Atheism and Agnosticism

The great Icelandic writer of sagas Snorri Sturluson relates an interesting episode about the Norwegian king, St Olaf.

We are neither Christian nor pagan. We and our brothers have no faith, other than in our own strength and skill, and our own fortune in war. This has so far sufficed. Or is there, king, in your army any Christian man who has performed in a day greater deeds than we?¹

Are we encountering here an articulate atheist, in this obscure time of great religious change in the wilds of northern Europe? In a way, I think it is reasonable to say yes. This is a clear example of a reaction to religion which it makes sense to call atheism. Atheism will then mean a deliberate rejection of all the religious alternatives available at the time. We will take this as the first sense of the term ‘atheism’ to be considered. As we shall see later on, ‘atheism’ like so many other terms in the field of religion is used in many different senses.

Atheism in our first sense seems to be an eternal companion to religion. We know that some kind of religion exists in every culture; what is not so frequently observed is that one can also find traces of religious denial and disbelief in practically every religious milieu.² The examples from Greece are fairly well known; they can be studied in the numerous legal proceedings against people accused of denying the gods, especially in the fourth century bce. In early Greek culture we find com­plaints about asebeia, which means a lack of respect for the rules based on beliefin the gods; it also, however, involves a clear theoretical disbelief in all gods.

I hope it has become apparent from what we have already said that it is simply not true that there was a time when all men were religious. The assumption of a religious point of view always seems to involve a personal element which renders it neither intellectually nor socially irresistible. There is always an opening towards atheism in our first sense.

It should be observed that anyone in a Buddhist society who rejects Buddhism as well as other religions is an atheist in our first sense, despite the fact that the Buddhist doctrine itself can be termed atheistic. This last example affords us another meaning of atheism, to which we will now address ourselves.

The term ‘atheism’ is often used to refer to an argumentative denial of a more specific core-element of religion—the belief in personal gods, or in a personal God. The epithet ‘personal’ means that the god in question is believed to bear a likeness at least to such human abilities as thinking, willing and com­municating. The term ‘argumentative’ in the definition implies that this view is a theoretical standpoint, adopted on the basis of some kind of reasoning. Atheism in this sense is something more than a dislike of religion, or a neglect of religious practices. A man can, of course, be an atheist in both our first and second senses, as indeed was the Norwegian soldier in our example.

We will discuss here two types of atheism in the sense of an argumentative denial of personal gods or a personal God. The difference between these two forms lies in the argumentative approach. The ground for a repudiation of theism can be a philosophical critique of the doctrine of a personal God in all its forms, as in the philosophy of logical positivism. This is the first type. But atheism can also be based on a positive alternative system of metaphysics, which may be of a religious character (as in the case of Buddhism) or totally non-religious (as in the case of Marxism).

It is naturally impossible in our present context to offer any survey of the philosophical arguments for and against the existence of a God. Such surveys can be found in most textbooks on the philosophy of religion.³ They are often instructive, but a word of warning may well be in place. Short summaries of philosophical arguments can be very misleading without being totally wrong, and all these summaries of‘The five ways of Aquinas’ along with the critiques of Kant and Hume seem to me excessively boring. My advice to a reader interested in the critical side of these matters is to study Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion in the original, and without abbreviation. I agree with Hume himself: ‘nothing can be... more artfully written’.⁴ The general warning I have now given can also be applied to the following short summary of the one argument that seems to me to constitute the strongest case against theism.

The argument starts from a very simple principle, which has been called the principle of intellectual morality.⁵ It says: ‘Do not believe in anything for which you cannot give good reasons.’At first sight, few people would reject this rule. It appears to be the basis of a rational life, and a starting-point for all kinds of scientific and scholarly activity.

The second step in the argument is to try to establish what kinds of reason we can give for the existence of anything whatsoever. In daily life we refer in questions of existence to our common-sense experience. If we together see or hear something, then it must in some way exist in the real world; and if it is possible to experience it, then it is possible that it exists. Many things, however, cannot be familiar to us in this direct way, for example the particles of which physicists speak or various remote astronomi­cal objects. But if the assumption of the existence of an entity is necessary in order to explain what we become acquainted with through our senses, then we have good reasons to believe in it. It is not necessary of course that the ‘we’ in these sentences should include every human being. One of the basic conditions of human knowledge is that we have to rely on the testimony of others. One single, unprejudiced person can suffice, provided that his judgement is open to control by others. The reasons I have just described can be called empirical reasons. They undoubtedly govern our ordinary lives, and scientific theories as to factual conditions in the real world are based on such reasons. It can now be claimed that there are no other good reasons for the existence of anything, except reasons based on some possible sense­experience.

