How To Be An Agnostic
Reclaiming the religious
I’ve argued that, while the notion of being spiritual but not reli-
gious is understandable, it is also not enough. I’ve also tried to
give an account of a Christian agnosticism as one response to
the potency found in the essential mystery of life, and the ques-
tion of God. In this chapter, we have picked up on the tradition
in philosophy that leads back to Plato and Socrates. So now, a
good question to ask is whether, and if so how, these elements
might come together.
It might be tempting to sift some fl attering virtues that would
be thought distinctive of such an attitude, to draw out similari-
ties and differences between them and, say, the Christian who
aspires to love and forgiveness or the humanist who lauds toler-
ance and justice. The agnostic ethos might be thought to value
courage and integrity in its engagement with the unknown.
However, there is something misleading in this approach. For
one thing, these virtues are far from exclusive to the agnostic.
And they also put the cart before the horse. Virtues arise from
an ethos as much as an ethos from certain virtues.
But there is a word that captures the agnostic way of seeing
for which I am arguing. It is a word that we have already
explored at some length, namely the word ‘religious’. There is,
of course, a risk in using this word. To many to be religious is to
be the opposite of agnostic. However, I want to reclaim them
both, for to be properly agnostic is, I believe, to be religious –
religious in the sense that I used it at the start: the sense and
taste for the Infi nite, the search for intuitions of being-itself.
Why a religious agnosticism? In another word, Socrates. For
him, a sense of the unknown divine was essential for framing his
understanding of the human lot. He was a philosopher because
he understood human beings are between beasts and angels. He
was a philosopher because he dared to contemplate his igno-
rance. A powerful religious sensibility was part and parcel of this
way of life. Socrates was interested in theology – god-talk – not
because he thought it would tell him much about deities but