaker 1: and that is in connection with the question of what
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  Speaker 1: is known as the problem of existence. We may profess
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  Speaker 1: our belief in the reality of an external world, but
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  Speaker 1: deny that any knowledge of it is possible. Here we
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  Speaker 1: assert that what substance or reality or thing in itself
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  Speaker 1: is we do not know and cannot know. But while
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  Speaker 1: many attempts are made under the name of the Absolute
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  Speaker 1: et cetera, to identify with this God, it is really
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  Speaker 1: nothing of the kind. The belief or disbelief in an
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  Speaker 1: external reality is a problem in philosophy. It has no
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  Speaker 1: genuine connection with theology. To identify the two is a
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  Speaker 1: mere dialectical subterfuge. Mere existence is an ultimate fact that
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  Speaker 1: must be accepted by all. It is only on the
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  Speaker 1: question of its nature that controversy can arise. Whatever may
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  Speaker 1: be claimed on behalf of agnosticism, it certainly cannot be
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  Speaker 1: claimed that it carries a clear and a definite meaning.
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  Speaker 1: As we have seen Professor Huxley used the word to
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  Speaker 1: indicate the fact that he was without knowledge of certain things.
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  Speaker 1: But what thinks to answer that? We have to go
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  Speaker 1: beyond the word itself, That is, we have to define
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  Speaker 1: the definition as it stands. We may profess agnosticism in
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  Speaker 1: relation to anything from the prospects of a general election
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  Speaker 1: within a given period to the question of whether Mars
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  Speaker 1: is inhabited or not. If then it is said that
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  Speaker 1: what is implied is that the agnostic is without a
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  Speaker 1: knowledge of God, or without a belief in God. The
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  Speaker 1: reply is that is exactly the position of the atheist,
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  Speaker 1: And there was no need whatever to coin a new
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  Speaker 1: word if all that was wanted was to express the
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  Speaker 1: atheistic position. Still less justifiable was it to proceed to
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  Speaker 1: misinterpret atheism in order to justify a departure that need
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  Speaker 1: never have been made. One cannot at this point forbear
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  Speaker 1: a word on mister Afterwards, Sir Leslie Stephens's curious justification
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  Speaker 1: of his choice of the word agnosticism after the enlightening
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  Speaker 1: remark that the word atheist carries with it an unpleasant connotation,
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  Speaker 1: He says, quote dogmatic atheism. The doctrine that there is
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  Speaker 1: no God. Whatever may be meant by God is, to
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  Speaker 1: say the least of it, a rare phase of opinion.
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  Speaker 1: The word agnosticism, on the other hand, seems to imply
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  Speaker 1: a fairly accurate appreciation of a form of creed already
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  Speaker 1: common and daily spreading. The agnostic is one who asserts
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  Speaker 1: what no one denies, that there are limits to human
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  Speaker 1: intelligence Agnostics Apology, page one, and then he goes on
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  Speaker 1: to assert that the subject matter of theology lies beyond
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  Speaker 1: these limits. Now, putting on one side this perversion of
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  Speaker 1: the meaning of atheism, was it really worthwhile to coin
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  Speaker 1: a new word to affirm what no one denies? Theists
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  Speaker 1: do not deny the limitations of knowledge. On the contrary,
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  Speaker 1: they are always affirming it. Neither do all theists deny
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  Speaker 1: that God is unknowable. That has been affirmed by them
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  Speaker 1: over and over again. What they have claimed is that
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  Speaker 1: God is apprehended rather than known, and they affirm his
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  Speaker 1: existence on much the same grounds that others assert the
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  Speaker 1: real existence of an external world. Professor Flint's comments on
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  Speaker 1: Stephen's performance are quite to the point, and the more
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  Speaker 1: noteworthy as coming from a clergyman. He says, the word
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  Speaker 1: atheist is a thoroughly honest, unambiguous term. It means one
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  Speaker 1: who does not believe in God, and it means not
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  Speaker 1: either more nor less. It implies neither blame nor approval,
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  Speaker 1: neither desert of punishment nor of reward. If a purely
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  Speaker 1: dogmatic atheism be a rare phase of opinion, critical atheism
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  Speaker 1: is a very common one. And there is also a
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  Speaker 1: form of atheism which is professedly skeptical or agnostic, but
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  Speaker 1: often in reality dogmatic or gnostic agnosticism page sixty nine.
