The Pope on Agnosticism
Maclin Horton of “Light on Dark Water” tries to make the case for agnoticism being of form of atheism by quoting a passage from Pope Benedict XVI, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s book Christianity and the Crisis of Cultures. Go there if you wish to see the whole thing, but here’s the portion that stood out for me:
When faced with the question of God, man cannot permit himself to remain neutral. All he can say is Yes or No—without ever avoiding all the consequences that derive from this choice even in the smallest details of life.
It seems to me that the Pope doesn’t quite understand agnosticism.
Ratzinger says that to be agnostic is to be neutral. No. Neutral is what you are when you decide not to take sides in a war. While some agnostics are admittedly apathetic to the question of God’s existance (I once placed myself in this category), many are actually pretty engaged in the debate.
Agnosticism at its base isn’t pure neutrality (though some wings are), but an acceptance that the question of God’s existance is not known, and in some cases, cannot be known by mere humans. Yet, there are several ways you can go about life. You can go to church every Sunday and pray every night but still claim that you can’t prove the existance of God. You can also live your life without any of these things.
Now, in his argument, the Pope is saying that if you choose to live as if God did not exist, you are thus choosing an atheist position. Admittedly, I am an agnostic who does not live with a god in my life, but I consider myself different from atheist. That’s because atheism, at its core, is a fairly solid rejection of a deity. There are several forms of atheism, some of which are more emphatic on the non-existance of a deity, but all of them involve that rejection. Agnosticism is not a rejection of god, but rather states that the answer is – to use a relatively well known phrase – above our pay grade.
John Schwenkler at Culture 11 probably puts it best:
But to claim that an earnest and honest agnosticism would be impossible to put into practice – that one cannot put off the task of voting for the sake of further deliberation, albeit with the sincere intention to return and cast that ballot once the time is right – seems an overly stark way to put this point.
I personally say that I don’t know right now, but if you provide me a a good case one way or another, I could make a more certain statement. Until that time, though, I’ll continue to join the debate.
I’d call myself _technically_ an agnostic – even though atheist would be a more helpful term. I haven’t shut out the possibility of a God completely, I would be mad to do so. And I do think about it often enough. We surely all are agnostic, technically, as none of us could know.
That said, I have some sympathy with the Pope’s view. I’ve always felt that deeds have to back up beliefs. In that sense, one cannot hedge one’s bets.
I make a ‘leap of faith’ and presume a deity doesn’t exist, however, because I feel it’s too important a question to leave hanging. If I don’t think there’s a God, I must make that statement for myself if I’m to build up any reasonable semblance of a comprehensive morality or worldview.
I fully respect your agnosticism, however, as it is clearly not ‘lazy,’ you’re asking important questions and this is one decision you shouldn’t rush!
Hmm, well, I absolutely believe God exists. My evidence is in dozens of personal miracles and thousands of answers prayers. I also absolutely know I can’t prove that existence to anyone. I’ve tried, and it’s only led me to believe God doesn’t want to be proven, at least not in the ways the world would accept as concrete and infallible. But I’d hardly say that makes me Agnostic.
Personally I’d there are two types of Agnostics: The kind who are trying hard to know one way or the other, and the ones who don’t really care either way. I would imagine the Pope is only referring to the second group, and I’d also imagine he’s right. I don’t think it applies to the first group at all.
That’s because atheism, at its core, is a fairly solid rejection of a deity. There are several forms of atheism, some of which are more emphatic on the non-existance of a deity, but all of them involve that rejection.
Ah yes, the eternal burning argument between agnostics and atheists, made all the more tragic by the fact that a large number of them hold essentially identical positions and are separated only by how they choose to verbally express them.
Michael, your affirmation that atheists all overtly reject a deity is incorrect, and also a widespread misconception amongst agnostics. I know I’ve explained this before and I could swear I’ve even done it to you directly at some point. But to reiterate, the vast majority of atheists do not positively afirm the non-existence of a deity in a mirror image of the positive affirmation of theists. This misunderstanding stems from simplistic assumptions about atheistic positions and also in part from a lack of communication that is often the fault of atheists, who fail to properly explain their positions.
On to the fairies, which I’ve mentioned on this blog about a 100 times. Atheists view god(s) as everyone views fairies. When asked, we say “fairies don’t exist”. This does no mean an absolute faith-based conviction of the non-existence of fairies, or a “rejection” of fairies, it merely means that in the absence of any compelling evidence in favor of the existence of fairies, the default position is to say they aren’t real. Such is the atheists position on god(s).
