Agnosticism. Or How Do We Know?

Agnosticism about God may be as popular in many circles as it has ever been. There are several denominations of agnostics in these days. One is the group of atheists who have discovered that the position of atheism is terribly difficult to sustain in an argument. The complexity of a living cell, the precision of the universe, the exquisite beauty of a butterfly wing or the mechanism of the human brain may not convince a hardened skeptic. But such things cannot be easily answered before an audience of sincere inquirers.

I am reminded of the answer Christopher Hitchens is quoted to have given for the question of the source of life or human life. He said he thought it might have been seeded on the earth by advanced aliens from another planet. At the heart of the humor in such an answer is the fact that it sidesteps the issue of the need for a "prime mover" or an ultimate source. It is like the father who had been dreading the day his son would start to ask about the facts of life. Sure enough the boy comes home from school one day and asks the ominous question, "Where did I come from?" With sudden inspiration the father answers, "You come from Cincinnati. Our whole family comes from there."

There are questions that raw Atheism will never be able to answer. It is easier for the atheists to say, "We just don't know." This usually drifts into the assertion that we cannot know if there is a God. And of course this type of agnosticism seems to be a comfortable refuge for many naturalists and atheists. When people accept this notion they can dismiss the issue without further thought or worry.

It is interesting to me that there are some very civil often somewhat religious intellectuals who have entered this camp. They would never call themselves atheists. They read powerful books by men like C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, Hugh Ross or John Polkinghorne. But they generally believe that an intellectual must always keep an open mind. And they hold to the notion that some things, possibly most things, can never be known for sure.

The issue of what can be known relates to epistemology, the study of the nature and limits of human knowledge. What do we mean by the word, "know?" The argument accepted by these people tightly limits the realm of knowledge. Some would limit knowledge to that which can be shown consistently in a scientific laboratory. Others may limit knowledge to mathematical equations.

There are those who would say we do not know something if we cannot answer any hypothetical possibility that could be raised. This, of course, excludes all areas of knowledge. Can I prove anything beyond all possibility of doubt? Humans have an infinite capacity to doubt. Anything can be doubted if we put our minds to it.

Many people are aware of Bertram Russell's statement that we cannot have absolute assurance of the existence of other objects and people and even our own selves. I suspect that Russell would have agreed that this is not a reasonable doubt. This is irrational doubting.

In the first of C.S. Lewis' Narnia books[1] the children are following a robin into a wood. Edmond points out to Peter that they might be following the robin into a trap. At first Peter is disturbed by the question, but then he comes back with, "Yes, but robins are good birds in every story I ever read." Edmond replies, "Yes. But how do we know?"

This statement strikes most of us who have asked such questions ourselves in these days when so many doubts are stirred up in us or thrown at us from every direction. How do we know? How do we know anything?

First let me deal briefly with the importance of knowing. The scripture clearly tells us that there are things that we can and must know for our lives to maintain direction and conviction. Again and again the New Testament assures us with the affirmation "We know."

Now we can begin to deal with the question of how we know things. I propose that there are five ways that we know things. We have instinctual, experiential or sensory, informational, logical and spiritual knowledge

INSTINCTIVE KNOWLEDGE

Most of us think lower animals have instinct but humans have none. I recognize that animals have instinctive knowledge that humans do not have. But we do have some instinctual knowledge. You do not have to teach a baby to swallow. The child is born with that knowledge, even though he has never done it. There is a debate about whether a child learns to smile and frown from adults around him. But I believe smiling and frowning can be shown to fall into the category of instinctual knowledge. A baby frowns with his first wailing displeasure in the world. And an infant seems to know that smiles around him are friendly.

I also suspect certain moral principles are innate in humans, despite modern debate over this question. I believe every human knows instinctively that some things are wrong and some things are right. We are born with a conscience. And what we believe about right and wrong is more uniform from culture to culture than many people suppose or will admit.

What about awareness of the existence of God? This is certainly more than instinctual, but could it be partially inborn? Only a tiny percentage of humans disbelieve in the existence of the supernatural. And it is often obvious that many of those who do not believe are prejudiced by anger or rebellion against God or religion. They often admit to throwing off what may have been natural for them at an earlier age.

SENSORY AND EXPERIENCIAL KNOWLEDGE

We also have sensory or experiential knowledge. Possibly my earliest memory came from crawling into a Red Ant bed at the end of our dirt driveway. My mother came running to my screams and I learned by experience to avoid ant beds.