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  Speaker 1: The more carefully one examines the reasons given for the
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  Speaker 1: preference for the word agnosticism, the clearer it becomes that
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  Speaker 1: the real motive is not the wish to obtain mental clarity,
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  Speaker 1: but the desire to avoid association with a term that
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  Speaker 1: carries religiously disagreeable associations. The care taken by so many
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  Speaker 1: who call themselves agnostics to explain to the religious world
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  Speaker 1: that they are not atheists is almost enough to prove this. Indeed,
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  Speaker 1: the position is well summed up by mister John M. Roberts.
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  Speaker 1: The best argument for the use of the name agnostic
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  Speaker 1: is simply that the word atheist has been so long
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  Speaker 1: covered with all manner of ignorant calumny, that it is
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  Speaker 1: expedient to use a new term, which, though in some
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  Speaker 1: respects faulty, has a fair start and will in time
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  Speaker 1: have a recognized meaning. The case so stated is reasonable,
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  Speaker 1: but there is the per contra that whatever the motive
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  Speaker 1: with which the name is used, it is now tact
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  Speaker 1: to half a dozen conflicting forms of doctrine, varying loosely
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  Speaker 1: between theism and pantheism. The name of atheist escapes that drawback.
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  Speaker 1: Its unpopularity has saved it from half hearted and half
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  Speaker 1: minded patronage, so that on the best showing, we are
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  Speaker 1: to take agnostic on the professed ground that it is
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  Speaker 1: more exact than atheism, but on the real ground that
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  Speaker 1: it is less unpopular, Waiting meanwhile for the time when
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  Speaker 1: it shall have become more exact than it is by
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  Speaker 1: becoming accepted in the same sense as the atheism that
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  Speaker 1: has previously been rejected. Courage and straightforwardness saves a lot
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  Speaker 1: of trouble, Mister Bailey Saunders West the Faith, Page seven
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  Speaker 1: calls agnosticism a plea on behalf of suspended judgment, and
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  Speaker 1: this is a favorite expression. It gives one an air
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  Speaker 1: of impartiality, with the comforting reflection that it will please
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  Speaker 1: the socially stronger side. But suspended judgment on what to
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  Speaker 1: hold one's judgment in suspense implies that we have at
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  Speaker 1: least a workable comprehension of the subject in dispute, and
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  Speaker 1: that judgment is suspended because the evidence produced is not
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  Speaker 1: adequate to command decision. But is that the case here?
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  Speaker 1: Does the agnostic claim that the evidence produced by the
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  Speaker 1: theist is merely inadequate or that it is irrelevant? Surely
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  Speaker 1: he holds the latter position, And if that is the case,
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  Speaker 1: then he does not suspend judgment for the simple reason
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  Speaker 1: that there is no case made out concerning which judgment
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  Speaker 1: is to be suspended. There is simply no case before
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  Speaker 1: the court for the agnostic, no more than the atheist
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  Speaker 1: can attach no intelligible meaning to God. He must have
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  Speaker 1: it defined to understand it, and when it is defined,
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  Speaker 1: he rejects it without ceremony. And it is quite obvious
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  Speaker 1: that when an agnostic says I know nothing about God,
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  Speaker 1: he means more than that, otherwise it would not be
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  Speaker 1: worth the saying. He really means that no one else knows. Either.
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  Speaker 1: He asserts that a knowledge of God is impossible to
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  Speaker 1: anyone because it does not present the possibility of being known.
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  Speaker 1: God standing alone is a meaningless word. And how can
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  Speaker 1: one suspend judgment concerning the truth of an unintelligible proposition?
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  Speaker 1: For here are the plain facts of the situation. If
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  Speaker 1: we ask the agnostic whether he suspends judgment concerning the
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  Speaker 1: existence of the gods of any savage pace peoples, the
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  Speaker 1: reply is in the negative. If we put the same
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  Speaker 1: question concerning the God of the Bible, or of the Mohammedan,
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  Speaker 1: or of any other of the world's theologies, we receive
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  Speaker 1: the same answer. There is nothing here to suspend judgment
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  Speaker 1: about the characters and qualities of the gods, being such
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  Speaker 1: that there admits of no doubt as to their imaginary character.