The third premiss, of course, is the claim that we cannot offer any empirical reasons for the existence of God. No reliable person has seen or heard a God in a way which is open to control. There was a time when the God-hypothesis seemed necessary in order to explain certain phenomena or regularities in the experiential world, but scientific develop­ment has made the God-hypothesis entirely superfluous. The supposition of a personal God has no anchorage in our experience.

From the second and third steps in this argument, the conclusion follows that there are no good reasons for believing in any personal God. Then, according to the maxim contained in the first premiss, we should not believe in a personal God.

This is an example of philosophical atheism. It is a weak form of atheism, since the argument does not claim actually to disprove the existence of a personal God. It seems correct, none the less, to call it atheism. It is a refutation of the belief in God. If the form of atheism is weak, the actual argument, on the other hand, is strong. It does not involve any complex philosophical theories. It is based on common sense and science, without being tied to any given, current scientific theories. As a whole, it reflects an undogmatical attitude. The theist, of course, can deny all the premisses. He can refuse to accept the rule of intellectual morality, but this involves being an irrationalist—which is a difficult and uncomfortable posi­tion. It is also possible to try to present empirical reasons for the existence of God, and thus refute the third premiss. I do not, however, know of anyone who has completely succeeded in this. The best approach for the theist, in my view, is to question the second premiss.

Let us now turn to the second type of argumentative denial of a personal God. This is the form of atheism which offers an elaborated metaphysical alternative to theism. The classical example, which is still important, is materialism. Materialism in its various forms is a strong and powerful stream of Western philosophical thought. (One well-known German history of Western materialism covers 1,099 pages.⁶)

The most important of the Greek materialists is Democritus, and we can take his theories as a standard example of strict classical materialism. In his philosophy, only matter is existent or real. Even mental states consist of a kind of matter. Democritus introduced the term ‘atom’ for the smallest constituent of matter. Democritus’ ontological materialism was developed in an interesting way by the Roman Epicurean philosopher Lucretius, in his great poem De Remm Natura. It seems evident there that strict materialism is incompatible with belief in a personal God. But this is only true if we also accept the premiss that God is not material. Most materialists have indeed done this, but not all of them. Epicurus, for instance, who based his metaphysics on Democritus, reckoned with the actual exist­ence of gods, even if he thought that we need not bother about them, just as they do not care about us.

If Democritus affords a typical example of classical materialism, the hero of modern materialism is Marx. Some modern materialists, as we shall see later on, would deny this, but he undoubtedly has the greatest influence. Marxist atheism is the strongest atheistic movement of our time.

There are two basic differences in principle between strict, classical materialism and that of Marx, quite apart from the fact that they have emerged against quite disparate cultural and scientific back­grounds. The first is that Marx reckons with the existence of something other than material entities. Mental states are seen as real, although dependent on a material basis which is causally primary. This doctrine is generally called ‘epiphenomenalism’. According to the Marxists themselves, the most important difference between Marxist and other forms of materialism is that Marxist materialism is ‘dialectical’. According to Marx and Lenin, there exist in the material world certain fundamental dual opposites, which meet and produce a development towards a synthesis of opposing forces. According to Marx, the basic laws governing the development of matter can be clearly formulated and they are termed ‘dialectical laws’. One of these, formulated by Engels, is called ‘the law of the transformation of quantity into quality and vice versa’. By the help of such laws, Marxist materialism can be applied to social development. It can be explained, for example, in materialist terms how a gradual change in the material basis of a society suddenly gives rise to a qualitatively new kind of society. The application ofbasic dialectical material­ism to human conditions and human societies is called in Marxist philosophical terms ‘historical materialism’. Historical materialist theories also explain, according to the Marxists, why and how the false belief in a personal God will disappear in the future. In Leningrad, a former church has been made into a museum for the history of religion and atheism. Those interested in the application of historical materialism to religion will find there many very skilful illustrations.