The information that we gather from our five senses comes together to produce complex knowledge. As I sit here at the keyboard I can see a desk in front of me covered with books, a computer and other familiar clutter. With my hand I thump the surface. The instant I see my hand encounter the desk, I feel the impact on my fingers and hear the sound of my hand striking the object. I can even tell that the desk is made of metal rather than wood by the particular sound in my ears. And if you were in the room with me you would have shared similar sensory information. I am still capable of doubting that there is a desk in front of me, but it would not be reasonable doubt. I do not have ultimate knowledge, but I can reasonably know I am sitting at a desk.

Sensory understanding includes learning how to type or hold a pen, how to hold and throw a baseball, how to recognize a friend, appreciate a painting or sing a tune. These may incorporate other means of learning, but they are fundamentally sensory. To a great extent language learning is sensory. We learn language from sensory encounters with other people around us.

There is an old story of a king who wanted to know what language a child would speak if he were not exposed to the language of his parents and others around him. So he ordered that several children be separated from all direct human contact from their birth. But the king was never able to find out what language they would speak because all the children died.

INFORMATIONAL KNOWLEDGE

We hold things as knowledge because we were told them or have heard something on the news. This may be the most questionable of the sources of knowledge. Especially in graduate school, I always wanted to know why something was said to be true. I remember embarrassing a professor because I asked him why a certain ancient biblical event was dated in a certain period. He was stunned for a moment, and gave a guess at how recognized "authorities" arrived the dating. He had evidently accepted it from his teachers without questioning the point.

What we are told may always be doubtful, but at least, this is a hypothetical source of knowledge. And we do depend on information expressed to us by others for much of what we live by. In fact, as humans we would never reach adulthood if we were not capable or willing to learn certain information taught by parents and others in our lives.

LOGICAL KNOWLEDGE

We are also capable of obtaining knowledge by reasoning. This knowledge is not absolute either. But many of the weaknesses of my reasoning can be tested simply by asking another person or several others to follow my logic step by step like a mathematical equation. And we are pretty good at seeing and correcting flaws in our logic. If I say, "Everyone from Seattle is smart. And since you are smart you must be from Seattle," you might laugh at me. The fact that we easily recognize classic logical fallacies testifies to the strength of logic done correctly.

Of course logical knowledge cannot stand on its own. It must begin from some other certainty. If I am not sure of anything, I will never be able to start the logical process. Such primary certainty is what Descartes was searching for when he concluded, "I think, therefore I am." He wanted the new science of mathematical physics to rest upon a solid foundation. He was searching for a starting point that could not be doubted. As he thought about this, it occurred to him that he had to exist to doubt. And he expanded doubting to other kinds of thinking. But many of those who followed him could not agree with the impossibility of doubting that his thinking or even his existence. However, as I have said, these are not reasonable doubts. There are starting places of assurance that we can reason from and come to logical knowledge.

SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE

Finally, we have spiritual knowledge. There are things that we know because God's Spirit speaks to our hearts. This may to some extent be a better explanation for some of our moral sense. Jesus said the Holy Spirit would convict the world of sin, righteousness and judgment. It may be that all people feel guilty because God is speaking to them drawing them to repent and turn to Him.

A number of things fall into this category. I trust the Bible as absolute revelation. I can give arguments for this, but my arguments are not my reasons for believing the Bible. I believe it is true for the same reason that I believe in God. When I heard this truth expressed by others and by the Bible itself, I knew in my soul that it was true.

This is of course problematic because the Bible deals with ultimate things that are beyond my grasp. But I come to it with a humility that says, the truth of this book has authority over me. If I cannot understand something in it, the problem is not with the word of God but with my limits.

Now, I get excited when I come to something in scripture that I need to ponder to understand. I know God is preparing to expand my spiritual insight as I pray over the passage and wrestle with it in my mind.

The only way we can gain spiritual knowledge is by God speaking to our hearts. This is even true as we study and wrestle with issues. God must speak for us to understand.

This tells me something about how other people can come to know God. I do not believe I will be able to bulldoze people with powerful arguments that will persuade them to come to Christ. I do believe I can use apologetics to help people think and open them to respond to God as He speaks to them. I must trust God to speak and respect people enough to wait for them to respond to Him. Only as God draws them can people come to know God.

The ultimate issue of knowing God is how we respond to spiritual knowledge. Romans chapter 1 in the New Testament says that God has revealed enough of Himself in creation for men to know even His eternal power and divine nature. The heart question is rebellion. We can choose to reject that knowledge to the place where God will give us over to our ignorance and the foolishness of our sinful nature. That is why the primary message of Jesus was not "Understand these things," but, "Repent."

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[1] Lewis wrote The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe first, and did himself recommend that it be read first. I believe the chronological ordering of the books that makes The Lion, The witch And the Wardrobe the third book was done by philistines.