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  Speaker 1: Or if it is said that the agnostic, while dismissing
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  Speaker 1: the gods of the various theologies savage and civilized, as
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  Speaker 1: being impossible suspends judgment as to the existence of a
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  Speaker 1: supreme mind or of a creative intelligence. The reply is
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  Speaker 1: that one cannot suspend judgment as to the possible existence
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  Speaker 1: of an inconceivability, for mind must be mind as we
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  Speaker 1: know it, and it is a downright absurdity to speak
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  Speaker 1: of the possible existence of a mind while divesting it
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  Speaker 1: of all the qualities that characterize mind as we know it. Really,
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  Speaker 1: between the statement that A does not exist in the
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  Speaker 1: affirmation that A does exist, but differs in every conceivable
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  Speaker 1: particular from all known as there is no difference whatever,
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  Speaker 1: we are denying its existence in the very act of
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  Speaker 1: affirming it. Further, we quite agree with mister F. C. S.
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  Speaker 1: Schiller Riddles of the Sphinx, page seventeen to nineteen, that
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  Speaker 1: in practice such suspense of judgment is impossible. We suspend
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  Speaker 1: our judgment as to whether we shall die tomorrow or
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  Speaker 1: at some indefinite future date, and for that reason we
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  Speaker 1: make our arrangements in view of either contingency. We suspend
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  Speaker 1: judgment as to the honesty of an employee, and our
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  Speaker 1: attitude towards him is governed by that fact. And so
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  Speaker 1: with the question of a god. In one way or another.
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  Speaker 1: We are bound to indicate our judgment on the subject.
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  Speaker 1: We must act either as though we believe in the
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  Speaker 1: possibility or in the impossibility of divine interference. If the
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  Speaker 1: mental hesitancy of the respectable agnostic were accompanied by a
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  Speaker 1: corresponding timidity in action, life would be impossible. A less
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  Speaker 1: common plea on behalf of agnosticism, but one on which
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  Speaker 1: a word must be said, is that the agnostic attitude
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  Speaker 1: is more reverential than that of atheism. But why in
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  Speaker 1: the name of all that is reasonable should one profess
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  Speaker 1: reverence towards something of which one knows nothing. Reverence to
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  Speaker 1: be intelligible must be directed towards an intelligent object, and
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  Speaker 1: we must have grounds for believing it to be worthy
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  Speaker 1: of reverence. Reverence towards our fellow creatures is a reasonable
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  Speaker 1: enough sentiment, But what is there reasonable in an expression
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  Speaker 1: of reverence towards something that can only be thought of?
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  Speaker 1: And even this is unwarranted as a force. The truth
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  Speaker 1: is that this expression of reverence is no more than
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  Speaker 1: the flickering survival of religion. Numbers have reached the stage
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  Speaker 1: at which they can perceive the unreasonable nature of religious beliefs,
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  Speaker 1: But they have not yet managed to achieve liberation from
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  Speaker 1: the traditional emotional attitude towards these beliefs. In other words,
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  Speaker 1: the development of the emotional and the intellectual sides of
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  Speaker 1: their nature have been unequal, and for these the unknowable
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  Speaker 1: has simply served as a peg on which to hang
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  Speaker 1: religious feelings that have been robbed of all intellectual support.
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  Speaker 1: The semi religious agnostic thus represents a transition form interesting
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  Speaker 1: enough to all who observe how curiously decaying types strive
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  Speaker 1: to perpetuate themselves, but which is bound to disappear in
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  Speaker 1: the process of intellectual evolution. Finally, one would like from
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  Speaker 1: the agnostic some authoritative announcement as to his position in
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  Speaker 1: relation to what is known concerning the origin of the
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  Speaker 1: God idea. So far as professed theists are concerned, one
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  Speaker 1: expects this to be ignored. On the part of non theists,
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  Speaker 1: one expects a more logical attitude. In this case. It
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  Speaker 1: is common ground with the atheist and the agnostic that
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  Speaker 1: the idea of God owes its beginnings to the ignorance
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  Speaker 1: of primitive man. We know the facts on which this
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  Speaker 1: idea was based, and we know that all these are
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  Speaker 1: now differently explained the belief that there is a God
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  Speaker 1: governing nature is just one of those blunders made by
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  Speaker 1: primitive man, and is on all fours with the numerous
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  Speaker 1: other blunders he makes concerning himself and the world around him.