Apart from strict, classical materialism and Marxist materialism, it may be sufficient to consider one further form, which we can refer to as explanative materialism. Its basic idea is that everything can be explained in terms of matter, or of matter and energy. Many of the results achieved in modern science point in this direction. It is also supposed that matter is always causally primary in relation to everything else. These ideas are compatible with the existence of mind, and epiphenomenalism seems to be a generally accepted theory in most forms of modern materialism. Even if explanative materialism can be included in Marxist materialism, it is a much more modest standpoint. An explanative materialist need not accept the dialectical laws, or the theory of historical materialism in toto. A clear example of this form of materialism, in which the atheistic consequences are drawn, is provided by Ernest Nagel, who calls his view ‘naturalism’.⁷

Before leaving the subject of materialism, we should underline the fact that we have dealt here only with the theoretical type of materialism. ‘Materialism’ can also refer to the normative view that owning material things, or possessing economic wealth, is the highest goal of human life. The two forms of materialism need not be combined in any way. On the contrary, theoretical materialists have often been and are idealists in the sense of striving at higher spiritual or moral goals, or sacrificing their own welfare for the benefit of their fellow men.

From materialism, we will now take a step to what may appear to be its absolute opposite—mysticism. As we shall see, how­ever, the great mystical traditions include patterns of thought which allow no room for a personal God. They tend towards atheism in our second sense— an argumentative denial of a personal God. Two traits common to many mystical traditions are of importance here.⁸ In the mystical experience, the mystic claims to be in contact with the deepest level of reality. Now for many mystics, both in the Christian and other traditions, experience of this reality means an annihilation of their own personality. ‘The visionary is himself One’, says Plotinus. This is Unio Mystica. St Teresa of Avila, one of the great Christian mystics, wrote ‘It is plain enough what unity is—two distinct things becoming one.’ This transcendence of the personal ‘I’, and total unity with something else, is quite a different experience from meeting a person. If such mystics meet God, it is not a personal God. Mystics of this kind have consequently been regarded with great suspicion by the representatives of such religions as Christianity and Islam even to the point of persecution. The condemnation of the great medieval mystic Meister Eckhart (‘The knower and the known are one’) can serve as an example from Christian history, and from the Muslim world we can mention the mystic Mansur al-Hallaj, who was killed in 922 for his claim of identity with the divine. It must be observed, however, that not all mystical experiences are of this non-personal kind. Nathan Soderblom speaks of a kind of mysticism which he calls ‘personal mysticism’.⁹ And then we have the great Jewish religious figure Martin Buber: his type of religious experience bears a similarity to mystical experi­ence, but its very kernel is an ‘I—Thou’ relationship. The mystical tradition seems to move between two poles, from the deep personal encounter to a unity beyond all personal categories.

One further trait in the mystical tradition should be mentioned. What is felt in the mystical experience is impossible to describe, lies outside the reach of human language; it is ineffable. Nearly all mystics are in agreement about this. If, however, the ultimate reality is impossible to describe, then it must be wrong to talk about this reality as a personal God. But it is also a fact that many mystics, despite the doctrine of ineffability, try to say something about their experience with the help of symbols and metaphors. Mystics often balance on the edge of the ineffable, without being totally silent.

Among the many meanings of atheism a third and powerful one may be observed. This involves denial of the existence of a personal God with certain specific attributes: if a personal God is to have such-and-such characteristics, he does not exist. In many religious traditions, including the Jewish and the Christian, God is said to be Almighty and Good. Very early on in our intellectual tradition, people found it difficult to combine this belief with the experience of the factual evils of the world. This gave rise to the so-called problem of theodicy, and if it insoluble it is easy to make it into a proof of the non-existence of a Good and Almighty God. This is a powerful line of thought in both the ancient and modern history of atheism. A pioneer in this field is the Greek philosopher Sextus Empiricus.

We can now conclude this passage on atheism with an interesting observa­tion. For each form of atheism, there are kinds of theism which correspond and come very close to the atheistic position. This I say not in order to blur the demarcation line between the different ideologies, but to point to the possibility that an interesting position may be found at some of the points at which theism and atheism touch each other.

