Redeeming Agnosticism: Richard Kearney’s Anatheistic Wager

Abstract This chapter explores whether there is more to agnosticism than a failure to take a position. Philosophy and theology are often faced with an impossible choice between the Scylla of theism and the Charybdis of atheism. Concentrating on metaphysical and epistemological agnosticism rather than psychological agnosticism leads to an exploration of Richard Kearney’s anatheistic wager. Drawing deeply on continental philosophy, Kearney offers a way of drawing theism and atheism into a constructive dialogue. Kearney, it is argued, redeems agnosticism by presenting it as an essential truth about the nature of philosophical thought about the divine. Against the oppositional logic that contrasts theism and atheism, Kearney’s anatheism shows how both theism and atheism are necessary in the search for the divine. In contrast to the certainty of both new atheists and old fideists, Kearney’s anatheistic wager inscribes agnosticism at the heart of the quest for God.