CINXE.COM

<!DOCTYPE html> <html lang="en"> <head> <title>CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Agnosticism</title><script src="https://dtyry4ejybx0.cloudfront.net/js/cmp/cleanmediacmp.js?ver=0104" async="true"></script><script defer data-domain="newadvent.org" src="https://plausible.io/js/script.js"></script><link rel="canonical" href="https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01215c.htm"> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> <meta name="description" content="A philosophical theory of the limitations of knowledge, professing doubt of or disbelief in some or all of the powers of knowing possessed by the human mind"> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS" href="http://feeds.newadvent.org/bestoftheweb?format=xml"><link rel="icon" href="../images/icon1.ico" type="image/x-icon"><link rel="shortcut icon" href="../images/icon1.ico" type="image/x-icon"><meta name="robots" content="noodp"><link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="../utility/screen6.css" media="screen"></head> <body class="cathen" id="01215c.htm">  <br/> <div id="capitalcity"><table summary="Logo" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 width="100%"><tr valign="bottom"><td align="left"><a href="../"><img height=36 width=153 border="0" alt="New Advent" src="../images/logo.gif"></a></td><td align="right"> <form id="searchbox_000299817191393086628:ifmbhlr-8x0" action="../utility/search.htm">  <input type="hidden" name="safe" value="active"> <input type="hidden" name="cx" value="000299817191393086628:ifmbhlr-8x0"/> <input type="hidden" name="cof" value="FORID:9"/>  <label for="searchQuery" id="searchQueryLabel">Search:</label> <input id="searchQuery" name="q" type="text" size="25" aria-labelledby="searchQueryLabel"/>  <label for="submitButton" id="submitButtonLabel" class="visually-hidden">Submit Search</label> <input id="submitButton" type="submit" name="sa" value="Search" aria-labelledby="submitButtonLabel"/> </form> <table summary="Spacer" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0><tr><td height="2"></td></tr></table> <table summary="Tabs" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0><tr> <td bgcolor="#ffffff"></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../"> Home </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_white_on_color" href="../cathen/index.html"> Encyclopedia </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../summa/index.html"> Summa </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../fathers/index.html"> Fathers </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../bible/gen001.htm"> Bible </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../library/index.html"> Library </a></td> </tr></table> </td> </tr></table><table summary="Alphabetical index" width="100%" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0><tr><td class="bar_white_on_color"> <a href="../cathen/a.htm"> A </a><a href="../cathen/b.htm"> B </a><a href="../cathen/c.htm"> C </a><a href="../cathen/d.htm"> D </a><a href="../cathen/e.htm"> E </a><a href="../cathen/f.htm"> F </a><a href="../cathen/g.htm"> G </a><a href="../cathen/h.htm"> H </a><a href="../cathen/i.htm"> I </a><a href="../cathen/j.htm"> J </a><a href="../cathen/k.htm"> K </a><a href="../cathen/l.htm"> L </a><a href="../cathen/m.htm"> M </a><a href="../cathen/n.htm"> N </a><a href="../cathen/o.htm"> O </a><a href="../cathen/p.htm"> P </a><a href="../cathen/q.htm"> Q </a><a href="../cathen/r.htm"> R </a><a href="../cathen/s.htm"> S </a><a href="../cathen/t.htm"> T </a><a href="../cathen/u.htm"> U </a><a href="../cathen/v.htm"> V </a><a href="../cathen/w.htm"> W </a><a href="../cathen/x.htm"> X </a><a href="../cathen/y.htm"> Y </a><a href="../cathen/z.htm"> Z </a> </td></tr></table></div> <div id="mobilecity" style="text-align: center; "><a href="../"><img height=24 width=102 border="0" alt="New Advent" src="../images/logo.gif"></a></div>  <div id="mi5"><span class="breadcrumbs"><a href="../">Home</a> > <a href="../cathen">Catholic Encyclopedia</a> > <a href="../cathen/a.htm">A</a> > Agnosticism</span></div> <div id="springfield2"> <div class='catholicadnet-728x90' id='cathen-728x90-top' style='display: flex; height: 100px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; '></div> <h1>Agnosticism</h1> <p><em><a href="https://gumroad.com/l/na2"><strong>Please help support the mission of New Advent</strong> and get the full contents of this website as an instant download. Includes the Catholic Encyclopedia, Church Fathers, Summa, Bible and more  all for only $19.99...</a></em></p> <p>A philosophical theory of the limitations of <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a>, professing doubt of or disbelief in some or all of the powers of knowing possessed by the <a href="../cathen/09580c.htm">human</a> mind.</p> <h2 id="section1">Exposition</h2> <p>(1) The word <em>Agnostic</em> (Greek <em>a,</em> privative + <em>gnostikós</em> "knowing") was coined by Professor Huxley in 1869 to describe the <a href="../cathen/10321a.htm">mental</a> attitude of one who regarded as futile all attempts to <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">know</a> the reality corresponding to our ultimate scientific, philosophic, and religious <a href="../cathen/07630a.htm">ideas</a>. As first employed by Huxley, the new term suggested the contrast between his own unpretentious <a href="../cathen/07648a.htm">ignorance</a> and the vain <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> which the <a href="../cathen/06592a.htm">Gnostics</a> of the second and third century claimed to possess. This antithesis served to discredit the conclusions of natural <a href="../cathen/14580a.htm">theology</a>, or theistic reasoning, by classing them with the idle vapourings of <a href="../cathen/06592a.htm">Gnosticism</a>. The classification was unfair, the attempted antithesis overdrawn. It is rather the <a href="../cathen/06592a.htm">Gnostic</a> and the Agnostic who are the real extremists; the former extending the bounds of <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a>, and the latter narrowing them, unduly. Natural <a href="../cathen/14580a.htm">theology</a>, or theism, occupies the middle ground between these extremes, and should have been disassociated both from the <a href="../cathen/06592a.htm">Gnostic</a> position, that the mind can <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">know</a> everything, and from the Agnostic position, that it can <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">know</a> nothing concerning the <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">truths</a> of religion. (See <a href="../cathen/06592a.htm">GNOSTICISM</a>.)