agnosticism

noun

ag·​nos·​ti·​cism ag-ˈnä-stə-ˌsi-zəm 

əg-

: an agnostic quality, state, or attitude:

a

: the view that any ultimate reality (such as a deity) is unknown and probably unknowable : a philosophical or religious position characterized by uncertainty about the existence of a god or any gods

Religious agnosticism may accept the ethical value of a religious way of living and even endorse religious ideas as a viable basis for understanding various aspects of human existence.

—Gary Gutting

b

: an attitude of doubt or uncertainty about something

This purposeful agnosticism, which served the tobacco industry well, will sound eerily familiar to anyone following the global warming "debate"—another case in which a few pedigreed skeptics, whose views align with those of a powerful industry, are framing consensus as controversy.

—Jonathan Miles

The developers of quantum mechanics, attempting to describe the electron's charge or mass or momentum or energy or spin in almost every new equation, nevertheless maintained a silent agnosticism about certain issues of its existence.

—James Gleick

Examples of agnosticism in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

As if extolling radical agnosticism, the film concludes by discussing the role of women in the church and an intersex cardinal’s laparoscopic hysterectomy before finally tossing its bad faith to a hermaphrodite pope. —Armond White, National Review, 19 Feb. 2025

Indeed, this sort of agnosticism does give China an advantage. —Oriana Skylar Mastro, Foreign Affairs, 11 Dec. 2018

The difference is that in poker the agnosticism over individual decisions all serves a larger plan. —Jay Caspian Kang, The New Yorker, 11 Oct. 2024

Minervini’s agnosticism matches his plain, quasi-doc images — relentlessly dull except when an elderly bearded sergeant watches rebel soldiers on horseback fill the horizon line, riding toward him. —Armond White, National Review, 2 Oct. 2024

Word History

Etymology

agnostic entry 2 + -ism

First Known Use

1848, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for agnosticism

• activism
• ageism
• albinism
• altruism
• aneurism
• animism
• aphorism
• atomism
• barbarism
• bolshevism
• botulism
• brahmanism