Agnosticism
The questions concerning the existence of God are many and varied but when viewed from an agnostic position they quickly seperate into two main and challenging areas of debate and thought. There are those who believe that the existence and nature of god is unknown and a second group who believe that it is impossible to Know God.
The first group do not discount existing religious knowledge while the second group of agnostic thinkers do. T.H.Huxley introduced the term "Agnosticism" which simply infered that there could be no knowledge of god at any stage in life.
Huxley`s position of thought was undergurded by the writtings of Hume and Kant who developed a philosophical foundation for the eventual introduction of agnostic teaching. in the light of that the first question to be asked is, "what is the basic arguements that give credience to such a philosophical belief in agnosticism."
The sceptic David Hume propounded views that aided the agnostic arguement, in one his writtings, "Enquiry concerning human understanding", he suggests with great authority that,
- "if we take in our hands any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics for instance, let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact or existence? No Commit it them to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and Illusion."
Any view or statement which is not mathematical or factual is totally meaningless. The obvious outcome of this approach is, because God falls outside Hume`s formula for factual knowledge, therefore knowledge of God cannot be known and is utterly impossible because that knowledge is gained outside of the reasoned mathmatical and scientific methodology which always gives facts.
Hume builds his arguement by concluding that all meaningful propositions are reduceable to two and that is radical empiricism and are summarised as follows. Hume suggests that all our knowledge is derived through the senses or by deep and meaningful reflection on ideas which are reflective of the senses.
Coupled with this is the idea that all sensations are experienced as he puts it, " entirely loose and seperate". It is after examination of these sensations that the mind brings about connections and produces a common logical and meaningful idea, but key to the arguement is that these seperate ideas which finding rational connections in the human mind are still in reality unconnected and seperate experiences.
The logical outcome of this is that is to suggest that there is no such thing as direct knowledge even of one self, for all that we can know about our selves is a disconnected. While it does make sense to speak of connections among ideas but those connections are only made in the mind independant of experience.
What Hume is implying that within the human makeup there is possibility of the human being able to have knowledge of God in any way because he is unale at best to have any self knowledge of himself let alone anything or anyone outside of himself.
While some argue that while there is no direct knowledge of God it is possible because of the effect his creation has on his creature, that it logical to arrive at the point of knowledge about the nature of God by and through the effects of what he has made.
Hume`s understanding of knowledge leaves no place for such a thought. For Hume all matters of fact are founded purely on the concept of "cause and effect." He would argue that beyond cause and effect we cannot honestly go for the line is drawn concening pure knowledge at senses and memory.
Knowledge as a result of cause and effect arises purely out of experience, and through observation of experience knowledge is verified. Geisler gives an example of this is his book on Christian Apologetics when he says that,
- "only when we observe death occur after holding another`s head under water for five minutes do we assume a causal connection. Once one event is observed to happen after another repeatedly, we begin to form the idea that one event happens because of the other."
The idea of Causality is based on custom, customary conjunction of events leads one to believe that there is a connection between them. While the connection cannot be known it is simply believed that a connection between the two exists. But was the cause of the man death the outcome of the water or the man`s hand which help the other man`s head under the water? What ever way one views the death of the man cause and effect can be identified.
On the other hand it could be argued that things happen after other events by not caused by them.Geisler suggest that,
- "the sun rises regularly after the rooster crows but certainly not because the rooster has crowed."
Because one can never know causal connections and without that full knowledge of the cause of the world, one is left with an agnostic experience about the possiblility of there being a God. That is of course when the Christian doctrine of special revelation comes into focus. For it identifies the clear cause of all things and therefore allows the seeker to believe that which without special revelation is unknowable.