Agnosticism

Agnosticism questions the possibility of knowledge of existence beyond the phenomena of experience. It is often equated with a general scepticism about religious questions and can lead to spiritual apathy and a loss of direction.

Agnosticism can be a way of life in three ways. Lazy, superficial or pragmatic agnostics cannot be bothered by religious questions, refuse to take difficult and contentious questions seriously and prefer to spend their time on problems that can actually be solved. Scrupulous agnostics are quite different as agnosticism is not an escape but a burden. They see the vastness of human knowledge and are paralysed. They have a deep fear of commitment, not through caring too little, but from worrying too much. They seek certainty, logical perfection, truths beyond criticism. The third type are the necessary agnostics who acknowledge that God is God, they are human beings and the first step toward wisdom is the acknowledgement of ignorance. They don't fall into the folly of believing they have it all worked out. They know faith is a process of seeing and then not seeing, of rising to great religious heights and then being humbled and corrected, this hoping and finding hope shattered, this dying and rising to new life is the source of their faith.

The significant drop in church attendance of recent years indicates the prevalence of agnosticism in developed countries.