By James W. Miller
When I offer an apologetics seminar that I call “Know Why You Believe,” I find that the skeptical attendees have a preferred label for themselves. “So I’m an agnostic,” says the first person to raise his hand, and that is the preface to his question. A few others nod their heads eagerly.
I’m not sure if I believe him or not. But I’ve finally come up with a good, brief answer.
Aristotle writes in On The Heavens that it wouldn’t be possible for a person to stand equally distant from both food and drink and remain unable to move because he couldn’t decide whether he was more hungry or thirsty. Imagine I walk famished into a Chick-fil-A, seeing a delicious, crispy, hot, crunchy chicken sandwich to my left, and those salty, crisp, golden waffle fries on my right, and then starve to death. It’s just not all that likely. But the agnostic claims to be in exactly that position. To her left she sees a life of meaning, purpose, direction, and love, brought into the world with intention and called home in the end. To her right she sees emptiness, raw assertion of the will, and, at best, mystery, and realizes that if she goes that way she will have to launch out into those stormy seas on the vessel of self-reliance. The agnostic claims that neither option is compelling.
That just doesn’t seem to be how life works. Every day we decide between those two, and we decide clearly.
Albert Camus considers a situation in his profound work, The Fall, where a man passes over a bridge at night and hears someone thrashing in the cold and dark waters beneath. He can choose to dive in and save the drowning victim, or he can scoot on by and carry on with daily life. Either way he has made a fundamental choice about the value of life and our moral responsibility to it. I doubt very much that we can escape the issue like Woody Allen did by claiming that we just aren’t a strong enough swimmer to have an option. Every day we decide whether or not life has value. Camus’ friend, Jean-Paul Sartre, said something similar, claiming that anyone who faced moral decisions “cannot but choose a morality, such is the pressure of circumstances upon him.” We are inescapably forced to decide whether or not we will live as though life has purpose, and it’s awfully hard to have purpose without a designer.
So now when I offer apologetics seminars, I start with agnosticism, and make sure we’ve ruled it out as a viable option before we get to point number two. And I’ve noticed that once we do that, the stakes are a lot higher. The skeptics pay much closer attention. They’ve been assuming they could just stay neutral on the subject and be off the hook. Now they realize that they’re going to answer for a commitment that they thought they were avoiding.
I suspect that many so-called agnostics are suffering from a Judeo-Christian hangover. They are anticipating that should the unfortunate event occur that they actually do show up at the heavenly gates on the other side, they have an out.
“Why didn’t you believe in me?” God will ask.
“Well, I didn’t NOT believe in you,” they plan to say.
Like God is going to say, “Oh, my bad. You’re right. Come on in.”
Once you rule that option out, people start to get nervous about what they assumed was a get-out-of-jail free card.
So here’s my quick answer to the agnostic. “I just don’t know whether God is there or not,” he says, assuming it’s a safe, unobligated neutrality.
“I totally understand,” I answer. “It’s a hard decision. So rather than trying to decide, just tell me how you live. Do you live like life matters or not?” And with that, he realizes he already has the beginnings of belief. Just a week ago at the seminar someone came in claiming agnosticism, and walked out agreeing to try praying for the first time.
Rev. Dr. James W. Miller is the author of the apologetics book Hardwired: Finding the God You Already Know (Abingdon, 2013).
“To her right she sees emptiness, raw assertion of the will, and, at best, mystery, and realizes that if she goes that way she will have to launch out into those stormy seas on the vessel of self-reliance.”
Such a bleak and dismal strawperson you offer as the alternative to faith. Self-reliance, as Emerson presented it, is really a very good and mature practice. And for some of us who once “knew why we believe” and now “know why we do not believe” there is a full sense of joy and freedom (not emptiness), a will to help others undistracted by another world (not raw assertion of the will) and a wonderful sense of wonder in the mysteries and discoveries as we ask questions and investigate this great thing called Life.
I would suggest you read some John Muir or a bit of Emerson or Thoreau (I would even exchange one of my books on them, or my Life After Faith book). As a former Christian Minister (and long ago Evangelical Apologist) I welcome honest and respectful dialogue. When people of faith and no faith find ways of working together beyond the divisiveness of “being right” good things can happen (I see this every day in my work).
Thanks for the thoughtful reply. As a philosophy major at UC Berkeley, I read a lot of the transcendentalists. What you have there is a Unitarian pantheism, which is fundamentally different from atheism or materialism. I liked reading them, because they represented the fundamental groping of humanity in search of something supernatural for which we seem to be hardwired.
That said, I don’t think I’ve created a straw man. Without God, life is a random flux of meaningless particles that will ultimately evaporate. The perceived beauty of mystery and wonder is just a sham, on this rubric, because ultimately it all leads to nothing. Evolution has left us with a bit of a hoax – we perceive purpose where there is none. I think I’m simply embracing the ultimate results of materialism, as did Sartre and Foucault.
