We can never be certain as to God's existence

The argument

Many describe themselves as agnostics because they believe that certain knowledge is impossible in religious matters. Whatever evidence there might be for or against the existence of God, both God’s existence and God’s non-existence remain conceivable. If we form a belief on uncertain evidence then we might turn out to be wrong. It is therefore better for us to withhold our judgement, to remain agnostic. This argument is not especially persuasive. Though it is plausible to think that we cannot ever attain certainty as to whether or not God exists, this is true of all matters; nothing can be proved beyond all doubt. Descartes‘ argument from error establishes this: I have made errors of reasoning in the past, even concerning simple matters, and so can on no occasion be certain that I am not in error again. In spite of this unavoidable uncertainty, we nevertheless form beliefs. Why should we not do the same in matters of religion? A more subtle version of the argument from uncertainty has an answer to this question: because religion is so important. Religion matters, and that is why we ought to be particularly careful in forming our religious beliefs. The more important it is to be right about a matter, the more cautious we should be in forming our beliefs. If a matter is of great importance, as religion is, then our evidential standards concerning it should be set high, we should demand strong evidence before settling on what we believe. In fact, religion is of unquantifiable importance - ”there is nothing more important than being right about the question of God’s existence” - and we should therefore set our evidential standards infinitely high. If this is correct, then the standard of evidence required for justified religious belief is so high that it can never be satisfied; we can never have enough evidence to form beliefs about such questions as whether God exists. In this way, the importance of religion works to suggest that we can never have religious knowledge, that we ought to remain agnostic.

Context

David Hume, the Scottish philosopher, contended that meaningful statements about the universe are always qualified by some degree of doubt. He asserted that the fallibility of human beings means that they cannot obtain absolute certainty except in trivial cases where a statement is true by definition (e.g. tautologies such as "all bachelors are unmarried" or "all triangles have three corners"). We cannot, therefore, make definitive statements about the existence or non-existence of God.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Critics reply that the move from "religion is very important" to "set the evidential standard infinitely high" is illegitimate, because raising standards without limit would make belief impossible on every important matter, not just religion, and we plainly do form justified beliefs about important things on less-than-certain evidence. An infinite standard also cuts both ways: it would bar justified disbelief and even the agnostic's own conclusion, since claiming we "cannot know" is itself a knowledge claim. Both theists and atheists argue that ordinary standards of evidence and reasoning can support a justified position, so the demand for impossible certainty does not compel agnosticism.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] That certainty is unattainable is true of nearly all matters, yet we form justified beliefs on less-than-certain evidence, so uncertainty alone does not require withholding judgement. [Rejecting P2] Raising the evidential bar in proportion to importance does not justify setting it infinitely high; an unlimited standard would make belief on every important question impossible. [Rejecting P3] An impossibly high standard undercuts itself, barring justified disbelief and even the agnostic's own "we cannot know" claim, so it does not establish that we must remain agnostic.