What is the point of agnosticism? By Robin Le Poidevin Do we
really need agnosticism nowadays? The inventor of the name
‘agnosticism’, the Victorian evolutionist Thomas Henry Huxley,
certainly found it useful to have a word describing his lack of
certainty when he was surrounded by those who seemed to have no
such doubt. But then he lived in a period of transition.
Science, and in particular biology, appeared to undermine old
certainties. On the one hand, churchmen were promoting the
importance of unshakeable faith. On the other, there were
philosophers advocating a materialist and anti-religious
outlook. Huxley felt he couldn’t identify with either side. If
the Gnostics were those who claimed to have access to a special
route to religious knowledge, then Huxley would be an a-gnostic,
one who does not profess to know. But perhaps agnosticism served
only as a temporary stopping point en route to a more
satisfactory position, a stepping stone from faith to atheism.
For Richard Dawkins, a scientist, writer and t