I can understand why a person would choose to be agnostic. I myself was agnostic for many years. I would have called myself an atheist, though in reality I was in fact agnostic.

Though I’ve written on agnosticism before and in particular whether the “we cannot know anything about God” hypothesis is a good one, but I wanted to make an observation re agnosticism that I’ve been thinking about recently. This may not be a particularly well crafted argument as I’ve written it, but such is the nature of blog posts!

Agnosticism is, in my humble opinion, the least reasonable position with regards to God’s existence (if having a lack of opinion can truly be called having a position, that is). Here I am referring to “closed” or “strong” agnosticism which is content to not believe nor disbelieve in God’s existence, not actively seeking agnosticism.

First of all we can ask whether it is more important to a) Discover truth, or b) Avoid error. In my opinion it is more important to try to discover truth. The process of discovering truth may lead sometimes to error, while avoiding even searching for truth may avoid error but will never find truth. Often it is through making mistakes that we learn, so it would seem that making errors (while the error in itself may be negative) will often have a positive end result. As Adam Osborne supposedly said, “The most valuable thing you can make is a mistake - you can’t learn anything from being perfect.” (Thank you ThinkExist.com!)

Now apply this reasoning to the agnosticism question. Note that in regards to God’s existence, there are only two possible options: Either God exists or God does not exist. God cannot “kind of” exist. (I am here not referring to any particular conception of God, merely whether God of any kind exists or not.)

Here then is the situation regarding the God dilemma: The theist has a chance of being right and the atheist has a chance of being right. They will of course differ on their appraisal of the odds, but regardless, at least by taking a position they have a chance of being correct. The closed agnostic, however, has no chance of being right, because they take no position one way or the other. Therefore, since the strong agnostic has no chance of being correct, it seems to be a poor (lack of) position to uphold.

However, as I said earlier, I can understand why someone might have strongly held agnostic (lack of) beliefs. “Don’t you think it’s arrogant,” the argument might go, “to think that YOU have the truth about God?” Thus sometimes strong agnosticism may be the result of the perceived modesty of the position. But agnosticism of the closed or strong variety turns out to be rather arrogant when it supposes that it is impossible for anyone to really know that God exists or what God is like. Is it really humble to suggest that no one, anywhere, at any time or any age or under any circumstances, has really got it right about God? Or is it more humble to say, “I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this issue, and I may be wrong, but here’s what I think.”? I’d say the latter is more reasonable.

Please check out my previous post Is God unknowable? for further discussion on whether the claim that we cannot know anything about God is well founded.

Congratuations - You are this week’s Frappr winner. Thanks very much for listening to STR’s podcast and posting on our Frappr map. Greg will announce your name on Sunday’s show and your signed book will be in the mail next week.

Yay! ^_^ For those wondering what this is all about …

Frappr: A Google Maps “mashup” which allows people to form online communities.

STR: Stand to Reason, one of the premiere sources of clear thinking on tough issues on the web.

STR Podcast: Greg Koukl’s radio show archives are available online.

So STR has a Frappr map set up on their podcast page (registration req’d to see it unfortunately) and each week they choose a winner to receive a free autographed book by Greg.

BTW the STR radio show is on Sundays 6-8pm EST (5-7pm PST) via online streaming audio, or locally on KBRT 740AM in Southern California. (And I think it’s also syndicated on some other stations too.) It’s the only radio show I listen to regularly, and I highly recommend it! (And not just because of the free book!)

Finally completed my update of my essay/eBook The Historical Reliability of the New Testament! My original essay was rather short (due to the prescribed limits of the seminary class assignment for which it was written) however I have greatly expanded the essay (from approximately 3,000 words to over 8,000 words) and included many more details, observations, and citation of important thinkers on many subjects. Therefore, I now feel it’s more legitimate to consider it an eBook on its own, although if I ever finish my more comprehensive eBook, this will likely become a single chapter within that larger work. The only entirely new section in this update is “The Copycat Argument”, which refutes theories that the New Testament is merely the product of copying other religious myths. (Though I lent out my copy of Strobel’s newest, The Case for the Real Jesus, so I may add some material from that book once I get it back.)

If you’ve read it before, check out the new version! If not, no better time than the present to read it now! (It’s got a swanky new cover and everything! :))

You can also use this shorter URL to link to the eBook: http://www.whyfaith.com/nt/

After posting my essay, I realized that there were some areas that should be expanded. There was a word limit on the paper when I originally wrote it so I had to shorten some sections and leave other things out entirely. I’m working on a rewrite to expand its scope and add more detail. When it’s done, it’ll be released as a PDF instead of HTML, since it’s way too time consuming to convert it. (Saving in a PDF: instant. HTML: an hour or more) Also it’ll be under a Creative Commons license so hopefully it’ll get copied & passed around.

So look for that hopefully soon! I’ll probably wait until I receive the copy of Mark D. Roberts‘ new book Can We Trust the Gospels? I ordered so I can review it before I post the new version of my article. (It’s on its way right now from Amazon! :))