</p> <div class="CMtag_300x250" style="display: flex; height: 300px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; "></div> <p>(2) Agnosticism, as a general term in <a href="../cathen/12025c.htm">philosophy</a>, is frequently employed to express any conscious attitude of <a href="../cathen/05141a.htm">doubt</a>, denial, or disbelief, towards some, or even all, of man's powers of knowing or objects of <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a>. The meaning of the term may accordingly vary, like that of the other word "Scepticism", which it has largely replaced, from partial to complete Agnosticism; it may be our <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> of the world, of the self, or of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>, that is questioned; or it may be the knowableness of all three, and the validity of any <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a>, whether of sense or <a href="../cathen/08066a.htm">intellect</a>, <a href="../cathen/13598b.htm">science</a> or philosophy, history, ethics, religion. The variable element in the term is the group of objects, or propositions, to which it refers; the invariable element, the attitude of learned <a href="../cathen/07648a.htm">ignorance</a> it always implies towards the possibility of acquiring <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a>.</p> <p>(3) Agnosticism, as a term of modern philosophy, is used to describe those theories of the limitations of <a href="../cathen/09580c.htm">human</a> <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> which deny the constitutional ability of the mind to <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">know</a> reality and conclude with the recognition of an intrinsically Unknowable. The existence of "absolute reality" is usually affirmed while, at the same time, its knowableness is denied. <a href="../cathen/08603a.htm">Kant</a>, <a href="../cathen/07123a.htm">Hamilton</a>, Mansel, and Spencer make this affirmation an integral part of their philosophic systems. The Phenomenalists, however, deny the assertion outright, while the Positivists, Comte and Mill, suspend judgment concerning the existence of "something beyond phenomena". (See <a href="../cathen/12312c.htm">POSITIVISM</a>.)</p> <p>(4) Modern Agnosticism differs from its ancient prototype. Its genesis is not due to a reactionary spirit of protest, and a collection of sceptical arguments, against "dogmatic systems" of <a href="../cathen/12025c.htm">philosophy</a> in vogue, so much as to an adverse criticism of man's <a href="../cathen/08066a.htm">knowing-powers</a> in answer to the fundamental question: What can we <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">know</a>? <a href="../cathen/08603a.htm">Kant</a>, who was the first to raise this question, in his memorable reply to <a href="../cathen/05407a.htm#hume">Hume</a>, answered it by a distinction between "knowable phenomena" and "unknowable things-in-themselves". Hamilton soon followed with his <a href="../cathen/05075b.htm">doctrine</a> that "we <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">know</a> only the relations of things". Modern Agnosticism is thus closely associated with <a href="../cathen/08603a.htm">Kant's</a> distinction and Hamilton's principle of relativity. It asserts our inability to <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">know</a> the reality corresponding to our ultimate scientific, philosophic, or religious <a href="../cathen/07630a.htm">ideas</a>.</p> <p>(5) Agnosticism, with special reference to <a href="../cathen/14580a.htm">theology</a>, is a name for any theory which denies that it is possible for man to acquire <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>. It may assume either a religious or an anti-religious form, according as it is confined to a criticism of rational <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> or extended to a criticism of <a href="../cathen/02408b.htm">belief</a>. De Bonald (1754-1840), in his theory that language is of divine origin, containing, preserving, and transmitting the primitive revelation of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> to man; De Lammenais (1782-1854), in his theory that individual reason is powerless, and social reason alone competent; Bonetty (1798-1879), in his advocacy of <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a> in <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>, the Scriptures, and the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>, afford instances of <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> <a href="../cathen/14580a.htm">theologians</a> attempting to combine <a href="../cathen/02408b.htm">belief</a> in moral and religious <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">truths</a> with the denial that valid <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> of the same is attainable by reason apart from revelation and tradition. To these systems of <a href="../cathen/06068b.htm">Fideism</a> and <a href="../cathen/15013a.htm">Traditionalism</a> should be added the theory of Mansel (1820-71), which Spencer regarded as a confession of Agnosticism, that the very inability of reason to <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">know</a> the being and attributes of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> proves that revelation is <a href="../cathen/10733a.htm">necessary</a> to supplement the <a href="../cathen/10321a.htm">mind's</a> shortcomings. This attitude of criticising <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a>, but not <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a>, was also a feature of Sir William Hamilton's philosophy. (See <a href="../cathen/06068b.htm">FIDEISM</a> and <a href="../cathen/15013a.htm">TRADITIONALISM</a>.)</p> <div class="CMtag_300x250" style="display: flex; height: 300px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; "></div> <p>(6) The extreme view that <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> is impossible, even with the aid of revelation, is the latest form of religious Agnosticism. The new theory regards religion and <a href="../cathen/13598b.htm">science</a> as two distinct and separate accounts of experience, and seeks to combine an agnostic <a href="../cathen/08066a.htm">intellect</a> with a <a href="../cathen/02408b.htm">believing</a> heart. It has been aptly called "mental book-keeping by double entry". <a href="../cathen/13086a.htm">Ritschl</a>, reviving <a href="../cathen/08603a.htm">Kant's</a> separatist distinction of theoretical from practical reason, proclaims that the <a href="../cathen/07630a.htm">idea</a> of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> contains not so much as a grain of reasoned <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a>; it is merely "an attractive ideal", having moral and religious, but no objective, scientific, value for the believer who accepts it. Harnack locates the essence of <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christianity</a> in a filial relation felt towards an unknowable <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God the Father</a>. Sabatier considers the words <em>God, Father,</em> as symbols which register the feelings of the human heart towards the Great Unknowable of the <a href="../cathen/08066a.htm">intellect</a>.