Topics Religion

Question Is it illogical to be agnostic (as defined as someone who thinks the existence of "God" is unknown or unknowable)? My problem with it is that it seems to lack historical perspective and in particular a knowledge of how other cultures conceive of the divine. For example, an agnostic from a western country typically claims that she doesn't know whether "God" (as conceived of in Judeo-Christian theology) exists. But what about someone who was born into the Buddhist tradition? It wouldn't make much sense for them to claim that they are "agnostic" in the sense that someone from a Christian country is; because Buddhism has no god. Perhaps a "Buddhist agnostic" would be uncertain about the truth of reincarnation. So does being an "agnostic" show that the person is still thinking from a Christian mindset?

Accepted:
August 24, 2010

Comments

My little bit of googling suggests that the word "agnostic" was coined by Thomas Huxley in the mid-19th century. Huxley had grown up in a largely Christian society, but it seems that what he meant by the word was not tied to Christianity; it seems that he was describing a skeptical attitude toward "spiritual matters" in general.

Even if that's not the real story, it doesn't matter much. We've come to use the word "agnostic" to mean either skepticism about the existence of a God (skepticism as opposed to outright rejection of the claim) or more generally, lack of commitment one way or another about some claim, as in "I'm agnostic about string theory,"meaning "I neither believe nor disbelieve string theory."

Could a Buddhist be an agnostic in either sense? The answer is pretty clearly "yes" on both counts. Even if we define a Buddhist as someone who accepts a certain set of doctrines (not a good definition, by the way), the core "doctrines" would presumably be the Four Noble Truths. Since none of those say anything at all about God or gods, a Buddhist might well say: "I don't and maybe even can't know whether there's a being worth being called God. But I accept the Four Noble Truths and strive to follow the Eightfold Path." Indeed, I'd guess that a good many Buddhists would quite happily say that. And when it comes to the broader sense of agnosticism, it's clear that Buddhists, like non-Buddhists, can be agnostic about all manner of things.

A couple of further thoughts. The first is that in using words, we aren't bound by their origins. After all, what a word means now might be quite different from what it meant when it was coined. And when it comes to deciding what "mindset" the use of a word bespeaks, that's tricky business. It depends on the person, the circumstance, on broad linguistic practice and not least on what we mean by the vague word "mindset." In any case, I think it's safe to say that the word "agnostic" is often used with no thought of Christianity one way or another.