The Doctrine of Divine Nescience

Most of us know of a prevailing attitude of mind that does not express itself by propounding a distinctive religious belief or doctrine, but rather by declining to have one, and by pronouncing all actual or possible theories incompetent. This attitude in our time is called agnosticism. It is the negation of real or possible knowledge concerning God and His relations to man and the world. God is, for the agnostic, an unknown quantity, of which we are not in a position to affirm anything.

Agnosticism, not to be confused with acognosticism (which claims we can not make any meaningful statement about God and that all God-talk is utter nonsense or empty rhetoric), may admit that God is, but what He is, it is claimed, no man can know.

Although Thomas Huxley coined the term "agnosticism," this doctrine of divine nescience (ignorance of God) is prominently associated with the name of Herbert Spencer who coined the phrase “survival of the fittest” and authored, A System of Synthetic Philosophy. In the chapter, First Principles, he discusses ultimate religious ideas, which ends with these ominous words: "The Power which the universe manifests to us is utterly inscrutable"

The relevance of this position on the important problem of the origin of the world he clearly indicated in the following sentences: "Respecting the origin of the universe, three verbally intelligible suppositions may be made. We may assert that it is self-existent, or that it is self created, or that it is created by and external agency. Which of these suppositions is most credible it is not needful here to inquire. The deeper question, into which this finally merges, is, whether any one of them is even conceivable in the true sense of the word."

In other words, in Spencer's opinion, atheism (there is no God), pantheism (universe and God are identical), and theism (God is Creator, personal and Ruler of the world) are all alike incompetent attempts to solve a problem which is really insoluble. The obvious practical lesson is that we should abstain from all such vain efforts, and rest in the conviction "that it is alike our highest wisdom and our highest duty to regard that through which all things exist as The Unknowable."

It is interesting that Spencer concedes that at least this much is known about the Unknowable: that it is a "Power which the universe manifests" and "through which all things exist. Thus, in my opinion, the light of reason would suggest that if this much can be known, a little more knowledge might also be possible, for instance, something might be learned about the ultimate Source of being from the world which it has brought into existence. This, however, is peremptorily denied by agnosticism which insists that the ultimate Cause of the world cannot be known through its effects.

While acknowledging that the phenomenal universe is the manifestation of a Power that cannot be identified with the totality of the phenomena, the agnostic maintains that we can learn nothing as to the nature of this Power from the qualities of the phenomena.

The fact that the agnostic position is hostile to Christianity is clear and need not be addressed in any detail. If from nature, history, or the human soul no hints of truths concerning God (except possibly acknowledging that He is), can be derived a higher revelation, is indeed incredible. Such faith in a self- revealing God, as one imbued with the agnostic temper still cherishes, can be but an evening twilight, after sunset, destined soon to fade into darkness.

If the teaching of Christ concerning God be true, it ought to be in harmony with what nature in all it spheres at least suggests, not to mention proves.

The Christian doctrine of God is in accordance with the latest teaching of science regarding the nature of force. According to that teaching, all physical forces are convertible into each other, and are all but diverse manifestations of one ultimate force. Thus the question arises, what is the nature of that ultimate force? The agnostic replies, it is inscrutable. But Christianity puts forth the inquiry, what if the Power that is at work in the universe be like that form of power with which we are most familiar, the power exercised by the Being who stands at the head of creations, and reveals the mind of the Creator - His Will power?

Again, if God, as Christ teaches, be like man, He possesses not only intellect, purpose and will, but moral character. Many have seen in the moral nature of man, the conscience, a powerful witness to the existence of God. Without calling in question the validity of the argument, my present purpose is to point to the human sense of right and wrong as showing not that God is, but what He is. History confirms the inference to morality in God suggested by an inspection of man's moral nature. Most all schools of thought are agreed that a moral order is revealed in the story of the human race. Also, characteristics of this Power are noticeable in human affairs. We all can confirm that it is oftentimes slow in action, especially on the punitive side, and it seems with all the regularity of a law, to sometimes treat the best of men as if they were the worst, making the good suffer as the bad should.

Among the theistic proofs which have commanded wide acceptance, the foremost place is due to the three entitled respectively the cosmological, the teleological and the ontological, which may be called the standard arguments for the existence of a great First Cause.

CLARITY: Knowledge gained independent of experience is known as “a priori” knowledge. Knowledge proven through experience is called “a posteriori” knowledge.

Deductive argument asserts that the conclusion follows necessarily from the truth of the premises. For example: All cats have nine lives. Felix is a cat. Therefore Felix has nine lives. If the first two statements are true, then the conclusion must be true.

Inductive argument asserts that the conclusion does not follow necessarily, but probably from the truth of the premises. For example: This pill in the dispenser is blue. That pill in the dispenser is blue. Another pill in the dispenser is blue. Therefore all pills in the dispenser are blue.

The cosmological argument is a deductive argument with an a posteriori first premise. It argues from the mere existence of a world to an absolutely necessary Being from whom it took its origin. The world as a whole it regards as an effect whose cause is God. The basic premise is that something caused the Universe to exist, and this First Cause must be God, the Uncaused Cause.

The universe and contingent beings exist

Something caused its existence

Infinite regress of dependent existence is impossible

Therefore, there must be a First Uncaused Cause

The first Uncaused Cause is God.

The teleological argument is based on external evidence and attempts to prove the existence of God from external evidences. It is also a deductive argument with an a posteriori first premise:

The universe manifest evidences of design.

All design demands a designer

Therefore, there must be a designer.

The designer is God.

The ontological argument infers the existence of God from the idea of Him necessarily entertained by the human mind. It is also a deductive argument with an a posteriori first premise:

Everyone can conceive of God

God is that Being greater than that which cannot be conceived.

A non-existent God is not greater than that which cannot be conceived.

Therefore, God exists.

In all our formal argumentation we feebly try to assign reasons for a belief that is rooted in our being. In perusing works by others devoted to the advocacy of theism, we are conscious of disappointment, and possibly even of increased agnostic doubt rather than of faith established.

Christ taught that God is a Father and that man is His son, and that it is His leading purpose to establish between Himself and men a Kingdom of family relations and loving fellowship.

Prophetically interpreted, and expressed in the language of Christianity, these facts mean: that God is patient, slow to anger, prone to pardon, giving evil men ample space to repent; and that in the moral world the good are called to the heroic function of redeemers, propagators of righteousness, and as such have to suffer, the just for the unjust. In other words, the moral order of the world is not only a reign of retributive justice, but a reign of grace, under which love is the supreme law, will full scope for the display of its nature as a spirit of self-sacrifice and the stream of tendency is steadily towards the grand consummation, the ushering in of the Kingdom of God.

Man, his nature and position in the universe, is made the basis of the theistic argument. Science explains man from the world, but faith explains the world, in its first Cause and last End (God), from man. For Christianity, the results arrived at are not logically inevitable conclusions from absolutely certain premises. They are value judgments resting on moral grounds, and involving an exercise of freedom, a bias due to the esteem in which God holds man as a moral personality, and to regarding his moral nature and destiny as the key to the riddle of God’s universe.

A person can be an agnostic if he or she so chooses. Faith in God is an affair of personal conviction. No offense is meant by this statement. It is not intended to insinuate that unbelief is the effect of an unsatisfactory moral condition. I realize and acknowledge that there are many moral men and women who are agnostics as there are many Christians who are immoral. Nevertheless, it remains true that it is with the heart that man believes. God is the postulate of a soul that finds the world without God utterly black and unintelligible. For theists, the evidence for God's existence and the truth of Christianity is decisively decided in God's self revelation in Holy Writ and the incarnation of Jesus Christ.