</p> <p>(7) Recent Agnosticism is also to a great extent anti-religious, criticizing adversely not only the <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> we have of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>, but the grounds of <a href="../cathen/02408b.htm">belief</a> in Him as well. A combination of Agnosticism with <a href="../cathen/02040a.htm">Atheism</a>, rather than with sentimental irrational <a href="../cathen/02408b.htm">belief</a>, is the course adopted by many. The <a href="../cathen/07630a.htm">idea</a> of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> is eliminated both from the systematic and personal view which is taken of the world and of life. The attitude of "solemnly suspended judgment" shades off first into indifference towards religion, as an inscrutable affair at best, and next into disbelief. The Agnostic does not always merely abstain from either affirming or denying the <a href="../cathen/06608b.htm">existence of God</a>, but crosses over to the old position of theoretic <a href="../cathen/02040a.htm">Atheism</a> and, on the plea of insufficient evidence, ceases even to believe that <a href="../cathen/06608b.htm">God exists</a>. While, therefore, not to be identified with <a href="../cathen/02040a.htm">Atheism</a>, Agnosticism is often found in combination with it. (See <a href="../cathen/02040a.htm">ATHEISM</a>.)</p> <h2 id="section2">Total agnosticism self-refuting</h2> <p>Total or complete Agnosticism--see (2)--is self-refuting. The fact of its ever having existed, even in the formula of Arcesilaos, "I <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">know</a> nothing, not even that I <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">know</a> nothing", is questioned. It is impossible to construct theoretically a self-consistent scheme of total nescience, <a href="../cathen/05141a.htm">doubt</a>, unbelief. The mind which undertook to prove its own utter incompetence would have to assume, while so doing, that it was competent to perform the allotted task. Besides, it would be Impossible to apply such a theory practically; and a theory wholly subversive of reason, contradictory to <a href="../cathen/04268a.htm">conscience</a>, and inapplicable to conduct is a philosophy of unreason out of place in a world of law. It is the systems of partial Agnosticism, therefore, which merit examination. These do not aim at constructing a complete philosophy of the Unknowable, but at excluding special kinds of <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">truth</a>, notably religious, from the domain of <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> They are buildings designedly left unfinished.</p> <h2 id="section3">Kant's distinction between appearance and reality examined</h2> <p><a href="../cathen/08603a.htm">Kant's</a> <a href="../cathen/07630a.htm">idea</a> of "a world of things apart from the world we <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">know</a>" furnished the starting-point of the modern movement towards constructing a philosophy of the Unknowable. With the laudable intention of silencing the sceptic Hume, he showed that the latter's analysis of human experience into particular sense-impressions was faulty and incomplete, inasmuch as it failed to recognize the universal and <a href="../cathen/10733a.htm">necessary</a> elements present in human thought. <a href="../cathen/08603a.htm">Kant</a> accordingly proceeded to construct a theory of <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> which should emphasize the features of human thought neglected by Hume. He assumed that universality, necessity, <a href="../cathen/03459a.htm">causality</a>, space, and time were merely the <a href="../cathen/10321a.htm">mind's</a> constitutional way of looking at things, and in no sense derived from experience. The result was that he had to admit the <a href="../cathen/10321a.htm">mind's</a> incapacity for knowing the reality of the world, the <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a>, or <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>, and was forced to take refuge against Hume's scepticism in the <a href="../cathen/03432a.htm">categorical imperative</a> "Thou shalt" of the "moral reason". He had made "pure reason" powerless by his transfer of <a href="../cathen/03459a.htm">causality</a> and necessity from the objects of thought to the thinking subject.</p> <p>To discredit this <a href="../cathen/07630a.htm">idea</a> of a "reality" inaccessibly hidden behind "appearances", it is sufficient to point out the gratuitous assumptions on which it is based. <a href="../cathen/08603a.htm">Kant's</a> radical mistake was, to prejudge, instead of investigating, the conditions under which the acquisition of <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> becomes possible. No <a href="../cathen/12454c.htm">proof</a> was offered of the arbitrary assumption that the <a href="../cathen/03433a.htm">categories</a> are wholly subjective; <a href="../cathen/12454c.htm">proof</a> is not even possible. "The fact that a <a href="../cathen/03433a.htm">category</a> lives subjectively in the act of knowing is no <a href="../cathen/12454c.htm">proof</a> that the <a href="../cathen/03433a.htm">category</a> does not at the same time truly express the nature of the reality known", [Seth, "Two Lectures on Theism" (New York, 1897) p. 19.] The harmony of the <a href="../cathen/10321a.htm">mind's</a> function with the objects it perceives and the relations it discovers shows that the ability of the mind to reach reality is involved in our very acts of perception. Yet <a href="../cathen/08603a.htm">Kant</a>, substituting theory for fact, would disqualify the mind for its task of knowing the actual world we live in, and invent a hinterland of things-in-themselves never known as they are, but only as they appear to be. This use of a purely speculative principle to criticize the actual contents of human experience, is unjustifiable. Knowledge is a living process to be concretely investigated, not a mechanical affair for abstract reason to play with by introducing artificial severances of thought from object, and of reality from appearance. Once <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> is regarded as a synthetic act of a self-active subject, the gap artificially created between subject and object, reality and appearance, closes of itself. (See <a href="../cathen/08603a.htm">KANT, PHILOSOPHY OF</a>.)</p> <h2 id="section4">Hamilton's doctrine of relativity examined</h2> <p>Sir William Hamilton contributed the <a href="../cathen/12025c.htm">philosophical</a> principle on which modern Agnosticism rests, in his <a href="../cathen/05075b.htm">doctrine</a> that "all <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> is relative". To <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">know</a> is to condition; to <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">know</a> the Unconditioned (Absolute, or Infinite) is therefore, impossible, our best efforts resulting in "mere negations of thought". This <a href="../cathen/05075b.htm">doctrine</a> of relativity contains two serious equivocations which, when pointed out, reveal the basic difference between the <a href="../cathen/12025c.htm">philosophies</a> of Agnosticism and of Theism. The first is in the word "relativity". The statement that <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> is "relative" may mean simply that to <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">know</a> anything, whether the world or <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>, we must <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">know</a> it as manifesting itself to us under the <a href="../cathen/09053a.htm">laws</a> and relations of our own consciousness; apart from which relations of self-manifestation it would be for us an isolated, unknowable blank. Thus understood, the <a href="../cathen/05075b.htm">doctrine</a> of relativity states the actual human method of knowing the world, the <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a>, the self, <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>, grace and the <a href="../cathen/14336b.htm">supernatural</a>. Who would hold that we <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">know</a> <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>, naturally, in any other way than through the manifestations He makes of Himself in mind and nature?