Agnostic Theism?

Meagain writes on agnostic theism, "Agnostic Theism: belief in a god without claiming to know for sure that the god exists." At first glance, agnostic theism appears epistemically incoherent. After all, how can one believe that something exists when one does not (or cannot) know that that thing exists? I want to answer this question, thus defending agnostic theism.

In the Timeaeus, Plato first layed out what has come to be called the tripartite definition of knowledge. According to Plato, knowledge is true, justified belief. So, S knows that p only if S believes that p, S is justified in believing that p, and p is true. These are the necessary and sufficient conditions for knowledge.

Belief without justification is like a light switch; we can turn it on and off as we please. Unjustified belief is also called opinion or prejudice.

It is only when a belief is coupled with justification that one becomes committed to that belief. It is difficult to deny a proposition when one has a good reason for believing it to be true. A justified belief is also called an assertion or judgment.

The truth condition of Plato's definition is where things get tricky. Of the last two conditions, belief and justification, we may call them internal, that is, they are psychological states of the subject, S, herself. When S believes that p, she knows it; and when S is justified in believing that p, she knows that too. This is not always the case with truth, although it sometimes is.

The proposition "All equilateral triangles are triangles," is one of those few propositions that we know on internal grounds. It is true irrespective of the world around us, and it is incorrigible. It's truth is guaranteed by the meanings of the terms alone. Of propositions of this kind, we can say that we "know them to be true." But propositions of this kind are few and far between.

The vast majority of true propositions are true by virtue of a correspondence between the proposition asserted and the actual world. "This table is brown" is true only if this table really is brown. Since the truth condition is external to the subject, S, we may call this last condition, as opposed to the other two, external. Aside from analytic propositions, like "All equilateral triangles are triangles," we are never quite as certain that p is true as we are about our own belief that p or our justification in believing that p. One could say of mosttruths that they 'just happen to be true.'

So, what does this have to do with God? Well, most will agree that there is no a priori proof of the existence of God. Similarly, most will agree that there is no a priori proof of the non-existence of God. So, the proposition "God exists" is not analytic, not of the kind that we can "know to be true."

But does that mean that it is never appropriate to assert that God exists? Not at all. Assertion is only conditional on justified belief, not truth. So, the modest task of the agnostic theist is only to find justification for God-belief, not apodictic certainty for God-existence.

Pascal's Wager is an argument such that God-belief is justified without the analytic certainty of God-existence. The argument runs, roughly, as follows:

(1) God rewards those who believe in him in the afterlife and punishes those who do not believe in him in the afterlife.
(2) One can either believe in God or not.
(3) If one believes in God, and God exists, then one will be rewarded in the afterlife.
(4) If one believes in God, and God does not exist, then one stands to lose nothing.
(5) If one does not believe in God, and God exists, then one will be punished in the afterlife.
(6) If one does not believe in God, and God does not exist, then one stands to lose nothing.
(7) Therefore, it is reasonable to believe in God.

According to Pascal's Wager, God-belief is justified by the argument itself. The argument is probabilistic, but notice that God-belief is justified as long as the probability of God's existence is greater but not equal to 0. If the probability of God's existence is 0, then there must be some analytic proof of the non-existence of God, which is impossible. Pascal's Wager is not a proof of the existence of God but only a proof that God-belief is justified. Thus, the agnostic theist's position is coherent.

 

Good post. Agreed.

I think belief in God is justified enough by the desire to experience God, though. I don't see how one can truly desire to experience God and not be willing to go so far as belief. Unless they think God will appreciate their good sense in not taking things on mere faith, except...

...we do this every day with everyone we meet. I wonder if that isn't the root of faith altogether, the primitive belief that other sentient beings exist/convincing yourself that another point of view exists. Which doesn't necessarily suggest that one doesn't, obviously (?).

 

Hi, Common Sense,
You raised some good points, and I only wish to confuse everyone further with regard to knowledge, justification, belief, and truth.

Let's suppose that I'm looking at a small white, cylindrical trash can. When I say, white, I mean that the side visible from where I'm sitting is painted white. I do not know that the opposite side is white. It could be painted flourescent orange. My experience tells me that just about all trash cans that are white on the side visible to me are the same color on the other side. So, if I say on the basis of observation that the trash can is white, meaning that all of it (except the bottom) is white, I have a justified belief, but not knowledge. I run my day to day affairs on beliefs based on experience, not on knowledge.

