Bible Commentaries

Agnosticism

Hosea 2:8

The youngest reader of the Bible will be able to understand the words "They did not know." There is a theory which is known to-day by the difficult name Agnosticism. A great deal of worthless thinking may be hidden under that dark term. Let us understand what it means, and then inquire what it is worth. The meaning is supposed to be not-know-ism. Men do not now blatantly and vulgarly say, "There is no God"; that is generally considered now to be a fool's peculiar speech: now men say, If there is a God, we do not know him; he does not come within the range of our observation, experience, or consciousness; we do not say there is no God, we simply say we do not know him. That is the meaning, in general terms, of the doctrine that is known under the name of Agnosticism. If it were an intellectual doctrine only, there might appear to be about it somewhat of the charm of modesty. How can a man look otherwise than blankly humble when he says he does not know? What attitude would befit such a declaration but an attitude of the profoundest self-distrust and self-disregard? But it is not only an intellectual doctrine; it is infinitely more. What great case does the intellect wholly cover? Is man all intellect, all intelligence; is he a repertory of information; is he well nourished and well furnished with mere news or facts or historical memories? Agnosticism cannot begin and end where it likes; even though it bear such a name as that, full of syllables, we must not let it have all its own way. Even Agnosticism must not be allowed to run riot over the church floor and the church altar, and put aside everything as if it alone represented the consummation of Hosea 2:9).

This is rational, this is just, this is simple, and it is impossible for it to escape the approval of mankind. Where God is not known, why should he continue his bounty? Who will throw life away? Who will throw flowers into the darkness? Is not that a wastefulness forbidden by every instinct,—not knowing the prohibition of a written law, but prohibited by the interdict of instinct, and bearing upon itself the approval of eternal righteousness? Is it a grateful exercise to be sending messages to people who do not know the writer or inquire for him, or reply to his communications? Is it a delightful and inspiring exercise to be giving bread, and the persons receiving it not knowing whence it came, or caring as to the name and character of the giver? It may be so; but where the giving of the bread is meant not to end in itself, but to lead to other, further, brighter, grander results, who can waste his energy in the conduct of processes which have no termination? God never gives bread by itself. Jesus Christ never healed a blind man merely that the blind man might see the wonderful things round about him—that would have been childish and frivolous; Jesus Christ opened the eyes of the blind that he might lead the man to think whether it would not be better still to have the vision of his soul illumined, so that he could see the mystery of the divine action in universe and history.

So when God gives bread to the body he does not want to keep our bones together, a mechanism anatomical; he only feeds the body that he may get at the soul. God has therefore determined that if men do not know him, or ask concerning him, or recognise the purpose of his ministry, he will come down and claim his corn and wine and wool and flax. This is just. God must keep some control over things. It is good of him now and then to send a bad harvest; it is excellent management to blight the wheat-field, and make the people mad with hunger. That is love. Presently they will begin to ask questions, to wonder; and there is a kind of amazement which nearly touches religion, approaching the mysterious line which separates the highest wonder from the beginning of the profoundest reverence. It was good of God to take away the one ewe lamb; it was infinitely merciful of him to strike down the only tree we had—one little tree, and God wrenched it out of the earth by its dry roots, and shook the black soil back, and burned the tree. What did he mean by it? To teach us that it was his tree, not ours. You have no children, except in a very secondary and temporary sense. The Lord looks down from heaven and says: My children; my corn, my wine, my wool, my flax; all souls are mine; the gold and the silver are mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills. There is but one Proprietor. Yet we call ourselves landlords! It pleases us, poor babies; it gives a man importance in his own family, if nowhere else, to call himself a landlord. Not an inch of land does any one of us possess. There are no landlords; in fact, there are no lords at all. Not until we realise that we are stewards, servants, trustees, people occupying responsible positions, shall we begin to realise the true dignity of life. He is the landlord in veriest truth who holds the land in trust, for cultivation, for the feeding of the poor and the maintenance of the State. He is aristocratic with more than nominal profession who says, My strength belongs to the weak man; my wisdom is the refuge of the unintelligent; my experience is a bank; and I allow all men known to me, who care to do Hosea 2:11-12).

This is not vengeance, this is reason; this is not arbitrary punishment, this is a natural consequence and necessity. Divine gifts are abused, are misunderstood, or in some sense resented: what if divine patience should be outworn, or if only through a temporary suspension of his fortunes man can be brought to consideration? Recognise the greatness of things, the manifold relationships of life, and understand that Providence is not an arbitrary beneficence, but a critical and discriminating ministry. And there comes a time when God will say to the cloud, Rain no more on that unthankful life; and to the sun, No longer shine on ingratitude so base and desperate. This is God's method; it is not mysterious; it is simple, frank, direct, intelligible, and just. If there be any fat, prosperous, gross atheists, so there be fat beasts maturing for the knife and the poleaxe. Do not misunderstand the outward and temporary prosperity of wickedness. It has been the mystery of the ages, but the mystery has been again and again dissolved, and men have seen the action of the divine Sovereignty, even in instances that appeared to prosper without the altar and without the revelation of the Word.

Does it all end here? God cannot end at a point like this. There is a divine rhetoric that requires other syllables to complete the Gospel sentence; it would be poor reading if it ended here. God goes from judgment to Gospel:—

"Therefore [the critics say, Nevertheless], behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her. And I will give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope: and she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt" ( Hosea 2:14-15).

So, we repeat, God cannot be angry all day; he breaks down, he proposes reconciliation. The Cross is not a human thought; it is an eternal proposal of love. The Lamb of God was slain from before the foundation of the world. We have often had occasion to say, the atonement was rendered before the sin was committed. God cannot be second; we cannot surprise him into new movements. The Gospel, as we understand it, occupies a certain historic or chronological point as to its revelation and framework, but in its innermost thought—who is this that cometh up from eternity? It is the Son of God, who, ere the universe arose, either by divine fiat, or from fire-cloud, or how it might, was slain for the sin of the world. Gracious mystery! Blessed fact!