</p> <p>But Hamilton understood the principle of relativity to mean that "we <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">know</a> only the relations of things"; only the Relative, never the <a href="../cathen/01060c.htm">Absolute</a>. A negative conclusion, fixing a limit to what we can <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">know</a>, was thus drawn from a principle which of itself merely affirms the method, but settles nothing as to the limits, of our <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a>. This arbitrary interpretation of a method as a limitation is the centre of the Agnostic position against Theism. An ideally perfect possible <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> is contrasted with the unperfect yet none the less <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">true</a>, <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> which we actually possess. By thus assuming "ideal comprehension" as a standard by which to criticize "real apprehension", the Agnostic invalidates, apparently, the little that we do <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">know</a>, as at present constituted, by the more we might <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">know</a> if our <a href="../cathen/10321a.htm">mental</a> constitution were other than it is. The Theist, however, recognizing that the limits of <a href="../cathen/09580c.htm">human</a> <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> are to be determined by fact, not by speculation, refuses to prejudge the issue, and proceeds to investigate what we can legitimately <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">know</a> of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> through His effects or manifestations.</p> <div class="CMtag_300x250" style="display: flex; height: 300px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; "></div> <p>The second serious equivocation is in the terms "Absolute", "Infinite", "Unconditioned". The Agnostic has in mind, when he uses these terms, that vague general <a href="../cathen/07630a.htm">idea</a> of being which our mind reaches by emptying concrete reality of all its particular contents. The result of this emptying process is the Indefinite of abstract, as compared with the Definite of concrete, thought. It is this Indefinite which the Agnostic exhibits as the utterly Unrelated, Unconditioned. But this is not the <a href="../cathen/01060c.htm">Absolute</a> in question. Our inability to <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">know</a> such an Absolute, being simply our inability to define the indefinite, to condition the unconditioned, is an irrelevant truism. The absolute in question with Theists is the real, not the <a href="../cathen/09324a.htm">logical</a>; the Infinite in question is the actual Infinite of realized perfection, not the Indefinite of thought. The All-perfect is the <a href="../cathen/07630a.htm">idea</a> of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>, not the All-imperfect, two polar opposites frequently mistaken for each other by <a href="../cathen/11447b.htm">Pantheists</a> and <a href="../cathen/10041b.htm">Materialists</a> from the days of the Ionians to our own. The Agnostic, therefore, displaces the whole Theistic problem when he substitutes a <a href="../cathen/09324a.htm">logical</a> Absolute, defined as "that which excludes all relations outer and inner", for the real. Examination of our experience shows that the only relation which the <a href="../cathen/01060c.htm">Absolute</a> essentially excludes is the relation of real dependence upon anything else. We have no right in reason to define it as the non-related. In fact, it manifests itself as the causal, sustaining ground of all relations. Whether our <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> of this real Absolute, or <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>, deserves to be characterized as wholly negative, is consequently a distinct problem (see VI).</p> <h2 id="section5">Spencer's doctrine of the unknowable examined</h2> <p>According to Herbert Spencer, the <a href="../cathen/05075b.htm">doctrine</a> that all <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> is relative cannot be intelligibly stated Without postulating the existence of the <a href="../cathen/01060c.htm">Absolute</a>. The momentum of thought inevitably carries us beyond conditioned existence (definite consciousness) to unconditioned existence (indefinite consciousness). The existence of Absolute Reality must therefore be affirmed. Spencer thus made a distinct advance upon the philosophy of Comte and Mill, which maintained a non-committal attitude on the question of any absolute existence. Hamilton and Mansel admitted the existence of the Infinite on <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a>, denying only man's ability to form a positive conception of it. Mansel's test for a valid conception of anything is an exhaustive grasp of its positive contents--a test so ideal as to invalidate <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> of the finite and <a href="../cathen/08004a.htm">infinite</a> alike. Spencer's test is "inability to conceive the opposite". But since he understood "to conceive" as meaning "to construct a mental image", the consequence was that the highest conceptions of <a href="../cathen/13598b.htm">science</a> and religion--matter, space, time, the Infinite--failed to correspond to his assumed standard, and were declared to be "mere symbols of the real, not actual cognitions of it at all". He was thus led to seek the basis and reconciliation of <a href="../cathen/13598b.htm">science</a>, <a href="../cathen/12025c.htm">philosophy</a>, and religion in the common recognition of Unknowable Reality as the object of man's constant pursuit and worship. The non-existence of the <a href="../cathen/01060c.htm">Absolute</a> is unthinkable; all efforts to <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">know</a> positively what the <a href="../cathen/01060c.htm">Absolute</a> is result in contradictions.