Against Strong Agnosticism

You Don’t Need to Be Agnostic Just Because People Disagree

There are different varieties of agnosticism, of course, just as there are different varieties of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. But all forms of agnosticism at least share in the common property of abstaining from belief.

Most commonly, we hear about agnosticism with respect to religious belief—or, more specifically, belief in the existence of God. The agnostic is—again, very broadly—the person who answers the question of whether God exists with a definite, “I don’t know.” Whereas, of course, the theist answers in the affirmative, and the atheist answers in the negative.

Agnosticism can, at minimum, be broken into weaker and stronger forms. The weaker form of agnosticism only reports a person’s current psychological state; they’re just saying they don’t know, and nothing more. The stronger form of agnosticism not only reports a person’s psychological state but makes a claim about what other people’s belief state should be as well: they say not only that they don’t know, but that nobody can know either—and that, for that reason, everybody should be agnostic on the matter.

I have little to say about the weaker forms of agnosticism—personally, I don’t find them very interesting. I understand them, of course, especially since we all hold weak forms of agnosticism with respect to lots of different things, religious or otherwise. If you were to have asked me the other day whether I believed there were whitefish living in the straits of Mackinac Island, I would have said I don’t know—I would have been weakly agnostic on the issue—since I wouldn’t have had any good reason to think they either did or didn’t exist in the straits of Mackinac. But this is only due to my (extreme) ignorance on matters related to fish and lakes. And of course, my being knowingly ignorant gives me reason not to be strongly agnostic about the matter. Presumably, people can know whether whitefish exist in the straits of Mackinac—and almost certainly, many people do know. In fact, I’m now one of them; I had whitefish for dinner last night.

(It gave me heartburn.)

What interests me more are these strong agnostic claims, since I’ve often heard people suggest not only that one cannot know whether God exists or whether any religion is true, but that there’s something altogether improper about claiming to have such knowledge—that is, either in being a theist or in adhering to some religion under the belief that it’s the true religion.

I’ll discuss strong agnosticism against religious exclusivism later. For now, I just want to focus on strong agnosticism with respect to the existence of God. Because there are some problems with this position—but what exactly the problem is depends first upon the reason why somebody thinks strong agnosticism is the right view.

First, perhaps somebody will suggest that one should be strongly agnostic because there are no good arguments for the existence of God—or no good evidence for the existence of God. There’s much to say here. But initially, we have to ask what one even means by “good arguments.”

Here, I hold a fairly high standard: a good argument is one that is valid and has true premises which are rationally discernible through the usual methods of philosophy (analytic, existential, etc.). In other words, it “proves” its conclusion. To my mind, there are very few good arguments for anything. But I actually would go so far as to say that there are a few good arguments for the existence of God.

I mean, at the end of the day, when I examine what I take to be the best arguments for God, and when I examine what I take to be the best objections, I find myself quite convinced that the best arguments are good arguments.¹ That, in large part, is why I became a classical theist in the first place. And I definitely don’t feel the same way about the best arguments for atheism. So here, I would just reject this proposal outright.

But obviously, not everyone is in that sort of position. Some people who believe in God hardly know any arguments for God’s existence at all. So I think we should say something different than what I just said; that is, we should take a different approach than just diving into technical natural theology to settle the dispute over strong agnosticism (which, as we all know, is hardly ever that productive anyway).

And the approach I think we should take is just to point out that there are plenty of positions that don’t have good arguments in their favor—maybe some reasonable considerations, sure, but not good arguments—and yet we certainly don’t feel obligated to be agnostic about them.

Take the classic example of moral realism. Personally, I believe it is really wrong—like, despicably and horrendously wrong (to the point that I doubt anyone could ever convince me otherwise)—to torture young toddlers for fun. But not everyone agrees with me. There are loads of committed moral anti-realists out there. Quite naturally, I think they’re not only mistaken but possibly suffering from some serious cognitive malfunction.² And from my worldview, I think I can tell a story that helps make sense of that. But that’s not the point here.

What’s relevant is this: even if I couldn’t give a single knockdown argument for moral realism—or more specifically, in support of the moral fact just mentioned—I wouldn’t feel the slightest obligation to slide into agnosticism about it, let alone strong agnosticism. Rather, I look at the arguments against my view, see that they all rest on assumptions I can happily and coherently reject, and find them, at best, no better than the arguments for my position—arguments which, by the way, are backed by overwhelmingly strong seemings for me. And so I just keep on believing it’s true. And not weakly so—I believe it confidently.

Again, this is the case even if I don’t think I could ever convince a moral anti-realist otherwise. Nor do I feel immodest, improper, or arrogant for continuing to hold that belief in light of disagreement. No—I just believe it. I just continue to think it’s true. That’s all.