Experiences which run counter to justified belief are often called magic or miracle. Suppose I have no knowledge of microwaves, radio waves or electromagnetic radiation. A radio, then, can only be proof of magic.

Once a physicist by the name of Poincare allegedly showed up at the door of a hotel carrying two suitcases. One suitcase was ordinary, the other contained a spinning gyroscope. When the porter, the fall guy for this joke, picked up both suitcases, the suitcase with the gyroscope pulled sharply to the side. The porter dropped it and ran of course, screaming about the Devil. He had a justified belief based on all his previous experience, but he didn't have knowledge.

With regard to God, let me just say this, please define your terms, then we can talk.

 

If you want your readers thoroughly confused, just put a lot of negatives into your sentences. If you're not sure that I didn't understand what you meant to say, it doesn't mean that you wouldn't understand that I didn't mean a lot of what I said. Unless...

Desire has nothing to do with truth. I was having a penetrating conversation with (actress) Kate Blanchett at six this morning. Then the alarm went off.

As far as a God is concerned, meaning some supernatural force, just let me say, what you see is what you get. What you see (or otherwise perceive, directly, or establish by accepted scientific method) is what there is. No afterlife. No salvation. No benign, caring Supreme Being. Forget it. We live in a world where people get eaten by sharks, drowned by tsunamis, freeze to death, you name it. Tough shit. Deal with it.

 

Well yes, that is a justification. Specifically, it is a justification by induction. Perhaps a better justification would be to look at the other side of the trash can. If it is white, then you have knowledge that it is white.

Just because some people unreasonably say of some phenomenon that it is magical, does not mean that a radio is "proof of magic." We are entirely justified in believing in a completely mechanistic explanation of the workings of radios.

Furthermore, most phenomena that runs counter to justified belief is not dismissed as magical. If you are standing in front of me, and I close my eyes for ten seconds, then I am justified in believing that you are still standing there. But, say you moved one meter to the right. I wouldn't be predisposed to calling you migration "magic."

So, what exactly is your point? That justified beliefs can be wrong? I never disputed that. In fact, I explicitly acknowledged it.

I'm willing to work with any stripped down definition of God offered.

 

To me God is The begining, The Reason, The creation. Not that God (whom I call Elisha) is an actuall being, but yet an undefinable reason of existance. I choose to belive in my God as that because I do not know If God is a being, But If I choose to belive in God as a reason or event I do have the knowledge that this has happened therfore my God is undoubtably real.

 

"Furthermore, most phenomena that runs counter to justified belief is not dismissed as magical. If you are standing in front of me, and I close my eyes for ten seconds, then I am justified in believing that you are still standing there. But, say you moved one meter to the right. I wouldn't be predisposed to calling you migration "magic." "

No, you wouldn't be predisposed to calling the migration magic, but you would also have a justified belief (why would he move?) that he was still standing where you remembered him being, although you would be wrong.

Agnostic theism is a redundant title, an agnostic refers to a person who believes that either there isn't enough evidence to support the existence of a god or a person that believes that there is no way to know for certain whether or not there is a god.

First, the Wager makes a false dichotomy (either God rewards belief or God does not exist). What if God rewarded skepticism and punished blind faith?

Second, the Wager assumes that the Christian faith is the only one in which you are judged for belief/nonbelief. There are numerous other religions which are mutually exclusive, meaning that none of them could be the most real religion. So, the Wager only applies when talking about soley the Christian faith.

What's your point? The atheist's position is just as coherent as any other belief - there is no logical evidence that we see day-to-day that there is a God; a person has no natural reason to suspect the existence of a God.

 

My point was that the agnostic theist falls into the latter category. The former is the category into which atheists and agnostic atheists fall. Since one might think that all agnostic positions entail the former, my post was supposed to show that agnostic theism is a coherent position because the latter position is reasonable.

I tried to show that Pascal's Wager is not "blind faith" because the argument itself is the justification, and that the Wager is justified so long as the probability of God's existence is greater than 0, which it is.

Now, as to the "false dichotomy" that God rewards and punishes in the afterlife, I don't think that it's such a stretch. The concept of God implies a just God, since an unjust God would be no God at all. So, a just God would reward the good and punish the wicked.

