Topics Religion

Question I know that agnostics believe truth (such as whether or not god exists) to be unknown. But does this imply that they believe that an absolute truth exists but cannot be obtained by humans? Basically my question is if agnostics think that truth is subjective or objective? Thanks!

Accepted:
March 24, 2009

Comments

I think there are (at least) three ways one could be an agnostic about the existence of God, though we often use the word "agnostic" to apply to someone uncommitted about the truth of other propositions, and my categories should apply to many of these types of agnosticism as well, so I will use the general formulation "A is agnostic about X":

1) A is agnostic about X because A thinks X is either true of false (e.g., either God exists or God does not exist), but A believes no human could ever know whether X is true or false (e.g., perhaps we are built such that we simply could not discover the truth of X or never be justified in believing X or ~X). Note that some philosophers think that if X is not even in principle something we could discover to be true or false, then X is meaningless or X has no truth value or something like that, in which case this sort of agnosticism could look like a form of subjectivism. But I am interpreting A in this case to believe that there is an objective truth about X. This sort of agnostic will find both theism and atheism to be unjustified.

2) A is agnostic about X because A thinks X is either true or false, but A believes s/he does not have enough evidence to believe X or ~X. This sort of agnostic is likely to be an objectivist about X. For example, s/he believes God either exists or does not exist, but s/he just doesn't think s/he has enough evidence to know one way or the other. But unlike, type-1 agnostics, this agnostic thinks s/he could gain enough evidence to believe one way or the other. And presumably s/he thinks some other people have such evidence, such that s/he does not find their theism or atheism irrational.

3) A is agnostic about X because A thinks X has no objective truth value (e.g., there is no fact of the matter about whether God exists). This would be the subjectivist agnostic. But it's hard for me to see why this agnosticism is not really a form of atheism. If one thinks the proposition "God exists" is not even potentially objectively true, then it seems one thinks God could not really exist. But I may be making a modal mistake somewhere here. Compare: a subjectivist about all moral claims, such as "X is good," seems to be saying more than "I don't know whether X is good"; rather, s/he seems to be saying "I know that it is false that X is good, because 'X is good' is neither true nor false."

I suspect most agnostics are type-1 or type-2. But now I'm wondering if there are some type-3 agnostics and whether they should really call themselves atheists. Of course, most atheists will be objectivists, who believe "God does not exist" is objectively true.

Finally, there will be people who call themselves agnostics because they believe some sort of God exists (may exist?) but they aren't sure what sort of God exists.