</p> <p>Spencer's adverse criticism of all <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> and <a href="../cathen/02408b.htm">belief</a>, as affording no insight into the ultimate nature of reality, rests on glaring assumptions. The assumption that every <a href="../cathen/07630a.htm">idea</a> is "symbolic" which cannot be vividly realized in thought is arbitrary as to be decisive against his entire system; it is a pre-judgment, not a valid canon of <a href="../cathen/07779a.htm">inductive</a> criticism, which he constantly employs. From the fact that we can form no conception of <a href="../cathen/08004a.htm">infinity</a>, as we picture an object or recall a scene, it does not follow that we have no apprehension of the Infinite. We constantly apprehend things of which we can distinctly frame no <a href="../cathen/10321a.htm">mental</a> image. Spencer merely contrasts our picturesque with our unpicturable forms of thought, using the former to criticize the latter adversely. The contradictions which he discovers are all reducible to this contrast of definite with indefinite thoughts and disappear when we have in mind a real Infinite of perfection, not a <a href="../cathen/09324a.htm">logical</a> Absolute. Spencer's attempt to stop finally at the mere affirmation that the <a href="../cathen/01060c.htm">Absolute</a> exists he himself proved to be impossible. He frequently describes the Unknowable as the "Power manifesting itself in phenomena". This physical description is a surrender of his own position and a virtual acceptance of the principle of Theism, that the <a href="../cathen/01060c.htm">Absolute</a> is known through, not apart from, its manifestations. If the <a href="../cathen/01060c.htm">Absolute</a> can be known as physical power, surely it can be known as Intelligent Personal Power, by taking not the lowest, but the highest, manifestations of power known to us as the basis for a less inadequate conception. Blank existence is no final stopping-place for human thought. The only rational course is to conceive <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> under the highest manifestations of Himself and to remember while so doing that we are describing, not defining, His abysmal nature. It is not a question of degrading <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> to our level, but of not conceiving Him below that level as unconscious energy. Spencer's further attempt to empty religion and <a href="../cathen/13598b.htm">science</a> of their respective rational contents, so as to leave only a blank abstraction or symbol for the final object of both, is a gross confusion, again, of the indefinite of thought with the <a href="../cathen/08004a.htm">infinite</a> of reality. A religion wholly cut off from <a href="../cathen/02408b.htm">belief</a>, worship, and conduct never existed. Religion must <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">know</a> its object to some extent or be mere irrational emotion. All religion recognizes mystery; <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">truth</a> and reality imperfectly known, not wholly unknowable. The distinction of "knowable phenomena from unknowable reality behind phenomena" breaks down at every turn; and Spencer well illustrates how easy it is to mistake simplified thoughts for the original simplicities of things. His category of the Unknowable is a convenient receptacle for anything one may choose to put into it, because no rational statement concerning its contents is possible. In fact, Spencer calmly affirms the identity of the two "unknowables" of Religion and Science, without appearing to realize that neither in reason nor according to his own principles is there any foundation for this most dogmatic of statements.</p> <h2 id="section6">The power to know</h2> <p>The primary fact disclosed in our sense-knowledge is that an external object exists, not that a sensation has been experienced. What we directly perceive is the presence of the object, not the <a href="../cathen/10321a.htm">mental</a> process. This vital union of subject and object in the very act of <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> implies that things and minds are harmoniously related to each other in a system of reality. The real is involved in our acts of perception, and any theory which neglects to take this basic fact into account disregards the data of direct experience. Throughout the whole process of our knowing, the mind has reality, fundamentally at least, for its object. The second fact of our <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> is that things are known according to the nature of the knower. We can <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">know</a> the real object, but the extent of this <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> will depend on the number and degree of manifestations, as on the actual conditions of our <a href="../cathen/10321a.htm">mental</a> and bodily powers. Whatever be the results reached by <a href="../cathen/12545b.htm">psychologists</a> or by physicists in their study of the genesis of <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> or the nature of reality, there can be no <a href="../cathen/05141a.htm">doubt</a> of the testimony of consciousness to the existence of a reality "not ourselves". Knowledge is, therefore, proportioned to the manifestations of the object and to the nature and conditions of the knowing subject. Our power to <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">know</a> <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> is no exception to this general law, the non-observance of which is the weakness of Agnosticism, as the observance of it is the strength of Theism. The pivotal assumption in agnostic systems generally is that we can <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">know</a> the existence of a thing and still remain in complete <a href="../cathen/07648a.htm">ignorance</a> of its <a href="../cathen/10715a.htm">nature</a>. The process of our knowing is contrasted with the object supposedly known. The result of this contrast is to make <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> appear not as reporting, but as transforming, reality; and to make the object appear as qualitatively different from the <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> we have of it, not, therefore, intrinsically unknowable. This assumption begs the whole question. No valid reason exists for regarding the physical stimulus of sensation as "reality pure and simple", or as the ultimate object of <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a>. To conceive of <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> as altering its object is to make it meaningless, and to contradict the testimony of consciousness. We cannot, therefore, <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">know</a> the existence of a thing and remain in complete <a href="../cathen/07648a.htm">ignorance</a> of its <a href="../cathen/10715a.htm">nature</a>.