In fact, the difference between many (though not all) agnostics and atheists is more emotional and semantic than based on any real difference of opinion. Atheists feel that in the absence of evidence its proper to say something does not exist while agnostics feel that in the particular case of god(s) the matter should be treated more carefully. This is true in the case of doubting agnostics (not sure if god(s) are real and feel there are compelling arguments on both sides) or the philosophical agnostics (feel the entire matter is unknowable for now and therefore neutrality is the only logical position).
I do agree with the Pope on one matter though. What counts is your behaviour. In the end you either act as if a deity does not exist or as if one did. In the case you act as if one does, you have to decide which one for certain rules. A deist will act in practice in the same way as an atheist. Of course, while I accept the logic of this reasoning, I would instantly balk at what would undoubtedly be the Pope’s next step; to affirm that the behaviour of a deist (preferably a Catholic one) is measurably better or more moral than that of an agnostic or atheist.
Words – Mere Muffled Muted Metaphors Mocking Meaning
By Marilyn LaCourt
In Time Magazine, November 13, 2006, Francis Collins, Director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, said religion answers the why questions, the meaning of life questions.
This is how Collins finds the meaning of life. First he says, “God could have activated evolution…” So far he sounds like a 19th century deist, content to leave it at that. But then he goes on, “with full knowledge of how it would turn out”. When asked, about belief in the virgin birth and the resurrection, he answered, “if you believe in a God that is outside of nature, why couldn’t that God invade the natural world with miracles?” And, “I don’t think it’s God’s purpose to make everything absolutely obvious to us. It would not have been sensible for Him to use the mechanism of evolution without posting obvious road signs to reveal His role in creation.”
Let me see if I have this right. Collins believes there is a God that created the universe, a belief for which there is no reliable evidence, and he knows that his God thinks, what his God thinks and that his God would not do something that wasn’t sensible. Oh yes, it’s all based on reason. It seems to me he reasons that if he were this God of his, this is what he would think and do. I guess once you take that leap of faith anything goes. Sounds more like making meaning than it does like finding meaning to me.
Michael Shermer, author of “Why People Believe Weird Things” says, and I agree, we’re asking the wrong questions. “What meaning does the universe have? None.” He goes on, “A star is just a blob of plasma. Of course it has no meaning; it’s just atoms doing what they do under heat and pressure. So the meaning comes from what we put into life, what we make of it.”
Many smart and foolish people spend all their years on earth searching for the meaning of life, assuming there is one. Others understand and accept that we make our own meanings; we collectively adjudicate social reality, cultures, and religions.
We use language to make meaning, individually and collectively. We use words in an effort to understand and be understood, to deceive, to predict, and to control. Language is a living system created and recreated by people. We are both constrained and freed by our language.
We’re born into a culture with a language that shapes our reality. It’s been said that we cannot have an experience for which we don’t have words. The language we’re taught shapes the meaning we attribute to our experience. At the same time we continuously change our language to fit our experience.
The difference between the dictionary and the Bible is that the dictionary is a living work in process; it reflects the constantly changing meanings we attribute to the words we create. The Bible, on the other hand, is the final word. But then, God did not write the dictionary.
A student of mine once said to a fellow classmate, “The Bible speaks dead language, as dead as it can be. First it killed the infidels and now it’s killing thee.”
Sometimes words appear to take on a life of their own, and let me tell you, we have a bully on the block. The word ‘faith’ is shoving the word ‘trust’ out of the neighborhood. There are no shots fired, and there are no broken bones. The bullying is subtle, coercive, political, subversive, and insidious.
Faith and trust used to share equal status in our language. Older dictionaries clearly differentiate between these words. The word faith was used to describe how a belief is accepted without evidence, and the word trust was used to describe how a belief is accepted based on probabilities and evidence. Newer dictionaries blur these distinctions and today’s thesaurus suggests that the words mean essentially the same thing.
In the current political climate it is forbidden to criticize the bully faith. Recent polls indicate that atheists are the most hated minority in our country. Why? Because we don’t have faith and we don’t accept faith’s baggage, religion. Faith good. Doubt bad. Trust, a useless word, rendered impotent by faith and with it respect for atheists has been kicked out of the realm of probabilities.
As faith gained status as a good buzzword used by politicians, mainstream Americans began rolling it off their tongues as automatically as they say under god in the pledge. Unfortunately, the faith and trust words are used interchangeably by nearly everyone, even by atheists.
Recently I heard a friend of mine, an atheist, say, “I have faith in my son. He is a good person.” I have no doubt that this friend trusts his son based on evidence and probabilities, but the word faith rolled off his tongue quite casually.
‘Faith’ is a powerful bully that theists use to discredit atheists. A seemingly harmless little word is used to deceive and control. School board members accuse scientists of having faith in evolution. In one step, with one little word, they position evolution and creationism/intelligent design in the same science classroom, each having equal status.
