The New Agnosticism

Abstract What is agnosticism? Is it compatible with a genuinely religious life? Here is a conventional answer to these questions: ‘Agnosticism is the view that we do not, and perhaps cannot, know whether God exists. Provided we think the epistemic probability of God’s existence is not negligible, engagement in religious discourse and practice is entirely rational’. Agnosticism so defined is quite different from fictionalism, which takes religious discourse to be fictional discourse, and religious practice a game of make-believe. Fictionalism, it seems, would have to offer a completely different justification for a religious life. This paper explores a hybrid between these positions, a hybrid that might be called ‘religious semantic agnosticism’, but which is perhaps more memorably called ‘New Agnosticism’. It is suggested that this hybrid position combines the advantages of both traditional agnosticism and fictionalism, but does not inherit their disadvantages.