But here comes another protest: how can one continue to rationally believe such a thing in light of so much disagreement—particularly when the parties are epistemic peers, equally expert, or what have you? Again, I don’t see the problem here. Or rather, if this is a problem with respect to belief in God, then it’s a problem that extends far beyond that. Experts disagree on loads of really important matters—including, and especially, matters people take to be pretty much undeniable at the basic level of common sense.

People—equally qualified—disagree about the nature and conditions of knowledge, about the reality of the external world, about the moral status of torturing young children, about the persistence of medium-sized dry goods, about the occurrence of change, about the self, about consciousness—you name it. Yet very few people think this demands agnosticism, let alone strong agnosticism, about these issues.

Surely, if there’s anything people can agree on, it’s the fact that people very often disagree—including people who are equally intelligent and seem to have equal access to the relevant facts. But does anybody seriously think that disagreement over these positions means you should become agnostic about them? Should you really be agnostic about whether you exist, or whether it’s really wrong to torture toddlers, or whether there’s actually a world outside your head?

I should certainly hope not. (In fact, most people would probably say that even if they didn’t have good rejoinders to the smart people arguing against their commonsense beliefs, they still wouldn’t feel the slightest obligation to adopt any form of agnosticism about them.)

And if one doesn’t think such considerations should force them into weak agnosticism in those cases, then a fortiori, one shouldn’t feel compelled to adopt strong agnosticism about those beliefs—or about belief in God, for that matter (depending, of course, on their current epistemic state).

Naturally, I haven’t yet answered precisely how someone remains rational or justified in continuing to believe such things in light of deep disagreement. I’ve only pointed out how it seems plainly wrong to think one must become strongly (or even weakly) agnostic in such situations. As for the former question: it simply requires adopting a certain account of rationality (or justification, or warrant)—one on which a person is indeed rational in continuing to believe what seems to them to be the deliverances of common sense, or at least beliefs naturally occasioned in them, often accompanied by very forceful seemings—so long as no obvious defeater is present that can’t itself be defeated.

There are some quite good options available here, whether one prefers a version of proper functionalism, an Aristotelian nature-based epistemology, or what have you. We needn’t get into detail; the point is simply that there are live, plausible accounts of rationality that easily make continued belief in these cases entirely reasonable—and, in many instances, justified or warranted. And one might even have good reason to favor such accounts, precisely because they help make sense of what we already find to be the case: namely, that strong agnosticism feels like the definite wrong move.

On the other hand, if someone wants to insist that continuing to believe in such situations really is irrational—or unjustified—then the burden is on them to show that their preferred account of rationality, justification, or whatever, which affords that conclusion, is the correct one. And surely, that’s a tremendous burden to discharge—and almost certainly one that can’t be met.

There are, to be sure, some other obviously very bad motivations for strong agnosticism that are worth briefly discussing as well. Perhaps among the worst are the sorts of moral accusations one might hear lodged against people who aren’t strongly agnostic: Isn’t it arrogant or pompous or intellectually immodest to assume that you know the truth about something? Particularly about something so lofty and so mired in disagreement?

The problem with this charge is not only that it’s not necessarily true—I mean, not by a long shot—but that it applies equally to the strong agnostic. After all, they’re claiming that they know the truth about something—namely, that nobody else can know the truth about something, including something rather lofty. So if people are arrogant or pompous or intellectually immodest just for claiming to know the truth about something… well, everybody’s in the same boat here, including the strong agnostic.

The next claim, again, comes packaged as a kind of epistemic humility and goes something like this: We shouldn’t make such sweeping, grand claims about reality. Belief in God is just too big, too bold, too far-reaching.

It’s often hard to pin down exactly what this objection is getting at, but my best guess is that the person raising it just doesn’t like the idea of people claiming access to truth that is “far out,” “far-reaching,” “universal,” or something along those lines. But whatever exactly is meant by this, it seems to fall—quite neatly, in fact—to that ever-cute philosophical reply: namely, if it’s a problem for me, buddy, then it’s equally a problem for you. Because claiming that nobody can know any large, sweeping truths is itself a rather large, sweeping truth—very far out, and quite universal indeed.³

1. As somebody who has specialized in and contributed to the literature on this subject, I don’t feel it’s wildly implausible to say I’m in a pretty decent position to speak on this—despite the fact that many people (including epistemic peers) disagree. Which I happily acknowledge!

2. More modestly, perhaps a world picture just holds them captive.

3. Not only that, but I think the position is just plainly false. We really can know very far-out and universal truths. For example, I’m as confident as anything that nowhere in this universe does there exist a man without a height or a colorless green mushroom.