Based on a video lecture.

Video lecture: YouTube

Today I want to talk about agnosticism. At first glance, it’s a simple topic: ask anyone with an interest in philosophy or religion what agnosticism is, and they will confidently tell you it is the position that one cannot know for certain whether god exists or not. Neither believer nor atheist: a person allows for some higher power without asserting either way. The answer is broadly correct, just far from complete.

Basic Definition and Philosophical Context

Agnosticism is most often applied to religious questions, but in epistemology (the theory of knowledge) it is broader: a doubt about whether human cognitive capacities are sufficient to know anything about the world with confidence. Epistemology has its optimists and its pessimists — the latter are often simply called agnostics.

Kant is frequently listed among agnostics: he distinguished between phenomena (accessible to reason and experience) and noumena, “things in themselves,” which are extremely difficult or impossible to know. The problem: the term “agnosticism” in its modern sense appeared only in 1869, introduced by Thomas Henry Huxley. Kant died in 1804. Calling him an agnostic is therefore contested.

Scepticism as Agnosticism’s Predecessor

Agnosticism is often confused with scepticism. The difference matters.

Scepticism originated in antiquity. The first sceptic is considered to be Pyrrho, though he wrote nothing himself — his ideas are known through Sextus Empiricus, the best-known sceptic we have access to today. The core claim: human senses are imperfect and subjective, so knowledge of the world is either impossible or deeply unreliable.

There is a mild and a strong form. Mild: scientific knowledge is not fully attainable. Strong: even everyday knowledge is in doubt — every morning one cannot be certain the sun will rise in the east, because we must doubt everything. This resembles Descartes and his systematic doubt, though Descartes drew very different conclusions and was, in fact, a believer.

Today “sceptics” typically refers to people who critically examine claims made by psychics, astrologers, homeopaths. Paul Kurtz, the journal Skeptical Inquirer — this is modern neo-scepticism, quite different from the ancient variety.

How Agnosticism Differs from Scepticism

Here is the key distinction. An agnostic considers knowledge of god impossible — not because nothing can be known, but because the tools available to us are insufficient for the supernatural. The agnostic does not deny that the world is generally knowable: the scientific method works, objective laws exist. Only when it comes to supernatural entities do our capacities run out.

Scepticism doubts everything without exception, and here lies its internal contradiction: if one must doubt everything, one must also doubt the very principle of systematic doubt. That principle cannot be proven by its own logic. Agnosticism is doubt about the knowability of specific things (the supernatural), not a totalising scepticism about everything.

Atheism and Agnosticism: Bertrand Russell’s Position

Now for the relationship between agnosticism and atheism, which is constantly conflated.

Bertrand Russell said: among colleagues I call myself an agnostic, but when speaking to a general audience I call myself an atheist. There is a well-known 1953 interview titled “What Is an Agnostic?” Russell’s answer: “An agnostic thinks it impossible to know the truth in matters such as god and the future life with which Christianity and other religions are concerned. Or if not impossible, at least impossible at the present time.”

Why did this matter to Russell? Atheism carries a heavy history, particularly in the United States. Russell was dismissed from an American university for being an atheist, a socialist, and generally embodying what counted as a full set of sins in that era. Agnosticism, in his view, is more philosophically honest: we do not know that god does not exist. No experiment or scientific method can definitively establish the non-existence of god.

Apologists exploit this regularly: “Prove that god does not exist — therefore atheism is unscientific.” This opens onto a complex system of interactions between atheism, agnosticism, antitheism, apatheism — many isms. We will stay with the main two.

A Taxonomy of Atheism

The Oxford Handbook of Atheism proposes a taxonomic approach: atheism is not a single uniform phenomenon but a spectrum.

Negative atheism — simply the absence of belief in god (lack of belief). The person does not believe, gets on with their life, and does not particularly fight anyone. That is negative atheism.

Positive atheism — the active rejection of god. Closely tied to anticlericalism; seeks to demonstrate that god does not exist. Its contemporary expression is the New Atheism: Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett.

This distinction answers a common charge: “atheism is a belief that god does not exist.” The absence of belief (lack of belief) is also atheism, and it is not a belief that god does not exist. It is a non-belief that god does exist. The semantic difference is substantial.

Two further types from the same volume:

Pro-God atheism — god as an idea is admirable, but god probably does not exist: the world around us is too awful to have been created by such a being.

Anti-God atheism — the idea of god is itself problematic and unacceptable. Thomas Nagel is the prominent example.

Agnosticism and Religious Faith: An Unexpected Combination

If a person is a positive atheist who actively denies god, they are not an agnostic: they have moved from the category of faith into the category of claimed knowledge.

If a person is a negative atheist (simply does not believe), they can simultaneously be an agnostic.

And here is the surprising part: a believing person can also be an agnostic. Agnosticism is a category tied to knowledge, not to belief. If someone says “I do not know whether god exists, but I believe in him” — that person is an agnostic. This is closely related to fideism (Blaise Pascal): faith takes precedence over reason; we do not know whether god exists or not, but we believe. There is no contradiction between religious faith and agnosticism.

In religious studies, methodological agnosticism is a recognised approach: we proceed from neither theism nor atheism, simply studying facts. A third path alongside methodological atheism (sociology of religion) and methodological theism (theology).

Huxley put it this way: “Agnosticism is not a creed but a method, the essence of which lies in the rigorous application of a single principle: in intellectual matters, follow your reason as far as it will take you.”

Types of Agnosticism

Strong (hard) agnosticism — the existence of god is in principle impossible to prove or know. A permanently unresolvable problem, not solvable in a thousand or a million years.

Weak (soft) agnosticism — at present there is no reliable knowledge about god, but this might change in future. A more consistent position, closer to scepticism.

Dawkins proposed an additional classification: temporary practical agnosticism (when one simply does not want to offend anyone) and permanent principled agnosticism (a principled refusal to claim reliable knowledge on the question of god).

Conclusion

Agnosticism is a middle position. The agnostic holds that there are no compelling grounds for either theism or atheism. We doubt, or we principally decline to answer.

In the sociology of religion, a convenient approach is to treat all these positions — atheism, agnosticism, antitheism — under the umbrella of non-religion. From a sociological standpoint, the key question is whether a person identifies with religion at all. Further distinctions can be drawn as needed.