I cringe whenever I hear someone say, “I have no faith in our current administration.” We have plenty of evidence upon which to base our lack of trust, and the probabilities indicate they will continue to operate in the corrupt manner to which they have become accustomed. Faith has nothing to do with it.
There are atheists who would like to clean up our image as the most hated minority in the country. They say, “Look, we’re not so different from you good people of faith. We believe in some of the same things you do”. Saying stuff like that has theists jumping up down, pointing fingers, and saying gocha. “See you do have faith, and atheism is just a different religion.” In the words of Rodney Dangerfield, “We don’t get no respect.”
Of course atheists have beliefs. What atheists don’t have is faith.
How do we hold some beliefs without knowing? First we must carefully separate the Siamese twin words named believing and knowing.
I know and I believe the cars have stopped at the red light and allowed me to cross the street safely only after I have reached the other side of the street unharmed. I believe without knowing the cars will stop and allow me to cross safely based on probabilities. It’s trust, not faith that gets me from one side of the street to the other. Faith requires neither probabilities nor evidence.
I trust certain people based on their track record or on their reputation. I don’t know that my husband will never cheat on me. I believe that he won’t because experience tells me he is a person who honors his commitments, a person who understands the risks of STD’s, and he has a 30-year track record for being true to his marriage vows. I do not have faith in my husband, I trust him.
For an atheist, belief is the acceptance that a statement is probably true. We cannot know that a statement is actually true without concrete evidence or until after the event.
While the word faith has become the bully on the block, agnostic is the disingenuous wimp. Thomas Huxley did us no favors when he coined the word agnostic because a useless concept has been given status and power it doesn’t deserve. Gnostic means knowing. Agnostic means not knowing, plain and simple. The Gnostics claimed they had secret knowledge about the supernatural. Huxley claimed to have no such knowledge. The Gnostics claimed to have knowledge and hinted at evidence to support their claim, but nobody has ever produced such evidence. That is unless Dan Brown’s fiction about Mary Magdalene being the pregnant wife of Jesus turns out to be true. Still there is no evidence that Jesus was god in the first place. Knowledge of a supernatural can only be claimed through belief without evidence, faith.
When asked, “Do you ‘believe’ in God?” in my opinion, those who answer, “I’m agnostic,” wimp out. They are disingenuous; they don’t answer the question as asked, or perhaps they are simply ignorant about the formal meaning of the word and its concept.
The question is; do you believe in God? Not, do you know God? They are being asked if they have faith; do they believe something for which there is no evidence.
When asked, “Do you believe in Thor?” most people, theists and atheists, answer, “No”. We don’t have a word for not knowing Thor because, nobody knows Thor, and nobody claims to know Thor. There is no evidence, and the probabilities of Thor’s existence are nil. The same is true for God. Who knows God? Nobody knows God. There is no evidence to date. In that sense, everybody is agnostic regardless of what they claim to know. The word is useless.
Theists honestly say it like it is. Belief in God requires faith. A word that clearly differentiates between believers in God and those who do not believe in God is atheist. The preface a means not. For example, an atheist is not a theist. Theists believe there is a God, without evidence. Atheists do not believe without evidence. Contrary to what some claim, atheists are not against theism. If and when there is evidence to support the claim that there is a god, atheists will trust the evidence and believe there is a supernatural.
There’s a difference between believing something exists and believing something is valuable, something to be achieved. Of course we good atheists believe in all the good moral stuff good people of faith believe in, freedom, love, loyalty, justice, charity, etc. These are values we embrace, something positive to be achieved. We do not believe in God, gods, fairies, ghosts, heaven, hell, or being coerced into good behavior out of fear.
I like to think an atheist is a person who believes in telling the truth and taking responsibility for our deeds, both the good and the bad.
Sometimes we make mistakes by believing something because we reason there will be a positive outcome based on evidence and probabilities. Sometimes we call the shots wrong and we lose. Cars sometimes hit people, even when they cross with the light. However, acting on faith (without evidence) is always a mistake even when we get lucky and the outcome is the one we were seeking.
Reason is a sticky wicket of a word. Richard Dawkins and other scientists use the word reason as a noun meaning the antithesis, the opposite or the antonym of superstition, delusion and religion, eg., unfounded conclusions based on faulty evidence. I’ve checked dictionaries and thesauruses and to date, I can’t find an antonym for superstition or religion listed. Perhaps if the word is used frequently, and in prominent places, as a noun and the meaning attributed is the antithesis of religion and superstition, it might find a home in the company of antonyms in future versions of those reference sources.
