The Double Refuge 🍏 Agnosticism

Horizons

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In The Double Refuge I explore the relation between doubt and belief. Most people have their own definition of (or feeling about) belief, yet the definition of agnosticism is more specific, although still somewhat tricky to define. I see it as a wide-ranging philosophy of doubt and as a way of thinking and feeling that’s open to all possibilities.

In its most basic definition, agnosticism lies between theism and atheism, between believing there’s a God and a spiritual realm and believing there’s no God and no spiritual realm. Agnostics respond to both possibilities with the question, How can we possibly know if there’s a spiritual realm of deities, demons, miracles, numinous forces, angels, spirits, omniscience, infinity, and eternity? These things may exist, but who has given us even one iota of proof? Those who say they have experience of the spiritual realm, from the gnostic to the fakir and the sadhu, give us very different accounts.

In making my arguments about agnosticism and belief I don’t aim to change the minds of religious believers, nor to change the minds of skeptical non-believers. Instead, I aim to show doubters that there’s nothing wrong with doubting. I also aim to show that agnosticism is compatible with belief and non-belief. Finally, I explore the way doubt and belief are both refuges of sorts. Together, they can help one deal with the uncertainties and mysteries of life.

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On this page, 🍏 Horizons, I propose that agnosticism isn’t just an indecisive sitting on the fence, with religion on one side and science on the other. Rather, it’s an expansive and unpredictable journey. On the next page, 🍏 A Philosophy of Doubt, I’ll argue that agnosticism has a deep tradition behind it. It’s far more grounded historically, philosophically, and theologically than many might think.

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On the Fence

If people insist on seeing agnosticism through the metaphor of sitting on the fence, I suggest we extend it to walking on a fence. From there, the metaphor might take a number of directions, from walking to spinning like a dervish or doing pirouettes on a balance beam.

Agnosticism is an active philosophy. It’s less like sitting in one place, and more like running along the fence onto other fences. We might find anything on either side: a stadium, a mosque, a green field, a rose garden, a back alley, a mountain with goats climbing to the peak. We might even find ourselves between two rock fences, walking up an Irish island to a prehistoric site:

~ the ruins of Dun Aengus on the western side of Inishmore, a green and rocky island battered by the Atlantic Sea ~

As an open agnostic, I dislike confining metaphors, especially ones that create false dichotomies, as if the physical world studied in the sciences didn’t give rise to the mind that ponders the religious notions of Heaven, reincarnation, and an infinite God. Agnostics are liable to cry out, “Don’t fence me in!” They’re liable to leap down from the fence, drive like a maniac on the autostrada or linger in a café. Or they might continue their pilgrimage along the rocky cliff, taking stock of the bright immensity of Nature:

I’m especially fond of this picture I took in 2016. If you look very carefully, you’ll see some people sitting on the far right. This is a small group of French tourists, their feet dangling a hundred metres above the crashing waves.

They really were French. I’m not just making this up — as a sort of transition to Pascal and his famous bet about the existence of God. And yet I can’t help contrasting Pascal’s void that can only be filled by God to Camus’ infinity that lies beyond our grasp:

The agnostic walks between Irish rock fences, and stands on a great rock that towers above the sea. He then walks down into a wide field where tourists are scattered here and there. Irish, English, French, Canadian, whoever. He looks up into the wide blue sky:

He sees two streaks of white. Airplanes. A different way to travel.

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The agnostic hops back up onto the fence, and continues his journey across city and farm. Looking for hours on both sides, he looks up again and sees that there are streets and avenues but no fences. The fences are somewhere else, so it’s difficult to say what’s on this side and what’s on that. He only has vague memories, reinforced by he fact that someone held a camera in their hands, of a pier sticking into the Caribbean, and a footpath over the Ganges.

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Next: 🍏 A Philosophy of Doubt

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