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Agnosticism: the basis for Atheism, not an alternative to it.

Article Excerpt
An old question recently led me to a new thought: can an Agnostic be a Theist? The easy answer appears to be yes, because there are people who call themselves Agnostics and Theists. As we will see below, we cannot leave that claim unchallenged. But a second question emerges from this line of thought: can an Agnostic be an Atheist? In other words, what is the relationship between Agnosticism, Theism, and Atheism? Is Agnosticism a third, intermediate, alternative position, or is it something else?

This general issue was raised in these pages by Tony Pasquarello, who distinguished between Atheism and what he called Natheism (as if we need another neologism!), the former being the good old dictionary-definition version of belief that there is no such thing as god(s) and the latter being a "new" position of rejecting belief without rejecting god(s) (1). This second position, which is sometimes called "weak" or "negative" Atheism, I also find incoherent, as I have argued in a previous article (2). What could it possibly mean to say that I don't believe in X but I am not maintaining there is no X? That is why I concluded that all Atheism is positive Atheism--we do not believe in X because we maintain there is no X.

What does all of this have to do with Agnosticism? Everything, as it turns out. Atheists who dilute their Atheism into Agnosticism are not only doing the cause and philosophy of Atheism a disservice, but they are also committing a crucial conceptual error--and allowing others to commit it too. The error is the assertion that "Agnostic" is some third thing to be, an alternative to both belief and non-belief, and in fact a milder and more acceptable alternative to belief than Atheism. Agnostics are supposedly people who claim to be "undecided" about religious questions or possibly uninterested in them. They are "not sure" or noncommittal, they do not have "enough information," and hypothetically they are waiting, actively or passively, for some basis on which to settle the two "claims" of Theism and Atheism. Agnostics--persons who declare themselves to be Agnostics--allegedly say "I don't know."

However, this will not do. First, Agnosticism is not an alternative position to Atheism, because Agnosticism and Atheism are completely different kinds of phenomena, not simply different positions on the same continuum. Agnosticism is in fact not a position at all but a method for arriving at a position. It is not on the belief spectrum in any sense. Second, Agnosticism is the only proper approach to the particular problem it addresses--the problem of knowledge--and as such it is not only compatible with Atheism but is actually a foundation, the essential foundation, for Atheism.

What is Agnosticism?

Agnosticism is a recent concept, introduced by Thomas Huxley, the famous friend and advocate of Darwin, to describe his own concerns about knowledge and belief. It is derived from the Greek roots a- for 'no' or 'without' and gnosis for 'knowledge.' Dictionary definitions, which are often worse than useless, tend to depict it as the position that certain things, like god(s), are unknown or ultimately unknowable; in common usage it is a third religious position between Atheism or Theism. The Oxford World Encyclopedia goes so far as to declare that it is a "reasoned basis for the rejection of both Christianity and Atheism" (3).

However, neither dictionaries nor common usage reflect Huxley's intent in coining the term. His original formulation of the concept goes as follows:

Agnosticism is not a creed but a method, the essence of...