Agnosticism, from the greek negative “a” and “gnosis” – knowledge, means without knowledge or no knowledge and deals not so much with the existence of God, but more his attributes and character, or lack of “knowability” of them.
It asserts that we cannot know about God because the concept of God is simply too much for a finite mind.
If you noticed the problem in my last sentence, congratulations! The argument would go like this:
- God is infinite and unlimited
- Man is finite and limited
- Therefore man cannot know God
However, as per the premise, we already know that God is infinite and unlimited, so we know something about God. Does agnosticism have a point? Well, maybe. Is God infinite and unlimited? Definitely. Is man finite and limited? Of course. The conclusion would be correct if we changed it slightly by adding one word: exhaustively. Man cannot know God exhaustively. Does that pose a problem for the Christian? Not really, because we can indeed know God at some level, and I go so far as to say that thanks to the Bible, we can know God sufficiently.
What, then, is sufficient knowledge of God? We can know all about God that God wants us to know about Him. We can definitely know who we are and who God is, ontologically. We can know that we are fallen and don’t hold up to God’s perfect law and standard. We can know that we cannot be reconciled to God no matter what we do. We can know that God had to step in if He ever wanted to have/restore fellowship with Him, and indeed did by sending His Son Jesus, the God-Man, to redeem us by paying the penalty for sin, which we can accept by repenting and putting our faith in Him.
That’s a lot of stuff we can know already, though none of these is complete or exhaustive knowledge. And believe me when I say, that is only the beginning of how much we can know God and know about God, by far.
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