Christian AgnosticismThe paradox is that this is often a highly rational process. This
is partly why to read Eckhart or Dionysius or Nicholas of Cusa
or Anselm is to fi nd a remarkably similar tone to some passages
in Plato’s dialogues. Plato does not give thanks to Christ, of
course, and the Christian theologians do not fl irt with Athenian
youths. Also one should remember that the Christian mystics
read Plato and neo-Platonists so the observation is slightly cir-
cular. However, it is for good reason that both genres of writing
play with the ambiguities of verbs like ‘to be’ or ‘to love’. It is
for good reason that in both there is a sense of identifying errors
in order to establish a clearer way forward; that both use math-
ematical analogies and logical conundrums; that both allude to
theophanies beyond words; that both admit of no fi nal resolu-
tion. Such as they are, these similarities are an encouragement
and a challenge. The encouragement is what one might call the
demystifi cation of mystery: the aim is not to nurture some eso-
teric experience, like a wannabe Buddha struggling to emulate
higher levels of meditation; the mystical path is no more, or
less, opaque than philosophy. The challenge is that learning
ignorance is at least as hard as Socratic philosophy.
The problem of evil
It is sometimes said that God moves in mysterious ways. And
this fl ags up another, disquieting, aspect of divine unknow-
ability. It’s called the problem of evil and is another common
reason that agnostics, and others, are troubled by God. It’s the
problem of how a good, loving, all-knowing, all-powerful God
could allow suffering in a world of that same God’s creation.
It is for many the greatest barrier to belief. Should not divine
goodness require, divine love desire, divine omniscience under-
stand, and divine omnipotence enable a world in which suffer-
ing was not necessary? Or might it be another path into a kind
of silence?
The problem fi nds one of its most forceful modern articula-
tions in Dostoevsky. One of the Karamazov brothers, Ivan,