Place of doubt in faith MARK VERNON
malleable but, casting an eye across a range of polls, it seems that the largest proportion of people – something around 40 per cent – don’t know what to think about God. Atheists seem wont to treat agnostics as non-believers who lack the courage of their convictions. Churchgoers on the other hand may regard them as fair-weather friends, knocking on the vicarage door only when they want a nice wedding. However, there’s more to agnosti- cism than sitting on the fence. In fact, what might be called the agnostic spirit is a vital
Be still and know not F
Agnostics are sometimes characterised as people who cannot make up their minds about religious belief. But it is also possible to see agnosticism as an honest position that accepts the limited reach of human understanding
or the majority in Britain today, agnosticism seems to be the religious position of choice for the majority. Statistics on belief are notoriously
6 | THE TABLET | 12 March 2011
strand that runs through the fabric of belief. When T.H. Huxley coined the term, in the late nineteenth century, it was deemed a prin- cipled position – someone who tries everything and holds only to “that which is good”, as this passionate Victorian described it in his essay on the word. “Positively the principle may be expressed: In matters of the intellect, follow your reason as far as it will take you, without regard to any other consideration,” he con- tinued. “And negatively: In matters of the intellect, do not pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or demon- strable.” Huxley believed that while his Greek coinage was new, he had captured an attitude that was “as old as Socrates”. In fact, I suspect that the reason Socrates is so widely remem- bered, though he wrote nothing and is obscured by history, is that he configured a fundamental truth about what it is to be human. We are “in-between” creatures, as Plato put it – not just ignorant of many things, as other animals are, but capable of becoming conscious of our ignorance too. Therein lie the origins of philosophy, a wisdom that is built not so much on the accumulation of facts and the successes of reason as on the recognition of the limits of what we know or understand. We are told that to encounter Socrates was not a wholly pleasant experience. Some said it was like being stung by a ray. But if you could stomach it, a surprisingly expansive experience lay on the other side of the pain. We humans, Socrates realised, are the crea- tures for whom our own existence is too small for us. Be wise with that and you discover how to live well.
Such agnosticism is not the same as scep- ticism, as associated in modern philosophy with the figure of Descartes. Scepticism is the search for irrefutable knowledge, the kind that Descartes discerned in mathematics. The trouble is that only one kind of knowledge can aspire to the crystal clarity of mathematics, and that is mathematics. Hence, for the con- temporary sceptical mind, thought becomes an exercise in undermining what people claim to know, not least in the religious realm. Agnosticism, though, is different. It is an
attitude that springs from the deepening of insights. The ancient Greek sceptics, who did not take the hard line of their modern suc- cessors, likened it to a circle. Inside the circle
is what we understand. Outside is what remains mysterious to us. And, as the circle of what we know grows, our sense of what we don’t know will grow too, as the circum- ference between the two domains expands. To put it another way, questions are often best answered by the honing of better questions. Socrates’ insight was picked up by the early
Christian theologians. Augustine, for one, captured Plato’s insight in a more poetic form: we are “between the beasts and the angels”, he wrote. Therein lies the restlessness that seeks God. Our in-between status can spark a creative love that reaches for God – the supreme case of that which lies beyond us. Conversely, when an individual is not capable of living with the unknown – which is to say, when they are unable to be human – it provokes a frustrated urge that can bring destruction. Augustine managed to overcome his frustrations, as he recounts in his Confessions, though even after he had become a Christian, he still had to ask, “What do I love when I love my God?” The agnostic spirit reaches its fullest expres- sion in medieval theology. Denys the Areopagite was the animating force behind this “apophatic” tradition. During this period of Christian history, he was read as widely as the gospels. Whenever you affirm something of what God reveals of himself, he explained, it is vital to remember that this cannot be God as God is in himself. All affirmations must simultaneously be denied. Nicholas of Cusa, a cardinal who is also called the first Renaissance humanist, had a good expression for it: “learned ignorance”.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40