[quote[Second, the Wager assumes that the Christian faith is the only one in which you are judged for belief/nonbelief. There are numerous other religions which are mutually exclusive, meaning that none of them could be the most real religion. So, the Wager only applies when talking about soley the Christian faith.[/quote]
I don't see how. I can't see God's jurisprudence being influenced by denominational lines.

The most important presupposition that you missed is the immortality of the soul. We can talk about that later, if you like.

That agnostic theism is a reasonable position.

Never said that the atheist's position was incoherent.

 

The existence of a god does not necessarily mean afterlife, caring being, salvation, etc. It also doesn't mean there isn't tragedy.

As far as what you see is what you get... if that is true then we (as a populous) would never get anywhere. All scientific discovery, all novelty, all advancement comes from discovering things that are deeper than we can perceive. Until science can tell me how a bee with only so much as a tiny bundle of nerve cells can have advanced sense of direction, communication, and group consciousness I see room for some mysteries. Not that it can not be explained.... I think one day God will be explained as well.

 

Science is an extension of routine perception, by way of well designed, repeatable experiments. Those experiments which arrive at conclusions reduce the scope of magic.

Magic: the art which claims or is believed to produce effects by the assistance of supernatural beings or by a mastery of secret forces in nature. (Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 5th ed, 1938)
​

With regard to theology, the subject of God remains a semantic mudhole. It's like Lewis Carroll's 'Hunting of the Snark'. There are no snarks, but everyone in the poem has his idea about just what a snark is, whether it is good tempered, nasty, has flippers or wings, whatever. 'Snark' is an undefined term. Or, it might be said, 'Snark' is a defined term: discuss it in a committee of fourteen and you will have fourteen definitions.

For this reason, I don't spend a lot of time arguing about the existence or non-existence of an external referent pointed to by a term which remains undefined or multiply defined.

 

I still don't understand why you're talking about magic.

...

I'm not familiar with the story of the snark hunt. But I do know that Lewis Carroll was a rather brilliant logician, not just a drugged out pedophile.

Now, there's absolutely no reason why there could be no definition of "snark." It's foolish to argue about a definition anyway. You can argue that it's a bad definition, but the only way to argue that is to grant the definition and either find a counterexample or reduce it to absurdity. Besides, we have definitions for many non-existent objects, such as chimera, centaur, Cerberus, etc. Also, many words that do refer are boarderline impossible to define. You might try to define "game" as "something played by two or more players," or something like that. But surely solitaire is a game. "This" and "that" are other names that cannot be defined because they have no definite referent. Just because there is no definition of a term, that does not mean that that term is in some way defective.

But "God" differs from "snark" in a very important respect. A snark, if we thought they existed, might be something that we would imagine we would see if we went out into the woods and looked around long enough. No one expects that we will see God if we just point our telescopes at the right patch of the night sky. In this respect, "God" is much more like a term like "four" than "snark."

Anyway, like I said, I'll grant, at least for the time being, any stripped down definition of "God" that you give.

Besides, it seem foolish to outright deny things like an afterlife simply because it cannot be confirmed by the scientific method. After all, the afterlife cannot be disconfirmed by the scientific method, either. Now, we know that there are no snarks because snarks are the type of thing we could find, if only there were any. We've searched high and low for snarks, and we have found none. But the immortality of the soul isn't the kind of thing that we could look around for in this world, in the hopes finding it. So, there can be no a posteriori proof of the immortality of the soul. But that's not a problem with the concept of the immortality of the soul, it's just a misapplication of a posteriori proof. You have to use the right tool for the job.

 

CS

The problem with this question is that
1. Who can show one cannot know such a thing exists.?
None. thus the question is moot.
2. A thing may be a theoretical possibility if indicative evidence exists.
It does.
Thus the existance of our observable universe. as is
A structure/system. Logical organisation.
May be the product of direction. ergo.. a 'god'

The arguement seems to revolve about 'justification' of belief.
But in the real world it is often the case that one does no go from non belief to justification of belief without a middle ground.
That ground being resolution of belief.

Did the wright brothers go from ..
A:maybe this will work.
to
C:a working airplane, without a third step?

