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The agnostic fallacy

Agnosticism is mostly considered a vague middle ground in the debate
surrounding the god question. Some people see it as the most rational
alternative, given the sheer weight of debate going on from both
theists and atheists.

Thomas Henry Huxley, who coined the term agnosticism, defined it thus :

Agnosticism is not a creed but a method, the essence of which lies in
the vigorous application of a single principle. Positively, the
principle may be expressed as in matters of intellect, follow your
reason as far as it can take you without other considerations. And
negatively, in matters of the intellect, do not pretend that matters
are certain that are not demonstrated or demonstrable.
Thomas Huxley, "Agnosticism"

Some people think he formed the word as a joke, a wordplay on the old
gnostic sects. I can't really say.

At any rate, the definition above is enlightening, but is also a bad
definition. It defines a process instead of a result. As such, it is a
good rational guideline, in terms of following the objective evidence,
but it does not tell us what agnosticism is as a position.

The modern definition of agnosticism turns around a lack of knowledge
about the god question. The word a-gnosticism itself means not-knowing,
just like a-theism means not-belief in god.
fallacy is.

http://www.objectivethought.com/atheism/agnostic.html

Graham Oppy distinguishes between strong and weak agnosticism. This is
his thesis :

strong agnosticism, i.e. the view which is sustained by the thesis that
it is obligatory for reasonable persons to suspend judgement on the
question of God's existence. (...) weak agnosticism, i.e. the view
which is sustained by the thesis that it is permissible for reasonable
persons to suspend judgement on the question of God's existence.
"Weak Agnosticism Defended", Graham Oppy

It is important to note, at this point, that agnosticism is not in fact
part of the atheism-theism gradient. Both atheism and theism are
concerned about belief, not knowledge. The basic atheist proposition
can be formulated as follows :

A1 : I lack belief in gods.

And the theist proposition as follows : T1 : I believe in gods.

Both are inherently personal propositions. We are talking here about
what the person believes, not about reality itself. If we look at this
ontologically, we can translate it in the following way :

A2 : I know that there is no god-belief in my mind.
T2 : I know that there is god-belief in my mind.

The atheist and the theist are not making statements about what exists
in reality, only on what they believe. However, there are positions
which pertain to knowledge about reality. Monotheistic religions, and
strong-atheism (also called positive atheism) share this gradient. We
can define them as follows :

R : I know a god exists.
P : I know no god exists.

These statements concern what actually exists out there in reality.
Agnosticism is part of that gradient : it claims that the kind of
knowledge stated in propositions R and P is irrational. Thus,
agnosticism is actually compatible with both atheism and theism. An
agnostic atheist is someone who does not believe in gods regardless of
their lack of knowledge on the question. An agnostic theist is someone
who believes in gods regardless of their lack of knowledge on the
question.

Given these facts, why is agnosticism a fallacy ? While it parades as a
"moderate" option which is most "reasonable", it is little more than an
example of the cult of compromise. It's not because a debate is raging
from both sides of an issue that both must be wrong. Or as Richard
Dawkins eloquently writes :

I think it's important to realize that when two opposite points of view
are expressed with equal intensity, the truth does not necessarily lie
exactly halfway between them. It is possible for one side to be simply
wrong.
"Richard Dawkins' Evolution", The New Yorker (September 9th, 1996)

If we examine the agnostic premise, we find that it is quite
unreasonable. Agnosticism is based on the notion that we can have no
knowledge on the god question.

But for this to be true, the agnostic must know all possible arguments
of atheism and theism, since he discards them all out of hand. If any
single argument is valid, then agnosticism must crumble. Many such
arguments are available in the atheist literature, and it is
disingenuous to deny them.

Furthermore, the lack of knowledge inherent in agnosticism is
self-contradictory. If we know nothing about the god-concept, then we
cannot claim it exists, or discuss it rationally.

If we claim not to know anything about the concept, then we still know
something about it : that it is beyond human understanding, and
rational discussion. Therefore agnosticism is contradictory, and must
inevitably lead to strong-atheism.

Furthermore, agnosticism must be self-contradictory, as identity is
necessary for anything to exist, and there is no such thing as an
undefined object. Whatever exists in reality has attributes. If we
admit that we have no knowledge about the god-concept, including how to
define it, then it cannot exist. Thus assuming agnosticism is true
leads to a contradiction.

Agnostics have to answer the following question, if their position is
to make any sense at all :

How can you presume that "god" has some possible meaning if you have no
knowledge about "god" ?

To claim that "gods could exist" is possible, one must attribute some
meaning to "god" in order for this proposition to be meaningful. To say
that "gods cannot exist", from this semantic viewpoint, is to say that
there can be no referent to "god", because the word "god" is
meaningless.

But the agnostic has no knowledge about "god" from which he can
attribute it meaning. Therefore agnosticism contradicts itself on this
crucial issue.

A number of arguments can be proposed in favour of agnosticism. I will
now examine the most important arguments.

* Argument from the limits of human reason

Based on Huxley's equivocation between a judicious use of reason and
agnosticism, some thinkers have proposed that atheism oversteps the
boundaries of human reason.

I have already pointed out that this is unreasonable. If it is true
that human reason cannot discuss theology, then the atheist arguments
must be shown to be invalid. It is not sufficient to simply declare it
without evidence.

* Post-modernist argument

A more fundamental argument can be built on the grounds of
post-modernism. According to this school of thought, all of our
positions and beliefs are determined not by truth, but by our
upbringing and social context. Children raised from Christian parents
will be naturally biased to become Christians. Children raised from
atheist parents will be naturally biased to become atheists. Only
agnosticism escapes this bias, by stepping outside of positive
positions and claiming moderation.

However, this argument not only suffers from the same flaw than the
previous argument, in that it is not sufficient to claim that atheism
is biased but it must also be proven, but it is also open to the
standard refutation of post-modernism. Being a positive position,
post-modernism itself is also subject to upbringing and social context,
and therefore must be rejected out of hand, if we follow the argument.

* Antirealist attack

An even more fundamental argument has been recently elaborated by
agnostic Bill Schultz. In his article "A Formal Justification of
Agnosticism", he proposes that agnosticism is valid because logic is
invalid in cases where we do not observe facts of reality directly.
Since we cannot observe gods directly, we cannot make any knowledge
claim about the god question.

Unfortunately, the fundamental nature of this argument means that it is
extremely vulnerable to the flaws exposed above. First of all, it is
not sufficient to claim that logic is invalid in cases where we do not
observe facts of reality directly. This claim must be proven. There is
no functional difference between facts of reality that we observe
directly and those we observe indirectly : in both cases we must use
logic in some form and to some extent.

Secondly, if logic is not applicable to cases where we do not observe
facts of reality directly, then this also applies to the truth or
falsity of agnosticism, which is not observable directly. Following
this argument, all we can do is say that agnosticism is untenable.

Finally, if the god question is special because its object is not
observed directly, then this also applies to any other absurd entity.
We do not observe Santa Claus, unicorns, giant space waffles, or angels
directly. The antirealist attack would have us suspend judgment on all
these entities also. But this is an absurd position.