</p> <p>The problem of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God's</a> knowableness raises four more or less distinct questions: existence, nature, possibility of <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a>, possibility of definition. In treating these, the Agnostic separates the first two, which he should combine, and combines the last two, which he should separate. The first two questions, while distinct, are inseparable in treatment, because we have no direct insight into the nature of anything and must be content to study the nature of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> through the indirect manifestations He makes of Himself its creatures. The Agnostic, by treating the question of <a href="../cathen/06612a.htm">God's nature</a> apart from the question of <a href="../cathen/06608b.htm">God's existence</a>, cuts himself off from the only possible natural means of knowing, and then turns about to convert his fault of method into a philosophy of the Unknowable. It is only by studying the <a href="../cathen/01060c.htm">Absolute</a> and the manifestations together that we can round out and fill in the concept of the former by means of the latter. The <a href="../cathen/07630a.htm">idea</a> of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> cannot be analyzed wholly apart from the evidences, or "proofs". Deduction needs the companion process of induction to succeed in this instance. Spencer overlooked this fact, which <a href="../cathen/14663b.htm">St. Thomas</a> admirably observed in his classic treatment of the problem.</p> <p>The question of knowing <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> is not the same as the question of defining Him. The two do not stand or fail together. By identifying the two, the Agnostic confounds "inability to define" with "total inability to <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">know</a>", which are distinct problems to be treated separately, since <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> may fall short of definition and be <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> still. Spencer furnishes the typical instance. He admits that inquiry into the nature of things leads inevitably to the concept of Absolute Existence, and here his confusion of knowing with defining compels him to stop. He cannot discover in the isolated concept of the <a href="../cathen/01060c.htm">Absolute</a> the three conditions of relation, likeness, and difference, <a href="../cathen/10733a.htm">necessary</a> for defining it. He rightly claims that no direct resemblance, no agreement in the possession of the same identical qualities, is possible between the <a href="../cathen/01060c.htm">Absolute</a> and the world of created things. The <a href="../cathen/01060c.htm">Absolute</a> cannot be defined or classified, in the sense of being brought into relations of specific or generic agreement with any objects we <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">know</a> or any concepts we frame. This was no discovery of Spencer's. The Eastern <a href="../cathen/06001a.htm">Fathers of the Church</a>, in their so-called "negative theology", refuted the pretentious <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> of the <a href="../cathen/06592a.htm">Gnostics</a> on this very principle, that the <a href="../cathen/01060c.htm">Absolute</a> transcends all our schemes of classification. But Spencer was wrong in neglecting to take into account the considerable amount of positive, though not strictly definable, <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> contained in the affirmations which he makes in common with the Theist, <em>that <a href="../cathen/06608b.htm">God exists</a>.</em> The <a href="../cathen/01060c.htm">Absolute</a>, studied in the light of its manifestations, not in the darkness of isolations, discloses itself to our experience as Originating Source. Between the Manifestations and the Source there exists, therefore, <em>some</em> relationship. It is not a direct resemblance, in the very nature of the case. But there is another kind of resemblance which is wholly indirect, the resemblance of two proportions, or Analogy. The relation of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> to His absolute nature must be, proportionally at least, the same as that of creatures to theirs. However <a href="../cathen/08004a.htm">infinite</a> the distance and difference between the two, this relation of proportional similarity exists between them, and is sufficient to make some <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> of the former possible through the latter, because both are proportionally alike, while <a href="../cathen/08004a.htm">infinitely</a> diverse in being and attributes. The Originating Source must precontain, in an <a href="../cathen/08004a.htm">infinitely</a> surpassing way, the perfections dimly reflected in the mirror of Nature. Of this, the principle of <a href="../cathen/03459a.htm">causality</a>, objectively understood, is ample warrant. Spencer's three conditions for <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a>--namely: relation, likeness, and difference--are thus verified in another way, with proportional <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">truth</a> for their basis. The conclusions of natural <a href="../cathen/14580a.htm">theology</a> cannot, therefore, be excluded from the domain of the knowable, but only from that of the definable. (See <a href="../cathen/01449a.htm">ANALOGY</a>.)</p> <p>The process of knowing <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> thus becomes a process of correcting our human concepts. The correction consists in raising to <a href="../cathen/08004a.htm">infinite</a>, unlimited significance the objective perfections discernible in men and things. This is accomplished in turn by denying the limiting modes and imperfect features distinctive of created reality, in order to replace these by the thought of the All-perfect, in the plenitude of whose Being one undivided reality corresponds to our numerous, distinct, partial concepts. In the light of this applied corrective we are enabled to attribute to <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> the perfections manifested in intelligence, will, power, <a href="../cathen/11727b.htm">personality</a>, without making the objective content of our <a href="../cathen/07630a.htm">idea</a> of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> merely the human magnified, or a bundle of negations. The extreme of <a href="../cathen/01558c.htm">Anthropomorphism</a>, or of defining <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> in terms of man magnified, is thus avoided, and the opposite extreme of Agnosticism discounted. Necessity compels us to think <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> under the relative, dependent features of our experience. But no necessity of thought compels us to make the accidental features of our <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> the very essence of His being. The function of denial, which the Agnostic overlooks, is a corrective, not purely negative, function; and our <a href="../cathen/07630a.htm">idea</a> of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>, inadequate and solely proportional as it is, is nevertheless positive, <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">true</a>, and valid according to the <a href="../cathen/09053a.htm">laws</a> which govern all our knowing.