How To Be An Agnostic
music. It’s only glimpsed, though is as undeniable as a medieval
spire. It takes us beyond that which can be conveyed by the laws
of nature – though wonder at those laws will also suggest it.
The spiritual can be likened to light, according to the medi-
eval writer Bonaventure. We don’t actually see light, he rea-
soned, but rather we see what light reveals – things, colours,
shadows. More remarkably, if we did see light, then we presum-
ably wouldn’t see anything else at all: to see light would be like
staring into a luminescent fog. Rather, light is like the carrier
wave of a radio signal. It must be present to see, but must be
invisible in order to allow seeing. The spiritual too is a way of
seeing the world, in the colours and shadows of meaning.
In other words, the agnosticism that stirs me is not a sterile
kind of uncertainty, which sits on the fence, or worse, can’t
be bothered to articulate what it breezily doubts. The position
I want to fl esh out is engaged. It senses that what we don’t
know is as thrilling as what we do know. And nowhere is this
encounter with the deepest aspects of the human condition
clearer than when raising the question of God. What I’ll attempt
to ask is not just how to be an agnostic, but why it matters too.
I think it matters much because to be an agnostic is to be at the
vanguard of the attempt to revivify the symbols and reasons,
myths and rituals that have long conveyed the spiritual to our
forebears, though they have been losing their lustre, emptying
out, in the centuries of the modern period.
It’s an important task because the spiritual is so crucial a
part of what it is to be human. It’s like love: deny it, and it will
distort you. You’d expect religious writers to assert as much,
as they do. Augustine talked about individuals having rest-
less hearts that seek rest in the divine. But secular writers can
convey the same sensibility. Socrates is one, and a particular
inspiration for me. He realised that, for us humans, our own life
is too small for us. We are not like other creatures who appear to
be content with their lot. We yearn for more. And yet, neither
are we like the gods, who have it all. This in-between status is a
tremendous blessing, because it fi res our creativity, innovation