B: Connecting A to C logically and with repeatabillity.

In the case of 'god'
THIS IS ANOSTICISM

All the philosophical mumbo jumbo about god is just that.. crap
All the spoutings of saints and religions and evangelists.
All a human psychosis.

We are currently in stage B. resolving indicative evidence.
Agnosticm is the rejection of pure philosophy for the tried and true
method of accumulation and collation of any and all evidence that may
lead to a resolution of the question.
Agnosticism is looked down appon by athiests and thiests because it
makes no statements of 'knowing'
Thats exactly why it is to be trusted.


Occam

 

Frankly, I can't make heads or tails of what you're saying. For example,

Take the proposition "There is a solid, gold sphere in some distant corner of the galaxy." That is a proposition that one could learn to be true or false, but it just so happens that we don't know it. Who can show that one does not know such a thing? Well, you could figure it out yourself, by introspection. Or an astronomer could tell explain that that particular region of space has never been observed.

Now, sentences that one cannot know are a little trickier. But an example might be, "The world is made of ideas," or "God exists," or other such metaphysical questions. Can it be shown that we cannot know that God exists? Well yeah, that's part of what I aimed to show. I don't see why I'm in no good position to show that God cannot be known, and you gave no argument against the idea. So, I don't see how the question is moot.

I don't know what "it" refers to. But a thing's existence might still be possible even if there is no good evidence in favour of it. Take the solid gold sphere. As of now, there's no good reason to believe that it exists, but it still might. Anyway, I don't see what this has to do with my post.

I have no idea what you mean by "structure," "system," or"logical organisation." But I have never argued in favour of the existence of a creator God. It's in no way implied by my argument. Pascal's Wager is neither cosmological nor teleological.

What "middle ground" are you talking about? I don't know what you mean by "resolution of belief."

 

Common Sense:
I think you have some good ideas here.

There is a class of statements about external referents (things) which are verifiable ('a posteriori' as you would say).
... Example: "I have a wallet in my pocket."
There is also a class of statements about external referents which are not verifiable ('a priori' in your language).
... Example: "My Uncle Willy in Germany now has his wallet in his pocket."
(Uncle Willy lives in the country and has no phone or other communication device.)
"An event just took place on the second satellite of Alpha Centauri." (Not verifiable until 4.4 years from now even with perfect instruments)

There is a class of statements about ideas which are well-defined (understood alike by most observers) and verifiable.
... Example: "I have $500 in my bank account." (The word dollar refers to an idea which is a shared concept. This shared concept is important enough that many observers have formed a well-defined concept as to its meaning. By 'meaning', I mean verifiable content (of a proposition). What it really means is that on a certain disk coated with iron oxide at Royal Bank in Vancouver (or is it Montreal), on an area associated with my particular bank account 003075995016927, there is a specific sequence of magnetically North polarized iron oxide spots having a binary value 111110100 which is equivalent to decimal 500.00. (And you thought God was hard to define?)

There is a class of statements about ideas which are not well-defined.
... Examples: "My father loves me. God loves me. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."
The ideas not being well-defined, it's hard to respond if someone says "Your father loves you? Prove it to me." Or if someone says, "Your soul is at risk." (Huh? My what is what? Are you a preacher or just a politician?)

Now, I won't particularly knock 'a priori' statements using undefined, or not well-defined terms. They have their uses. For example, there are no atheists in foxholes, nor are there atheists having sharp chest pains in the middle of the night. When that happens, you tend to be a born again Christian. "He who believeth in me shall not perish but shall have everlasting life." Is this comforting? You bet. Is it true? Who cares?

 

Agnosticism is not compatible with Theism, or the proper definition Atheism.

Huxley specifically directed Agnosticism at the formation of belief process.

And, he did not consider Agnosticism a statment of anything being impossible to know.

The unknowable definition is a false interpretation of Agnosticism, pushed by the likes of Smith and Flew, who also pushed the false definitions of Atheism. They liked how Agnosticism put the burden of proof on believers, on both sides of the isles, and they wanted to take over that position, for Atheism, putting all the burden on Theism.

Besides, -isms are merely statements of believing (I think so), not statements of knowing (I know so). Stating that you're both merely a believer and not a full knower, would be redundant, anyway.