In the mean time, however reason, or reasoning, the verb, is commonly used to represent thinking, problem solving, and making meaning. In the verb sense, many religious people reason as well as the most knowledgeable atheist. Nobody could fault Collins for his inability to reason. The problem is that his reasoning begins with faulty premises. Once you accept the premise that life has meaning, you reason that you can find the meaning. Once you accept the groundless premise that God created the universe, once you take that leap of faith, anything goes. “Why couldn’t He have worked miracles? Why couldn’t He have given us a road map?”
Reasoning can take us down a slippery slope. Alister McGrath states in “The Twilight of Atheism: The Rise and Fall of Disbelief in the Modern World”, “The belief that there is no God is just as much a matter of faith as the belief that there is a God.” McGrath reasons, “If “faith” is defined as “belief lying beyond proof”, both Christianity and atheism are faiths.” Therefore atheism is a religion.
Yes, and atheists have faith in evolution. Boggles the mind, doesn’t it? I guess some folks reason that you can have it both ways.
Atheists would do well to take a lesson from scientists and engineers who would not think of communicating with each other about a theory or a bridge without coming as close as possible to a precise definition of terms that is agreed upon by all who participate in the conversation.
Trust is a good word. We should use it. Agnostic is a useless word. We should dump it. Knowing and believing are not Siamese twins. Believing something exists or something is true is different from believing in something valuable, something to be achieved. Reasoning, the verb, should begin with premises that are probably true based on evidence.
However muffled, muted and mocking they are, words are still the best tools we posses if we want to understand and be understood, to live and let live in some measure of harmony with other human beings. Let’s hope we can come close enough for all practical purposes.
Claudia, I’m not sure that we part at all or that much on this matter. But maybe I’m using the wrong word. Wouldn’t be the first time.
I don’t mean “rejection” in the sense that someone tries to come and convert you to religion and you reject their advances. Or that you were religious and then became an atheist later (which would be rejecting a deity in my book). I mean rejection as in you reject the idea that a deity exists. I’d say that’s pretty much the same thing as simply saying, “God doesn’t exist,” as you explain. My argument is all in the concept, not the thing itself.
I know it doesn’t look like that’s what I was saying, but admittedly my writing in parts was a little sloppy. That’s what my thinking was, though.
Where I am with you is in the differences between atheism and agnosticism. I used to see agnosticism in its own separate category, but the fact is that the lines between the two are blurred, and I’ve said this before elsewhere. As you say, it may be more semantic than anything, and maybe that’s why I don’t know which end I lie closer to. Maybe there’s not any end to lie closer to, though.
Agnosticism is not a rejection of god, but rather states that the answer is – to use a relatively well known phrase – above our pay grade.
Michael, the way I read that passage from Ratzinger- particularly in reading the whole excerpt provided at the link- is that the stance that you are choosing is ultimately impossible because in each action of your life you are still choosing to either live as though there’s a God or that there’s not. You may not be making the larger decision, because of your conviction that God is unknowable even if he does exist, but every day you make thousands of small decisions which define which choice you are actually making. Because actions speak louder than words, the choices you make in every act, every day, form the choice that you don’t believe you are capable of making.
Or, as a friend once wrote in a song lyric: “There are no big decisions, just the small ones you chose not to make.” You think that you are avoiding the ‘big’ choice because you don’t think it’s possible to make it, and yet, you are actually choosing what you believe each time you think, speak, or act, because each of those events is either ordered around one set of beliefs or another.
A funny thing just occurred to me, too, Michael, about your reference to the “above my pay grade” response. When Obama gave that answer in regard to the beginning of the right to life for an individual human being, the reason that many of us found it lacking was because he will in fact have to make the decision on that in any action he takes on abortion law. The underpinning of any abortion law is the balancing of right to life for the unborn with reproductive rights for the pregnant woman. So, since Obama will now have to make such decisions that derive from either a belief in the fetus’ right to life or a rejection of that premise, he should have answered the question on which all of those other decisions will rest. And having not taken a stance, he still doesn’t absolve himself from the sum total of his decisions, actions which themselves will show what his answer to the ‘big question’ really is.
The question of God’s existence is the same, I think- and I believe that is what Ratzinger was pointing out.
Both atheism and religion require faith, namely the faith that one KNOWS without doubt the truth or falsity of unprovable assertions. Saying that one must be either/or, that one MUST answer yes or no, is to blatantly assert a false dichotomy. Agnosticism requires no faith at all, none, merely the acknowledgement that one does NOT know the unknowable, and that is what distinguishes it from both atheism and a belief in a supreme deity.