Our first kind of atheism involved the rejection of all currently available religious alternatives. This, however, is also the position of a deeply religious theist like Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He was seeking a God behind the religions, striving towards a non-religious Christianity. We can simply note this for the present, without further discussion. The type of atheism which we defined as the argumentative rejection of a personal God took many different forms. The most interesting relation to theism is to be found in the last of these, namely mystical atheism. But let us first note that the intellectual basis of those theists who wish to fight superstition is the principle of intellectual morality, and interestingly enough this also opens one of the best ways for the theist to combat atheistic metaphysics, such as materialism. It may be possible for the theist and the atheist to travel a long way together when it comes to the question of rational reasons, but at some point they must separate, and the theist has to accept religious experience, for instance, as part of the ground for an existence-claim. The materialist type of atheism lies a long way from theism on the theoretical side but, when in practice, the extent of the views they hold in common can be remarkable, as evident in the dialogue between Marxists, Christians and Muslims. Let us now proceed to mysticism. The reflected forms of belief in a personal God always seem to contain an awareness of the absolute unintelligibility of God. God is seen as transcending all our concepts. Even concepts of a person are used in another sense when applied to God. In the skilfully elaborated doctrine of analogy, St Thomas Aquinas tries to safeguard the otherness of God, without rendering the description of him as a person entirely meaning­less. When we come to a modern Christian theologian such as Paul Tillich, one may doubt whether anything whatsoever of the personal character of the Christian God has been preserved. The point, however, is that a deep form of personal theism comes very close to non-personal mysticism. Finally, a word about those who deny the existence of a Good and Almighty God. This denial is part of the constant struggle among Christian andjewish theists, and its model is the biblical person of Job.

Apart from different forms of theism and atheism, there is also a third position, namely agnosticism. Let us quote directly a famous agnostic, the Greek philosopher Protagoras: ‘About the gods I do not know if they exist or do not exist. There are many circumstances which prevent one from know­ing that: the obscurity of the matter and the shortness of human life.’ Agnosticism can be defined as suspending one’s judgement on the question of the existence of God. Let us compare this position with the forms of atheism which we have dealt with. The first form of atheism was a rejection of all available religious alternatives. An agnostic would not reject religion but he would refuse to say yes or no to it. It must then be observed that an agnostic of this kind will often be seen in the same way as an atheist from the religious point of view, following the principle that ‘he who is not with me is against me’. The argumentative rejection of belief in a personal God cannot be accepted by an agnostic, although he can come very close to the argument based on the principle of intellectual morality. Some, perhaps, would call this form of atheism a kind of agnosticism. I think, however, that it is better terminology to speak of agnosticism only if the second and third premisses are modified. An agnostic would say that there exist at present no rational reasons for believing in God. This, perhaps, is the best example of an agnostic position. An agnostic corresponding to our third kind of atheism has to leave open the possibility of a solution of the theodicy problem, even if he cannot see one.

An interesting agnostic position is what perhaps can be called ‘methodological agnosticism’. This involves not adopting any definite standpoint as to the existence or non-existence of a divine reality, when dealing with a scientific or scholarly problem. In this sense, a high proportion of modern religious studies are agnostic—including the present chapter.

Notes

1. This passage from Snorri Sturluson’s life of St Olaf in the Heimskringla is here translated from a quotation in Tor Andrae, Die Frage der Religiosen Anlage (Uppsala Universitets Ärsskrift, 1932), p. 32.

2. The article ‘Atheism’ in the classical Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics ed. by J. Hastings from 1909 is still a useful introduction to atheism in different cultures.

3. See for instance John Hick, Philosophy of Religion (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1963). A historical survey of Western atheism is given in Fritz Mauthner, Der Atheismus und seine Geschichte im Abenland, 1-4 (1922-4). This work embraces over 2000 pages.

4. The Letters of David Hume. Ed. by J.Y.T. Greig, 1932 II, p. 334.

5. My way of formulating the argument is influenced by the Swedish philosopher Ingmar Hedenius.

6. Friedrich Lange, Geschichte des Materialismus 9th edn (Leipzig, 1914-15).

7. See for instance his contribution in Proceedings and Addresses of The Am Philosophical Association XXVII.

8. For common traits in mystical experiences see for instance W.T. Stace, Mystic­ism and Philosophy (London, 1961).

9. Nathan So’derblom, Uppenbarelsereligion (Uppsala, 1903). See also his The Liv­ing God (London, 1933).