Peace

 

The problem I have with the argument is that you could plug in any theological or mystical being. If belief in "God" is justified in this syntax, then just about anything--as long as that "anything" wasn't logically impossible--is justified in this syntax. That just seems intellectually pernicious to me. Of course, it all depends on who decides if a belief is justified or unjustified. In other words, I don't buy the argument's justification.

There's a lot I disagree with in your post (most of which we went over about a year ago), but when did you have the change of heart about the correspondace theory of truth? I vividly remember you tearing into me for my advocacy of its limited application.

 

The first part is right, but "My Uncle Willy in Germany now has his wallet in his pocket," if true, is true a posteriori, not a priori. A proposition is a posteriori if it can be verified, regardless of whether or not it actually is verified. The Alpha Centauri example is more interesting because one might want to argue that the proposition is neither true nor false until 4.4 years from now, but that's another matter entirely.

Examples of a priori propositions are "Two and two is four," and "All bachelors are unmarried," and "All bodies occupy a space." They are not verified empirically.

First, it seems fairly easy to prove that someone loves someone else. Second, there's no reason we couldn't define God if we wanted to. Third, I don't see, exactly, what definition has to do with verification. Of course, to find a thing, we have to have some idea of what we're looking for. But that doesn't necessarily mean we need to have a precise definition.

 

I don't see how. While I can understand how the existence might entail that we are judged in the afterlife, I do not see how that follows from, say, the existence of unicorns.

I changed my mind for a couple of reasons. First, I could never say exactly what the "correspondance relation" between a proposition and the state of affairs expressed consists in. Propositions are the sorts of things that are true or false, things are not. Second, Tarski's solution to the Liar Paradox is unnecessarily complicated and unintuitive.

 

"My Uncle Willy in Germany now has his wallet in his pocket" is a proposition, that is, it has a truth value. Elsewhere in my posting I asserted that Uncle Willy lives in the countryside and has no phone or other modern communication tool (ham radio, et cetera). It follows that a person in North America asserting this proposition cannot verify it. The statement is true or false, but this truth value is unknowable. That puts it in the same class as the Alpha Centauri example.

The proposition "A certain event (say, a meteor impact on a planet) just occurred in the Alpha Centauri system" also has a truth value and this truth value is also unknowable until such time as an electromagnetic signal propagating at the speed of light can reach us. The astronomical observation horizon is a limit to what is observable in space and time. Events occurring far enough away and recent enough are not observable because the signal is still working its way across the void.

Let's rephrase: "My father, who is now deceased, loved me."
That has a truth value but is not verifiable. I may have a memory of whether my father loved me or not, but human memory is not evidence.

Words like "God" and "Soul" and "afterlife" are scientifically useless because they are not subject to a generally accepted definition and therefore are not verifiable. They may be emotionally useful to the faithful. If the faithful are socially powerful, as in the Middle Ages, wars may be fought over which party's myth is the right one. Infidels must die, in fact.

 

No, the truth-value is not "unknowable." It just happens to be very hard to verify. A proposition is a posteriori only if it could possibly be verified, even if it actually isn't. One method of verification might be, say, flying to Germany. Take a genuine a priori proposition, such as "All bachelors are unmarried." This is not the sort of thing that can be verified by empirical methods. What would such verification look like? Walking up to every bachelor, dead, living, and yet to be born, and asking him if he's married or not? The proposition is a priori because we don't need to look at the world to find out whether or not it's true.

Besides, it's foolish to argue over the meaning of "a priori" and "a posteriori." The distinction is just a way of classifying sentences. It's a definition. So, it must be granted, even if only for the purpose of reducing it to absurdity.

That proposition, about Alpha Centauri, is also a posteriori. It has an empirical method of verification: wait so-and-so years, and watch the sky. The interesting question is whether the proposition has a truth-value before the time of verification takes place.

Why not? If that's the case, then how can any proposition about the past be verified? Even worse, the very distant past, when no person was around to do the verifying?

I agree that the term "God" has no explanatory power, at least where science is concerned. But I've been trying to get you to define "God," but you're obviously very unwilling to, for reasons I don't quite understand. So, I'll get the ball rolling. Let's call "God" "a being which is omnipotent, within the law of non-contradiction, omniscient, and benevolent." Now, I've just defined "God." Why was that so hard?