What reasons are there for rejecting Apathetic Agnosticism?

Question

Wikipedia defines apathetic agnosticism as follows:

Apathetic agnosticism

A view related to apatheism, apathetic agnosticism claims that no amount of debate can prove or disprove the existence of one or more deities, and if one or more deities exist, they do not appear to be concerned about the fate of humans; therefore, their existence has little to no impact on personal human affairs. This view has also been called Pragmatic Agnosticism.

The Wikipedia article also provides a reference to a source which further elaborates upon the concept:

Commentary on the Articles of Faith

This section contains all that is really important. All the rest of this extensive website is mere expansion on these fundamentals, or filler and amusements. (That is not intended to imply that you would not find it interesting to explore some of the other sections.) If you understand and accept these Articles of Faith, then you are an Apathetic Agnostic, whether or not you can be bothered to actually join the Church.

1. The existence of a Supreme Being is unknown and unknowable.

To believe in the existence of a god is an act of faith. To believe in the nonexistence of a god is likewise an act of faith. There is no evidence that there is a Supreme Being nor is there evidence there is not a Supreme Being. Faith is not knowledge. We can only state with assurance that we do not know.

2. If there is a Supreme Being, then that being appears to act as if apathetic to events in our universe.

All events in our Universe, including its beginning, can be explained with or without the existence of a Supreme Being. Thus, if there is indeed a God, then that god has had no more impact than no god at all. To all appearances, any purported Supreme Being is indifferent to our Universe and to its inhabitants.

3. We are apathetic to the existence or nonexistence of a Supreme Being.

If there is a God, and that God does not appear to care, then there is no reason to concern ourselves with whether or not a Supreme Being exists, nor should we have any interest in satisfying the purported needs of that Supreme Being. However, our apathy to the question of God's existence does not necessarily mean we are apathetic about promoting agnosticism.

What are reasons for disagreeing with one or more main tenets of apathetic agnosticism?

For instance, are there compelling reasons to care about (rather than remain apathetic toward) the question of a Supreme Being's existence? Or, are there reasons to reject agnosticism (we don’t know) in favor of a more definitive stance on either side (theism vs. atheism)?

Answer 1

I'm actually pretty sympathetic to the Apathetic Agnostic position. My own view is a form of theological anti-realism (broadly speaking that theological discourse is not truth-apt in itself, but that can carry meaning when the words that are used reduce to non-theological concepts) which is often considered a kind of Atheism, but which I would argue is better construed as a third position that presumes that God-talk should be reinterpreted rather than dismissing it all as false. This is quite compatible with apathetic agnosticism.

Playing devil's advocate, I think the position so construed makes a cognitive error that is often made by other theological realisms - that it doesn't make sense as a position in itself free-floating from a prior theological metatheory, despite making generalised truth-claims. This statement is a good example of this:

...if one or more deities exist, they do not appear to be concerned about the fate of humans.

This is a very theologically weighty statement for someone who is supposedly apathetic as to the existence of gods! What does it mean for a God to be "concerned"? What would intervention in human fate look like, such that we can conclude with some confidence that it isn't happening?

I think we have to conclude that Apathetic Agnosticism can only really make sense as a reactive position - which means it isn't one position at all, but rather a loose assemblage of positions that have a similar reaction to a plurality of possible theologies. We might characterise this family resemblance in terms of their dispositions to respond in similar ways, but if you were to ask each of them to characterise their theories individually, they might radically disagree about the deities that each of them think is the "supreme being" that does or does not exist, and hence about the reasons that they give for thinking that their positions are true.

Answer 2

"All events in our Universe, including its beginning, can be explained with or without the existence of a Supreme Being. Thus, if there is indeed a God, then that god has had no more impact than no god at all. "

This would be quite a dumb statement in the eyes of people who are interested in science.  It is precisely the opposite. The greater the advances in our latest scientific understanding of the world, the greater the realization of our inability to even theorize about (forget about answering) the most fundamental questions about our reality.

Answer 3

I can think of a few concerns:

1. This doesn't explain what it really needs to explain, which is how the agnostic knows that the existence of God is unknowable. Otherwise, it seems like we should be agnostic-gnostic, or agnostic-squared, or something. Otherwise, I don't see any reason not to say "well, I'm not completely certain, but I lean towards theism/atheism/pantheism/etc.", which is what most people who call themselves something other than agnostic actually think.

2. If God's existence is unknowable because it is a transcendental metaphysical claim, then we have to take that to its logical conclusion-are all transcendental metaphysical claims (claims that go beyond experience) unknowable? If so, this means we should be agnostic about whether 1+1=2, since neither 1 nor 2 are observable objects in the physical world. The agnostic needs to either accept this, or provide a reason to think we should draw a line somewhere and say "transcendental claims beyond this point are out of bounds."

