Christian Agnosticismwith the explication of his account of the existence of God. The
session had begun well. One student, tape machine in hand,
had asked whether he might record the seminar. ‘There is no
copyright on truth,’ came the permission so to do. The hour
proceeded in an orderly, if intellectually challenging, manner.
Until, that is, another student sat up in his chair. He had been
reading a new book about the religious writings of the French
philosopher Jacques Derrida. His inquisitive mind had been
particularly gripped by the idea summed up in the phrase ‘reli-
gion without religion’. Derrida seemed to imply that any expe-
rience worth talking about – that is, a moment or an insight
that was not merely humdrum – has a religious character. This
is because, for it to be such an experience, it must happen at
the limits of what is possible. After all, is it not the case that the
most amazing experiences of life are when what was thought
impossible actually occurs? The book argued that this structure
of experience, this ‘becoming possible of the impossible’, might
even be a good defi nition of God. It was religious but without
the usual trappings of religion. Perhaps, the student wondered,
this might have a bearing upon Swinburne’s argument about
the existence of God.
He was wrong, or at least he soon got the message that he was
wrong. For having explained the point, he received the abrupt
response: ‘I believe they offer a course on Derrida in the French
department.’ The seminar continued as before. That line of
thought about God, on the becoming possible of the impossi-
ble, was curtailed – though not because of any inherent failures
in its logic. Rather, it had simply been declared off-limits. The
silence that the reprimand left in its wake was a negative one,
not full of possibility, but conspicuous by its emptiness.
These two anecdotes, the fi rst famous in the history of medi-
eval theology, the second mostly trivial though standing out as
not atypical of half of my experience of studying theology at
Oxford, illustrate two approaches to the subject. The former is
an embrace of uncertainty. The latter aims to meet the demands
of fact, application, veracity and coherence – the demands of