How To Be An Agnostic
from some unknown benefactor. The second is to conclude that
the new balance is the result of a glitch but that, luckily, the
money is now theirs. The third is to be unsure about what has
happened: it could be luck or it could be a gift.
The fi rst conclusion is like the theist’s response to existence:
they are full of gratitude for the gift. The second conclusion is like
the atheist’s response: having no one to thank, they merely count
themselves very lucky. The third conclusion is like the agnostic’s
response: thrown into wealth, like existence, they would perhaps
spend some of the money trying to fi nd a benefactor to give
thanks to, though they never completely puzzle it out.
The difference between a response of gratitude and a response
of luck to existence also carries implications for how an indi-
vidual thinks about the world around them. For the response
of luck tends to contain the exploration, particularly when that
involves entertaining thoughts that bring up theological prob-
lems. They will tend to think that there is little point in asking
questions for which answers ‘in principle’ cannot be given. So,
and recalling the money analogy again, the question of life
becomes mostly how to spend or use it. The response of grati-
tude, in contrast, is in practice more expansive since it longs to
know more about this gift of existence and what lies behind,
above and through it – for all that such questions can never be
wholly satisfi ed.
Back to church?
Now, it would be fair, after my rejection of the certain-
ties of atheism, to ask why I did not return to some kind of
Christianity. I’d moved from the certain world of the young
priest, to the certain world of the turncoat atheist, and had now
seen through both. Mightn’t the discovery that any decent talk
about God should include a sense of God’s unknowability –
indeed must make that its main objective for fear of worship-
ping lesser gods and idols – signal a return to a more mature
theistic commitment?