3. It may be that this position is true, but not useful. Historically, God has been a useful part of philosophical models of the world which have a practical value in providing systems of ethics and a general sense of psychological groundedness. Descartes uses God to escape solipsism in the Meditations, for example. Spinoza uses God to solve the mind-body problem. These can be helpful ways to think about the world and avoid overwhelming confusion and despair. That seems worthwhile, potentially!

Answer 4

An agnostic proposes a kind of middle ground, calling for a truce in the never-ending dispute between theists and atheists: "Let's just say 'we don't know', 'we are not sure', belief and disbelief are both uncertain".

There definitely are atheists who will claim that, as a matter of fact, there is no God. Just like there are theists who claim the opposite. If so, it seems that there is some dispute going on. But there is also a more radical form of atheism that considers talk about God, or gods, or any kind of "Supreme Being" that somehow transcends "this" world, and talk about related things such as "afterlife" or "soul", as meaningless. That is, religious talk may express feelings of awe or wonder, or whatever, but has no meaning when directly referring to "God". This implies that both the statements "God exists" and "God does not exist" are seen as meaningless. Similarly, proclaiming a particular place to be "holy", a holy site, may express a passionate belief, and have various real-world consequences, leading to violent conflict even, but is devoid of meaning.

The agnostic seems to pretend that, at some point, more evidence could be brought to bear on the matter. Something like "At least after we die, we'll know if there is an afterlife -- assuming there is one." But a radical atheist will not accept this since the whole concept of "afterlife" means nothing according to that atheist.

Wittgenstein, in the Tractatus, comes close to expressing an atheistic stance like this, when he writes:

6.4312 The temporal immortality of the human soul, that is to say, its eternal survival also after death, is not only in no way guaranteed, but this assumption in the first place will not do for us what we always tried to make it do. Is a riddle solved by the fact that I survive for ever? Is this eternal life not as enigmatic as our present one? The solution of the riddle of life in space and time lies outside space and time.

For an atheist who considers the dispute about "the existence of God" as meaningless, the agnostic point of view also becomes meaningless. Changing one's belief (or faith) -- either coming to accept a religious faith or losing it --, may have cognitive aspects, but those can not be adequately portrayed -- according to this kind of atheism -- as gaining more evidence, more knowledge, more certainty about matters of fact.

Answer 5

I honestly think this question is starting from a misdefinition of the term, and assumptions about what others believe and what that must imply.

I do not believe in an afterlife. Not all major religions have an afterlife, never mind those of us who do not subscribe to one of those popular categories.

Personally, I do not expect to ever have an absolute answer to the question of whether a deity exists or not. I see no credible evidence either way, and can conceive of none.

However, I actively disbelieve in the personal, and often petulant, deities that some major religions assume. If one or more gods exist, I have to assume that either they are understanding about the fact that we have no way of knowing what to believe about them, or that they honestly don't care, or that the game is rigged in such a way that I find it offensive and decline to play.

I'm an engineer. I understand the effect that a few atoms of dopant can have on the behavior of a semiconductor, and I understand how to manipulate that to get results. I do not care which atoms those are, nor precisely where they are, nor what quantum state they are in; I care that the overall system statistically behaves as intended, and I can get that result without any personal awareness of the individuals. The god I don't believe in is similarly indifferent to the individual atoms, molecules, cells, creatures, planets, galaxies, and possibly universes, since to be a deity at all they must be operating at such a high level that it is unnecessary and indeed counterproductive in most cases to focus down to the level of us microbes.

Only human arrogance and inability to appreciate the true scale of the universe convinces us that we must each signify on that level, or that a deity would bother to set up an explicit threat and reward and belief system when they could simply design and organize the universe to produce the desired results as an overall system.

Religion originated as a poor attempt to model the universe, in the absence of better data. As a result, man created God in his own image. I'm sorry, but I do not believe that anything in man's image legitimately qualifies as a god. If it deserves that term at all, it must be on a scope we simply cannot imagine.

All of this may mean that I don't fit the definition of apathetic agnostic, or indeed of agnostic at all. My real point is that asking people outside a belief system to define that belief system, and to try to aggregate beliefs without the consensus of the believers, is huberistic verging on rude. And I believe this question does make that mistake.

Answer 6

You ask:

What are reasons for disagreeing with one or more main tenets of apathetic agnosticism?

Faith is a good reason for rejecting agnosticism. While an atheist myself, everyday billions of people go about life with an intuition that there is a higher agency and power that guides events in the worlds and provides a basis for moral living. A moderate fideist rejects that reason alone dictates truth, and even atheists would never claim that only reason guides our beliefs, knowledge, and truth. Brute facts, intuition, and emotions are inescapable aspects of human thinking, and no one is devoid of them. People are not logical engines, and foundationalism seems to be the way most people reason in practice.

