Agnostic in Principle, Atheist in Practice

This was the very first piece of writing I ever had published. I wrote it the summer between graduating college and beginning law school, when I had a lot of time to read and think. Getting it published was quite encouraging to me, and led me to write several more short essays for magazines like The Humanist and Free Inquiry. I soon turned my attention to newspaper columns and law review articles because I felt that these types of essays were mostly preaching to the already converted skeptical choir.

Agnostic in Principle, Atheist in Practice

Skeptic, v. 7.3 (1999)

Jeremy Patrick (jhaeman@hotmail.com)

For the readers of this magazine, I will assume most have rejected the theist position. This leaves two viable positions: 1. Agnosticism, used here as the belief that the existence of God can neither be proven or disproven or 2. Atheism, used here as the disbelief in God’s existence. I would like to propose a method to choose between the two positions. My argument proceeds mostly through analogy, but I hope it will be sufficient for the task.

I would like to examine the question of God’s existence from a scientific perspective. Therefore, claims that a belief in God are necessary for morality (Dostoevsky) or for personal fulfillment (Kierkegaard) are interesting questions and certainly worthy of inquiry, but irrelevant to the matter at hand.

Now, my initial premise of investigating God’s existence scientifically may be objectionable to theists and agnostics alike. However, I believe this objection comes from granting a "God-claim" special status that we wouldn’t grant to an existence-claim for any other object or being. Science, at its most basic, is the investigation of phenomena in the universe. Therefore, if God exists, he must, in principle at least, be observable through science. The concept of "existence" is not a simple one, but we must have a method or standard of deciding when something exists—I can think of no better way of deciding than that of science.

The natural response is that God is not of this universe and therefore he is not susceptible to scientific inquiry. As Kai Nielsen and others have argued, however, a completely transcendental God could have no possible effect on the universe and would therefore be unworthy of consideration. The theist response is that God is somehow both transcendental and immanent:
"God is an immanent being who participates in the universe . . . Yet God is also a transcendant being who dwells far beyond the realm of mental and material phenomena." (Mazet, 1998; 51).
How can something both affect the universe and be transcendental at the same time? Silly contradictory claims like these have prompted noted atheist philosophers like Anthony Flew and Kai Nielsen to consider the entire concept of God incoherent and questions of existence irrelevant (Moreland and Nielsen, 1993; 171, 255).

If God is to have any effect on the universe (creating planets, answering prayers, performing miracles, etc.) he must be at least partially within the universe and therefore, in principle, susceptible to scientific inquiry. With this established, a claim for God’s existence must be treated in the same manner as a claim for the existence of any other object or being in the universe—everything from black holes to Santa Clause. The burden of proof is on the person making the claim.

How does all of this relate to the choice between agnosticism and atheism? My argument is that the agnostic claim of "I don’t know" (because theists cannot prove God does exist and atheists cannot prove God doesn’t exist) is misguided. It confers a God-claim special status that no reasonable agnostic would confer to any other existence-claim.

For example, if a man claims that leprechauns exist, but has no evidence to support this claim, is the proper position to take one of "Well, he can’t prove there are leprechauns, but no one else has systematically surveyed the entire Irish countryside to prove that they don’t exist, so therefore I must maintain that I don’t know if leprechauns exist or not?"

Another example from Carl Sagan (1996) is called "The Dragon in My Garage." If I were to claim that a dragon exists in my garage, the proper scientific response would be to conduct tests to verify the claim. When the scientist remarks that he doesn’t see anything, I simply claim that’s because the dragon is invisible. When the scientist remarks that he doesn’t feel anything, I claim that’s because the dragon is selectively intangible. Now, I haven’t proven it does exist, but in a strict sense, the scientist hasn’t proven it doesn’t exist. The consistent agnostic must profess that he simply doesn’t know if a dragon lives in my garage.

The proper position is to disbelieve in the existence of objects/beings unless and until evidence is presented to change our view—this holds the same whether the existence claim is unicorns or God. Perhaps in a strict philosophical sense we may say "I don’t know," but in a practical sense we should feel confident in assuming they don’t exist until evidence is presented to convince us otherwise. Remember, there is no disgrace in modifying beliefs to fit new evidence.

In an everyday, practical sense, the distinction between agnosticism and atheism is small—believers in either position would have no reason to pray, go to church, or hope for a second chance in life. Perhaps atheists have the comfort of thinking they know what awaits while agnostics have the burden of the unknown—but in the end, I think all of us, theists, agnostics, and atheists alike have a nagging fear that we just might be wrong.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bruun, Stephen. "The God of Randomness: A Reply to Bruce Mazet’s ‘A Case for God’" Skeptic, Volume 6, Issue 4, 1998.
Mazet, Bruce. "A Case for God" Skeptic, Volume 6, Issue 2, 1998.
Miller, Ed. L., Editor. Classical Statements on Faith and Reason. Random House, 1970.
Moreland, J.P. and Nielsen, Kai. Does God Exist? The Debate Between Theists and Atheists. Prometheus Books, 1993.
Russell, Bertrand. Why I Am Not a Christian. Simon & Schuster, 1957.
Sagan, Carl. The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. Ballantine Books, 1996.
Wootton, David. Modern Political Thought: Readings from Machiavelli to Nietzsche, Hackett Publishing Company, 1996.