Noah Porter paraphrases Eph 2:12 as "Hopeless because Godless." Agnostics may say that they do not deny the existence of God. Whether they claim unknowableness of God or that the existence of God is unknown, in either case, they do not know God and hence they are in a Godless situation, and the above phrase may describe agnostics' condition. Porter cleverly points out that the ignorance of God, which was regarded as a sin, "is now taught as a necessity of reason" and "the unknowableness of God has been formulated as a philosophy."
Thomas. H. Huxley coined the words "agnosticism" and "agnostic" in the 19th century. Robert Flint comments that Huxley could have used the words "skepticism" and "skeptic" instead of inventing new terminologies. In fact, Norman Geisler introduces "the skepticism of David Hume" as a starting point of agnosticism. It seems that Huxley did not give a serious thought to the meaning of the words since he claimed that he knew something like his ignorance of God. Either way, …show more content…
J. Ayer, labeling his philosophy as logical positivism. Ayer's idea is that only definitional or empirical statements are meaningful. A statement is definitional when it is a relation of ideas. His problem is that he separates the two statements and does not consider the connection between them. Hence there is no way to know reality behind the empirical world. A natural consequence is the complete negation of knowledge of God. To Ayer, even the word God or a transcendental being was meaningless because it was not definitional. This is worse than traditional agnosticism, which at least, tried to figure out the existence of God. To agnostics such as Ayer or Wittgenstein, even though one may experience God, such experience is inexpressible. They do not acknowledge the possibility of revelation of God. Geisler argues that Ayer's idea is also self-contradictory because it is neither definitional nor
Thomas. H. Huxley coined the words "agnosticism" and "agnostic" in the 19th century. Robert Flint comments that Huxley could have used the words "skepticism" and "skeptic" instead of inventing new terminologies. In fact, Norman Geisler introduces "the skepticism of David Hume" as a starting point of agnosticism. It seems that Huxley did not give a serious thought to the meaning of the words since he claimed that he knew something like his ignorance of God. Either way, …show more content…
J. Ayer, labeling his philosophy as logical positivism. Ayer's idea is that only definitional or empirical statements are meaningful. A statement is definitional when it is a relation of ideas. His problem is that he separates the two statements and does not consider the connection between them. Hence there is no way to know reality behind the empirical world. A natural consequence is the complete negation of knowledge of God. To Ayer, even the word God or a transcendental being was meaningless because it was not definitional. This is worse than traditional agnosticism, which at least, tried to figure out the existence of God. To agnostics such as Ayer or Wittgenstein, even though one may experience God, such experience is inexpressible. They do not acknowledge the possibility of revelation of God. Geisler argues that Ayer's idea is also self-contradictory because it is neither definitional nor