Answer 7

Proposition: God Exists

1. true
2. false
3. uncertain

Some subjects report true; others report false; and others report uncertain.

Philosophers observe this behavior and invent names: theist (true), atheist (false), and agnostic (uncertain). If one transcends drama, then bivalent logic also passes away in the existential realization, and it subsequently becomes clear to the self that such patterns of drama arise and pass away as three distinct modes of self-other communication. The assertion called Apathetic Agnosticism is just another proposition, and claim of truth, that human subjects must evaluate as true, false, or uncertain in their respective judgment.

Answer 8

The best argument against apathetic agnosticism is Pascal's wager. The cost of a mistake is too high; if there is even a minute, nonzero probability that there is a real non-apathetic supreme being, then it is extremely important to know where you stand with him/her/it. (Note: this conclusion follows from the wager regardless of whether we compare two possibilities or myriad, as long as one of them is "there is a God who actually cares what you do/believe".)

Pascal's wager does not work to refute agnosticism or atheism generally. However, apathy regarding the question is off the table. To all of you who take offense at Pascal's wager: Please take a deep breath and notice that you are not actually apathetic. You do actively care whether or not a religion like Christianity or Islam is true.

So apathetic agnosticism makes a very strong positive assertion: there is no non-apathetic deity. If you thought there was a small chance that there was such a deity, you would not be apathetic about the question. You would take the time to evaluate the evidence thoroughly.

Therefore, apathetic agnosticism is not actually apathetic; it is masquerading as something that it is not. Articles one and two are both just as strongly dogmatic as the religious worldviews that apathetic agnosticism purports to be a non-dogmatic alternative to. It is only apathetic regarding a question of the existence of univolved and impersonal supernatural powers, which is a question which I doubt anyone considers is of much importance.

There are other problems with each article:

Article 1: The existence of a Supreme Being is unknown and unknowable. This implicitly assumes an evidentialist epistemology, which has its own host of problems. Most obviously, it is self-consuming--what evidence do you have to conclude that you should only believe in things you have evidence for? It is also not, strictly speaking, true that there is no evidence for God. Hundreds of books have been written on the topic and I shan't rehash it all here. One might reasonably say there is no good evidence for a God, but that's a statement which requires a non-apathetic evaluation of the purported evidence.

Article 2: If there is a Supreme Being, then that being appears to act as if apathetic to events in our universe. This one is really really questionable. Let me break down the commentary:

All events in our Universe, including its beginning, can be explained with or without the existence of a Supreme Being.

One might truncate this to "All events in our Universe, including its beginning, can be explained" and we already have a questionable, probably false statement. How can one justify the assertion that all things in our universe are explainable? Who believes that? Given that you haven't observed all events in our universe, especially its beginning, it is a violation of your principle that "we can only state with assurance that we do not know." to state that you know all those events you've not observed are equally explainable in both theistic and non-theistic terms.

Furthermore, this is simply a false statement about the origin of the universe. The big advantage of theism is that it does have an explanation for the origin of the universe, while atheism does not. The universe obviously must either have always existed, come into existence for no reason, or originated from something that is not "the universe". In the first two cases, its origin does not have an explanation. In the third, the explanation starts to sound awfully theistic. Some more lucid atheists have recognized this, e.g. Steven Hawking once said "If you like, you can call the laws of science 'God', but it wouldn't be a personal God that you would meet and put questions to." Perhaps the apathetic agnostic meant to say, "All events in our Universe, including its beginning, can be explained with or without the existence of a non-apathetic Supreme Being." But in that case, since you are asserting that the origin of the universe is explainable, you are essentially forced to assert the existence of a deity, though perhaps of the non-personal type.

Thus, if there is indeed a God, then that god has had no more impact than no god at all.

I guess I don't see how this follows from the first sentence. For example, if there is an afterlife, then we wouldn't necessarily expect some measurable difference in this world, but God may have a great deal of impact on your post-death experience. So even taking the first sentence about explainability for granted, this conclusion only applies if we also make some assumptions like materialism.

To all appearances, any purported Supreme Being is indifferent to our Universe and to its inhabitants.

Or maybe he's happy with the way things are playing out? Or perhaps, he's waiting for something? To say that the evidence is consistent with this conclusion cannot be used to rule out alternative hypotheses. It's also a misconception of religious theism to suppose that the primary purpose of believing in God is the explanatory power of that belief. Among Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, and Muslims that I have met, I don't think a single one would say that their reason for their faith is its ability to explain natural phenomena.

Article 3: We are apathetic to the existence or nonexistence of a Supreme Being. If the first two articles were reasonable, this would be reasonable too. But, Pascal's wager shows that it's only reasonable to be apathetic about the existence/nonexistence of an indifferent Supreme Being. It is not reasonable to be apathetic about the existence of a God who cares. An apathetic agnostic is not apathetic regarding that question.