Agnosticism

I. Introduction: Agnosticism is: “The doctrine that certainty about first principles or absolute truth is unattainable and that only perceptual phenomena are objects of exact knowledge. The belief that the existence or nonexistence of a deity or deities cannot be known with certainty. That doctrine which, professing ignorance, neither asserts nor denies” (The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition).

A. Agnostics do not deny that there is a god. They assert that they simply do not and cannot know.

1. Some agnostics engage in religious practices, while others do not.
2. Agnostics are not atheists. They are open to any “possible” ideas.
3. Agnosticism is not the same as Gnosticism (personal spiritual knowledge).

1. The answer to the “unknown god” way of thinking (Acts 17:24-34 and Romans 1:16-32).
2. Those who do not know God will often practice something false (i.e. Galatians 4:8).

1. The evidence indwells us (Romans 2:14-15; cf. Jude 1:10).
2. There are natural rights and wrongs (Leviticus 18:22-23, I Corinthians 11:14-15, and II Timothy 3:3).
3. What is around us, within us, and natural to us makes us a people who can inquire and find as we have already read (Acts 17:27).
4. God has long called men to seek knowledge, wisdom, and understanding (Proverbs 8:1, Proverbs 8:5, and Proverbs 8:17).

1. It is God’s will for man to know (I Timothy 2:4).
2. Even of old, God was knowable (Jeremiah 9:23-24).
3. One must simply put in the work (Proverbs 2:1-5).

1. The knowledge that Christ came in the flesh was not only from the Scriptures of old. There were also many witnesses who testified (Luke 24:36-48, Acts 1:1-3, Acts 2:32, Acts 10:39-43, I Corinthians 15:1-8, I John 1:1-3, and I John 4:14).
2. Then, what was seen and done was recorded for a reason (John 20:30-31).