</p> <h2 id="section7">The will to believe</h2> <p>The <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> conception of <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a> is a firm assent, on account of the authority of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> to <a href="../cathen/13001a.htm">revealed</a> <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">truths</a>. It presupposes the <a href="../cathen/12025c.htm">philosophical</a> <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">truth</a> that a personal <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> exists who can neither deceive nor be deceived, and the historical <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">truth</a> of the fact of revelation. The two sources of <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a>--reason and revelation--complete each other. <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">Faith</a> begins where <a href="../cathen/13598b.htm">science</a> ends. Revelation adds a new world of <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">truth</a> to the sum of <a href="../cathen/09580c.htm">human</a> <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a>. This new world of <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">truth</a> is a world of mystery, but not of contradiction. The fact that none of the <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">truths</a> which we believe on <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God's</a> authority contradicts the <a href="../cathen/09053a.htm">laws</a> of human thought or the certainties of natural <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> shows that the world of <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a> is a world of higher reason. <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">Faith</a> is consequently an <a href="../cathen/08066a.htm">intellectual</a> assent; a kind of superadded <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> distinct from, yet continuous with, the <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> derived from experience.</p> <p>In contrast with this conception of <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a> and reason as distinct is the widespread view which urges their absolute separation. The word <em>knowledge</em> is restricted to the results of the exact <a href="../cathen/13598b.htm">sciences</a>; the word <em><a href="../cathen/02408b.htm">belief</a></em> is extended to all that cannot be thus exactly ascertained. The passive attitude of the man of <a href="../cathen/13598b.htm">science</a>, who suspends judgment until the evidence forces his assent, is assumed towards religious <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">truth</a>. The result is that the "will to believe" takes on enormous significance in contrast with the "power to know", and <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a> sinks to the level of blind <a href="../cathen/02408b.htm">belief</a> cut off from all continuity with <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a>.</p> <p>It is <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">true</a> that the will, the <a href="../cathen/04268a.htm">conscience</a>, the heart, and divine grace co-operate in the production of the act of <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a>, but it is no less <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">true</a> that reason plays an essential part. <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">Faith</a> is an act of <a href="../cathen/08066a.htm">intellect</a> and will; when duly analyzed, it discloses <a href="../cathen/08066a.htm">intellectual</a>, moral, and sentimental elements. We are living beings, not pure reasoning machines, and our whole nature cooperates vitally in the acceptance of the divine word. "Man is a being who thinks all his experience and perforce must think his religious experience."--Sterrett, "The Freedom of Authority" (New York, 1905) p. 56.--Where reason does not enter at all, we have but caprice or enthusiasm. <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">Faith</a> is not a persuasion to be duly explained by reference to subconscious will-attitudes alone, nor is distrust of reason one of its marks.</p> <div class="CMtag_300x250" style="display: flex; height: 300px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; "></div> <p>It is also <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">true</a> that the attitude of the believer, as compared with that of the scientific observer, is strongly personal, and interested in the object of <a href="../cathen/02408b.htm">belief</a>. But this contrast of personal with impersonal attitudes affords no justification for regarding <a href="../cathen/02408b.htm">belief</a> as wholly blind. It is unfair to generalize these two attitudes into mutually exclusive <a href="../cathen/12025c.htm">philosophies</a>. The moral ideal of <a href="../cathen/04268a.htm">conscience</a> is different from the cold, impartial ideal of physical <a href="../cathen/13598b.htm">science</a>. Truths which nourish the moral life of the <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a>, and shape conduct, cannot wait for acceptance, like purely scientific <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">truths</a>, until theoretical reason studies the problem thoroughly. They present distinct motives for the <a href="../cathen/04268a.htm">conscience</a> to appreciate actively, not for the speculative reason to contemplate passively. Conscience appreciates the moral value of testimonies, commands their acceptance, and bids the <a href="../cathen/08066a.htm">intellect</a> to "ponder them with assent".</p> <p>It is wrong, therefore, to liken the function of <a href="../cathen/04268a.htm">conscience</a> to that of speculative reason, to apply to the solution of moral and religious questions the methods of the exact <a href="../cathen/13598b.htm">sciences</a>, to give to the latter the monopoly of all certitude, and to declare the region beyond scientific <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> a region of nescience and blind <a href="../cathen/02408b.htm">belief</a>. On the assumption that the <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> and the definable are synonymous terms, the "first principles of thought" are transferred from the category of <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> to that of <a href="../cathen/02408b.htm">belief</a>, but the transfer is arbitrary. It is too much to suppose that we <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">know</a> only what we can explain. The mistake is in making a general philosophy out of a particular method of scientific explanation. This criticism applies to all systematic attempts to divide the mind into opposite hemispheres of <a href="../cathen/08066a.htm">intellect</a> and will, to <a href="../cathen/05054c.htm">divorce</a> <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a> completely from <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a>. Consciousness is one and continuous. Our distinctions should never amount to separations, nor should the "pragmatic" method now in vogue be raised to the dignity of a universal philosophy. "The <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a> with its powers does not form an integral whole divided, or divisible, into non-communicating compartments of <a href="../cathen/08066a.htm">intellect</a> and will; it is a potential inter-penetrative whole". (Baillie, "Revue de Philos.", April, 1904, p. 468.) In the solidary interaction of all man's powers the contributions furnished by will and <a href="../cathen/04268a.htm">conscience</a> increase and vivify the meagre <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> We are able to acquire by reasoning.