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  Speaker 1: Knowing this and accepting this, believing that God springs from
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  Speaker 1: the same set of conditions that gave rise to fairies
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  Speaker 1: and spirits of various kinds, One would like to know
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  Speaker 1: on what ground the agnostic definitively rejects the grounds on
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  Speaker 1: which the idea of God is based, while professing a
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  Speaker 1: state of suspended judgment about the existence of the object
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  Speaker 1: created by this primitive blunder. It is certainly surprising to
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  Speaker 1: find those who accept the natural origin of the God
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  Speaker 1: idea when they come to deal with current religion, talk
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  Speaker 1: as though it were merely a question of the inconclusiveness
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  Speaker 1: of religious arguments. It is nothing of the kind. The
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  Speaker 1: final reply to the argument set forth on behalf of
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  Speaker 1: theism is not that they are inconclusive, but that they
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  Speaker 1: are absolutely irrelevant to the question at issue. We cannot
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  Speaker 1: remain undecided because there is nothing to remain undecided about.
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  Speaker 1: We know that the idea of God is pure myth
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  Speaker 1: and was never anything but myth. A belief that began
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  Speaker 1: in error and which has no other basis than error, cannot,
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  Speaker 1: by any possible argument, be converted into a truth. The
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  Speaker 1: old question was can man, by searching find out God?
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  Speaker 1: The modern answer is an emphatic affirmative. Substantially we have,
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  Speaker 1: by searching found out God, we know the origin and
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  Speaker 1: history of one of the greatest delusions that ever possessed
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  Speaker 1: the human mind. God has been found out. Analytically and synthetically,
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  Speaker 1: we understand the God idea as previous generations could not
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  Speaker 1: understand it. It has been explained, and the logical consequence
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  Speaker 1: of the explanation is atheism. Ultimately, then we come to
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  Speaker 1: this one. The agnosticism that concerns itself with a confession
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  Speaker 1: of ignorance concerning the nature of existence has no necessary
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  Speaker 1: connection with religion, and is only made to have such
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  Speaker 1: by a confusion of two distinct things. Two, the plea
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  Speaker 1: of a suspended judgment is invalid, since there is nothing
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  Speaker 1: about which one can suspend a decision. Three. The agnosticism
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  Speaker 1: that professes a semi religious feeling of reverence towards the
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  Speaker 1: unknowable is fundamentally upon all fours with the religious feelings
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  Speaker 1: of the ordinary believer. Worshiping the unknowable is more ridiculous
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  Speaker 1: than worshiping Huxley's Wilderness of Apes. The apes might take
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  Speaker 1: some intelligent interest in the antics of their devotee, but
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  Speaker 1: to print our hypostatized ignorance in capital letters and then
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  Speaker 1: profess a feeling of veneration for it is as ridiculous
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  Speaker 1: a proceeding as the world has seen. After all, an
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  Speaker 1: absurdity is never quite so grotesque as when it is
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  Speaker 1: tricked out in scientific phrases and paraded as the outcome
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  Speaker 1: of profound philosophic thinking. For the only agnosticism that seems
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  Speaker 1: capable of justifying itself is an agnosticism that is indistinguishable
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  Speaker 1: from atheism. To again, cite Professor Flint, atheist quote means
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  Speaker 1: one who does not believe in God, and it means
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  Speaker 1: neither more nor less unquote. The agnostic is also one
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  Speaker 1: who is without belief in a God. Every argument he
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  Speaker 1: uses to justify his position is and has been used
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  Speaker 1: as a justification of atheism. Atheist is really quote a
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: thoroughly honest, unambiguous term unquote. It admits of no paltering
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: and of no evasion, and the need of the world
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: now as ever, is for clear cut issues and unambiguous speech.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: End of Chapter thirteen.