The Agnostic Inquirer: Revelation from a Philosophical Standpoint

First Published: Theology, Ethics and Philosophy – The Agnostic Inquirer: Revelation from a Philosophical Standpoint

This book was a pleasant surprise. As I glanced over its contents to prepare reading I noted that it was going to have some of the standard arguments about belief in God and revelation: God is possible, there is reason to believe God exists, the problem of evil does not threaten this belief, there is reason to accept special revelation. Because these arguments are so readily available I was not very impressed with another book on the subject. However, as I read the book I came to the conclusion that it does much more than its authors give themselves credit for. It was this realization that made the book such a pleasant and encouraging read.

The book is aimed at the agnostic, and at correcting what it believes is a false presupposition in natural theology. It begins by asking what the agnostic wants (as opposed to a fideist). ‘The philosophically inclined inquirer will not settle for anything less than a reasoned case’(p. 12). Of course, everyone believes that they have a reasoned case, even the person who claims to reject Reason has reasons for doing so. So what exactly is the agnostic looking for? ‘How strong an argument, or reasoned case, is needed? An agnostic inquirer who hopes a good God has revealed may mark different stages of success. One hugely important stage would be for an inquirer to come to the judgment that the evidence in view renders the proposition that a good God has revealed more worthy of credence than its contradictory’ (p. 13). This idea of ‘credence’, or ‘plausibility’, is crux: how can this be distinguished from personal taste or preference? If it cannot, and this sort of belief is a matter of personal preference, then in what sense can we reason and debate about it (de gustibus non est disputandum).

Before becoming discouraged I read further. The authors identified the false presupposition of natural theology as the belief that we must first prove that God exists and then argue in favor of special revelation. At this point in the book, they deal very thoughtfully with Kant and other important thinkers, and there is much that can be helpful in their analysis. They also do a good job of critiquing failed approaches to natural theology. However, their conclusion is that we must begin with revelation. The analogy given is that you receive a letter in which the author says he is willing to die for you. If you were asked ‘is the author of this letter willing to die for you’, you would say yes, meaning there is someone out there willing to die for you. The letter itself would serve as proof, as opposed to needing to go throughout the world asking everyone if they wrote the letter in order to support its claim.

The problem with this approach, and it is a problem that needs much more attention in this book, is that there are many different ‘letters’ claiming to supporting contradictory conclusions. Which revelation are we to accept, and which reject? Using their analogy, what if the letter saying that there is a being willing to die for you also says that this being is a square-circle. Would we believe then that there is someone out there willing to die for us? Or would we conclude it is a kind of hoax or fraud? There is some sense in which the authors see this problem because a good deal of the book is about how it is possible that God, a world-creator, exists. But this is just affirming the need to establish God before we can accept the credibility of special revelation, which is what the authors are arguing against.

It is in the sections about a world-creator that the book is most insightful. In these sections, the authors undersell themselves: they are doing natural theology and have within their grasp very strong conclusions, but they back off and only aim at plausibility. For instance, they argue that something must have existed from eternity (without beginning). I believe they provide an argument that shows this to be the case, so that the only way to avoid the conclusion is to accept uncaused events. They go a step further to show that no one lives consistently with the idea of uncaused events, so that grasping at them to avoid the conclusion of something having existed from eternity is not intellectually honest. This is a powerful argument that raises questions about the ethics of belief and the culpability of ignorance. I have worked on a similar project in my book The Clarity of God’s Existence: The Ethics of Belief after the Enlightenment and was encouraged to see these authors doing something similar.

Yet, the authors only conclude from this discussion that it is possible there is a world-creator, and therefore it is acceptable to take the claims of special revelation seriously. The reason why humans need special revelation is that it provides us with knowledge that surpasses our human capabilities. This is knowledge about the unseen world, our duties, and how to fulfill these duties. Here, a few problems emerge: if we cannot know about our duties or how to fulfill them, then we cannot be held responsible for failing to uphold them. Furthermore, the methods for evaluating special revelation (given by the authors) assume theism (a world-creator), but many purported revelations are from monistic or dualistic religions that reject the idea of creation. Consequently, we cannot know which standard of evaluation to use (monistic, dualistic, theistic) without first having settled those differences by doing natural theology.

Rather than build on their work about a world-creator, the authors conclude with a discussion of faith. Although they began the book talking about how an agnostic wants arguments, they conclude by claiming that faith is not a matter of evidence but of the will. As I suggested earlier, I was worried from the beginning that this would be the conclusion because of their claims about ‘credence’ and ‘plausibility/possibility’. If we cannot have certainty, then at some point we must simply will ourselves to accept a position. This does seem to be true (as an if/then), but why accept the antecedent? Their work about eternal existence shows we can have certainty about some basic things. Why not build from that foundation?

Part of what happens when belief is shifted from the intellect to the will due to skepticism about certainty is that we can no longer claim that ignorance of some things is culpable (inexcusable). If we cannot know, then we cannot be held responsible to know. If, in the absence of knowledge, we must will one view or the other, then this willing cannot be culpable. It is famously reported that Bertrand Russell, when asked what he would say to God if it turns out God does exists, replied‘ I would say “not enough evidence God” ’. If there is not enough evidence for certainty, then unbelief cannot be inexcusable (as Paul says it is in Romans 1:20) since there is an excuse – not enough evidence. If the goal is simply to persuade persons to believe one religion over another, then there are all kinds of nonrational ways to do this. But if the goal is to know what is clear about God, then this requires the ability to know what is clear at the basic level. I think an example of how this can be done is found in the sections of this book where the authors discuss the necessity of something having existed from eternity. This is a great start, but more needs to be done to go from there to theism.