</p> <h2 id="section8">Agnosticism and the doctrine of the Church</h2> <p>The Agnostic denial of the ability of <a href="../cathen/09580c.htm">human</a> <a href="../cathen/12673b.htm">reason</a> to <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">know</a> <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> is directly opposed to <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">Faith</a>. The <a href="../cathen/15303a.htm">Council of the Vatican</a> solemnly declares that "<a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>, the beginning and end of all, can, by the natural light of <a href="../cathen/09580c.htm">human</a> <a href="../cathen/12673b.htm">reason</a>, be known with <a href="../cathen/03539b.htm">certainty</a> from the works of creation" (Const. De Fide, II, De Rev.) The intention of the Council was to reassert the historic claim of <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christianity</a> to be reasonable, and to condemn <a href="../cathen/15013a.htm">Traditionalism</a> together with all views which denied to reason the power to <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">know</a> <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> with <a href="../cathen/03539b.htm">certainty</a>. Religion would be deprived of all foundation in reason, the motives of credibility would become worthless, conduct would be severed from creed, and <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a> be blind, if the power of knowing <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> with rational <a href="../cathen/03539b.htm">certainty</a> were called in question. The declaration of the Council was based primarily on scripture, not on any of the historic systems of <a href="../cathen/12025c.htm">philosophy</a>. The Council simply defined the possibility of man's knowing <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> with <a href="../cathen/03539b.htm">certainty</a> by reason apart from revelation. The possibility of knowing <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> was not affirmed of any historical individual in particular; the statement was limited to the power of <a href="../cathen/09580c.htm">human</a> <a href="../cathen/12673b.htm">reason</a>, not extended to the exercise of that power in any given instance of time or <a href="../cathen/11726a.htm">person</a>. The definition thus took on the feature of the objective statement: Man can certainly <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">know</a> <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> by the "physical" power of reason when the latter is rightly developed, even though revelation be "morally" <a href="../cathen/10733a.htm">necessary</a> for <a href="../cathen/09580c.htm">mankind</a> in the bulk, when the difficulties of reaching a prompt, certain, and correct <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> are taken into account. What conditions were <a href="../cathen/10733a.htm">necessary</a> for this right development of reason, how much positive <a href="../cathen/05295b.htm">education</a> was required to equip the mind for this task of knowing <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> and some of His attributes with <a href="../cathen/03539b.htm">certainty</a>, the Council did not profess to determine. Neither did it undertake to decide whether the function of reason in this case is to derive the <a href="../cathen/07630a.htm">idea</a> of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> wholly from reflection on the data furnished by sense, or merely to bring out into explicit form, by means of such data, an <a href="../cathen/07630a.htm">idea</a> already instinctive and innate. The former view, that of <a href="../cathen/01713a.htm">Aristotle</a> had the preference; but the latter view, that of <a href="../cathen/12159a.htm">Plato</a>, was not condemned. <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God's</a> indirect manifestations of Himself in the mirror of nature, in the created world of things and <a href="../cathen/11726a.htm">persons</a>, were simply declared to be <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">true</a> sources of <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a> distinct from revelation.</p> <div class='catholicadnet-728x90' id='cathen-728x90-bottom' style='display: flex; height: 100px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; '></div> <div class="pub"><h2>About this page</h2><p id="apa"><strong>APA citation.</strong> <span id="apaauthor">Shanahan, E.</span> <span id="apayear">(1907).</span> <span id="apaarticle">Agnosticism.</span> In <span id="apawork">The Catholic Encyclopedia.</span> <span id="apapublisher">New York: Robert Appleton Company.</span> <span id="apaurl">http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01215c.htm</span></p><p id="mla"><strong>MLA citation.</strong> <span id="mlaauthor">Shanahan, Edmund.</span> <span id="mlaarticle">"Agnosticism."</span> <span id="mlawork">The Catholic Encyclopedia.</span> <span id="mlavolume">Vol. 1.</span> <span id="mlapublisher">New York: Robert Appleton Company,</span> <span id="mlayear">1907.</span> <span id="mlaurl"><http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01215c.htm>.</span></p><p id="transcription"><strong>Transcription.</strong> <span id="transcriber">This article was transcribed for New Advent by Rick McCarty.</span> <span id="dedication"></span></p><p id="approbation"><strong>Ecclesiastical approbation.</strong> <span id="nihil"><em>Nihil Obstat.</em> March 1, 1907. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor.</span> <span id="imprimatur"><em>Imprimatur.</em> +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York.</span></p><p id="contactus"><strong>Contact information.</strong> The editor of New Advent is Kevin Knight. My email address is webmaster <em>at</em> newadvent.org. Regrettably, I can't reply to every letter, but I greatly appreciate your feedback — especially notifications about typographical errors and inappropriate ads.</p></div> </div> <div id="ogdenville"><table summary="Bottom bar" width="100%" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0><tr><td class="bar_white_on_color"><center><strong>Copyright © 2023 by <a href="../utility/contactus.htm">New Advent LLC</a>. Dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.</strong></center></td></tr></table><p align="center"><a href="../utility/contactus.htm">CONTACT US</a> | <a href="https://cleanmedia.net/p/?psid=491-308-20180429T2217479770">ADVERTISE WITH NEW ADVENT</a></p></div> <ins class="CANBMDDisplayAD" data-bmd-ad-unit="30849120210203T1734389107AB67D35C03D4A318731A4F337F60B3E" style="display:block"></ins> <script src="https://secureaddisplay.com/au/bmd/"></script>  <ins class="CMAdExcludeArticles"></ins> </body> </html>