First of all, Jim, I have conversations like this with a pastor friend who is a “follower of Jesus” and we don’t get too far. It all melts into something wonderful called Friendship. Having said that, it’s interesting. I was a Philosophy and Religion major at Seattle Pacific and have read the Transcendentalists for years, publishing a few books on them along the way. You do know that Emerson left the pulpit and the Unitarian church calling it “an icehouse”? But, yes, some Unitarian thought is pantheistic, and some universalism. I’m not a UU, but when that universalism is called “Nature” I’m personally fine with it. I find everything in the natural world and more than I ever did placing a human face on it and calling it “God.”
Another thing I find interesting in your reasoning is that you are telling people like me that we are essentially a “random flux of meaningless particles.” Wow. Not sure I’ve ever been insulted in quite such a way! (although I love the alien description of the Enterprise crew in Star Trek: “ugly bags of mostly water”!). But seriously, do you really believe that the beauty of mystery and wonder is merely “perceived” and a “sham”? Sorry but I find that quite sad. Sounds like you need some fresh air. Nature, the Cosmos, is amazingly beautiful and wondrous. As Muir said (in good Thoreauvian and Emersonian style), all we need to “read” is the “Bible of Nature.” I can and do live with that (if “bible” includes qur’an, tao, dhammapada, gita, vedas, science, philosophy and let’s just say any wisdom source).
I wish you well with your book. I for one can say quite clearly that I am not hardwired for faith or God. Twenty-five years of ministry and a great deal of thought brought me to that personal conclusion. If I was wired that way it would surely be by a God much greater than any proffered by the historic religions. As my last book states, Nature is Enough. Be well.
Thanks for the post, and the resources!
Agnosticism is not black nor white, not a sandwich nor waffle fries. An agnostic dabbles within the vast grey area, trying one of each item on the menu until he or she finds the right and most delicious sustenance for himself or herself.
Taste is subjective and varies enormously from person to person. So who is to say that the waffle fries are more delicious than the sandwich? There is no ONE right answer.
I completely agree that there are more than two choices when we are talking about religions. However, in this analogy, there is a choice between starving or not starving. And if some things you eat poison you and some make you healthy, I would say there are right answers and wrong answers of food as well. Or in other words, we existentially choose between meaning and meaninglessness, and some pursuits of meaning don’t actually generate results, while some do.
But agnosticism is NOT starving — that’s my point. Agnostics don’t belong to either extreme on the “starving” spectrum, or on ANY spectrum and that’s why they’re calling themselves “Agnostics” — not “atheists” and not subscribers of any particular religion.
And to say that atheism is equated to, suggesting, or on par with having a meaningless life is ridiculous. I’m sorry. Who/what gave you (or anybody for that matter), a human individual, the power to ascertain and discern meaningfulness of another human individual’s life?
An excellent point. I find it thoroughly rude when people make the accusation that someone’s life has no meaning or purpose because of their position.
Why do some assume there is even anything to choose to begin with? And why just two? And which god, if any, the choice is referring to should be to be taken into consideration. The preconception that there is even a choice, is an ignorant one. On the flip side, the preconception that there is nothing to choose is an ignorant one as well. Ignorance can manifest itself as fear of the unknown or the need for purpose in this life, and will fuel the position that a choice can be made leading to post-life with a god. Ignorance can also manifest itself in being uninterested with the probabilities of a post-life with a god and more interested in the moments we have with the people we love and care for in the present.
Lastly, to address the statement, “Every day we decide between those two, and we decide clearly.” Deciding clearly can only be accomplished by being well informed. I can confidently say I haven’t heard of a fraction of the belief systems in this world. And to hear them all would take longer than I have on this earth. Until then, for anyone that has made a choice, or looking to do so, in dedicating themselves to one particular claim, you are only doing a disservice to yourself, and an ignorant one at that. If you were on trial for a murder you didn’t commit, wouldn’t want all of the jurors to be as well informed as possible about the truth? On the other side, if you were the juror, wouldn’t you want to be as well informed as possible before making a decision that could have a dire outcome? When it comes to god or no god, or god and which god, people snap to a decision after hearing just one piece of evidence from the defense attorney.
The court analogy is a good one, because the jury does, in fact, have to make a decision.
Correct. If there is even anything to choose in that scenario in my second paragraph. Be sure to consider the position in the first statement as well.
Maybe God doesn’t particularly care what we believe, but he demands we worship him. It’s hard to worship something if you don’t even believe it exists, so belief is necessary but not sufficient. After all, Satan believes in God without a doubt. If an agnostic were ready to worship, then he’d find a way to believe.
Well put.
Agreed!