Tully, I think that you and Michael are missing the point. Ratzinger, I believe, is asserting that agnostics still have to make the choice because our actions express our beliefs. Even if one thinks that the question of God is unanswerable, Ratzinger is asserting that the actions of that person are either oriented toward a belief in God or nonbelief. I suppose you could argue that that is a false dichotomy (that actions can have neutrality) but perhaps the rest of the text would provide more of Ratzinger’s arguments for his thesis.
Also: I think you’re wrong to assert that religious faith means that one believes that one knows without doubt. For me, and I think for most religious believers, faith is more of a choice to believe than a claim to know beyond doubt. I have a certain amount of belief that the tenets of my faith are true, but whether or not they are literally true is quite irrelevant because I have chosen to live as though it is true. Doubt is normal and natural for anyone who has faith combined with reason; if we have any understanding of reason we already know that God is not a falsifiable hypothesis and that our belief in Him has a different character than belief in things of the physical universe.
I’m in agreement with C Stanley – I think the decision must be made, and will always be doubted to some extent. But it is the dominant decision in determining morality – it can’t be postponed.
Similarly, I have to declare myself a non-believer if I am to start on any productive moral framework for my life.
Both atheism and religion require faith, namely the faith that one KNOWS without doubt the truth or falsity of unprovable assertions.
For the upenteenth time no, that is not so. Atheism is not a positive faith in the non-existence of a god or gods. It is the lack of faith in deities based on a lack of evidence for their existence. Repetition that it is the mirror image of religious faith will not make it so. Do you have a positive certainty in the non-existence of dragons, or Zeus? Or do you merely state your non-belief in such mythologies based on a patent lack of evidence for their existence. This is how virtually all atheists view the matter (I say “virtually” not because I actually know of people who profess active faith-based non-belief, but because I suppose some people must actually be stupid enough to miss the point, by simple probability). Atheism is in fact a term that would be irrelevant if it were not for the prevalence of religious faith, which is why you never here of afairyists.
Or maybe you never hear of ‘afairyists’ because it’s a stupid analogy. People don’t bother to profess belief or nonbelief in fairies because a hypothetical existence of fairies does not explain anything about man’s relationship to the universe, nor is it helpful for a framework of morality in any way. I wish you’d stop repeating this comparison because it makes no sense and serves only to qualify religious belief as an unintelligent belief system (ie, whether consciously or not, you take on a dismissive tone which is offensive and annoying.)
Let me clarify, though- I do understand the point you are making even though I think you choose a bad analogy to express it. I can certainly understand that some people have a completely positivist outlook- asserting that we can only have knowledge of that which is observable by the physical senses.
But in order to actually understand (and have a healthy respect for, even if you disagree with) religious believers, it’s probably more helpful to understand our belief more in the way you’d also believe in abstract things. Take, for example, love. I assume you believe that ‘love’ exists, even though it’s not a physical thing which you can measure or observe. This is a far better analogy, in my view, than your oft used one of belief in fairies.
Well said, C Stanley! Thank you.
I’m not missing the point at all, Christine. The Pope is pimping monotheistic faith as being the ONLY alternative to atheism. As I said, a false dichotomy. The implied and extended claim is that ONLY by embracing monotheism (faith in God) can one act as anything but a self-centered immoral git–the assertion that Man cannot act ethically or morally without God. Half a billion Buddhists disagree. Among others.
Atheism is not a positive faith in the non-existence of a god or gods. It is the lack of faith in deities based on a lack of evidence for their existence.
Millions of agnostics and atheists disagree, Claudia. You’re trying to drag agnosticism into being categorial atheism by redefining it–the “weak” versus “strong” atheism argument. Taken to its logical conclusion that argument asserts that agnosticism itself does not exist save as a subset of atheism, a proposition with which agnostics (such as myself) vehemently disagree, not caring to be lumped in with “hard” atheists, whose assertions do indeed require faith.
There is indeed a very real difference between the two. They are not mutually exclusive, but neither are they automatically congruent. If you wish to be considered as an atheist, feel free. I’m an agnostic.
With all due respect, Tully, you are missing that this passage is an excerpt from a book about Western cultures and the decline of Christian belief at the expense of secularism. That dichotomy is built into the context, not an absolute. Benedict speaks of other religions elsewhere but it’s not relevant to what he’s discussing here-the particular tension between Christianity and post-Enlightenment rejection of God as a basis for morality.
I’m not religious, nor agnostic, nor an atheist. I belong to a fourth category that as far as I know has no name, but possibly represents a large part of the population.
The group of “I don’t care”. I have no opinion wether there’s a god, or wether it can be proven. I think these questions do not matter, and also that the topic is in itself, uninteresting.