ATHEISM, AGNOSTICISM, AND SKEPTICISM by steve johnson
W
e all try to make sense of and explain the reality around us. Theists believe in God and attribute the world’s existence and working in some way to that God (or gods). Atheists, agnostics, and skeptics have a different explanation. Atheists believe there is positive evidence that there is no God, and that all existence can be explained naturally rather than supernaturally. Agnostics believe there is insufficient evidence to prove or disprove the existence or non-existence of God or gods. Some agnostics say “We do not know if God exists,” while other agnostics say, “We cannot know.” Skeptics are unsure whether we can or cannot know God. These ideas are as old as humankind. But in the last two centuries, philosophers have espoused these ideas prominently. In doing so, they influenced others who took these ideas and worked them out in political systems and ideologies. We see the consequences of this in our culture and society today.
The German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel said God needed His creation and was not sufficient in Himself, thus He was unnecessary and ultimately imaginary. This influenced the German philosopher Karl Marx, who preached that religion is the opiate of the people and the enemy of all progress so all religion must be destroyed. English naturalist Charles Darwin was an agnostic. Friedrich Nietzsche, another German philosopher, taught that since God does not exist, man must devise his own way of life. German philosopher Martin Heidegger stressed that one’s salvation lay in his own independence from others, including God. And French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre argued that there is no ultimate objective external meaning to life. Each person simply exists. The Humanist Manifesto (1933) and the Humanist Manifesto II (1974) are good examples of the atheistic perspective.1 The Bible teaches that God exists and that He can be known to exist by what He has made. Design requires a designer.
