Choosing Belief or Disbelief and the Limits of Agency

I have heard Obadiah say, “I choose to believe.”  I have also heard other Mormons speak of their faith as a choice.  Like Obadiah, these other Mormons seem to be well read enough to recognize their religion is not without historical or theological problems, but they still feel there is sufficient evidence in their lives to make the choice of belief.  None of these Mormons deny the contribution of environmental influences to that choice, but only insist that such influences are not fully determining, and, therefore, do not render the act of choosing a mere delusion of agency.

I, for a number of years and for a number of reasons, made the same choice; nevertheless, now that I overwhelmed by non-belief, I have the sense that I cannot choose to return once again to belief.  I wonder if this is actually true or if it just feels that way for the time being.  If it is just a temporary perception on my part, it feels so convincingly strong that I cannot imagine how I could accomplish a return to belief.  It feels so convincingly strong that I wonder if I actually ever chose non-belief or if it was forced on me by circumstance.

To keep things clear, I should stress that I am not talking about turning from disobedience and back to obedience or (as many would phrase it) from inactivity to activity.  I should also stress that I am not talking about disbelief, but rather non-belief. For the purpose of this discussion, allow me to establish disbelief as the opposite of (and possibly a form of) belief.  The theist makes a choice to believe in the existence of a personal god (or set of gods) that is (or are) concerned with humanity in general and/or with individual humans in particular.  Likewise, the atheist makes a choice to disbelieve, but in so doing takes a leap of faith just as the theist does.

Of course, most atheists deny any attribution of faith to their position of disbelief, which they see as scientific and not at all metaphysical.  However, I don’t use the word “faith” here to describe the paradox of a religiously held belief in anti-religion.  I use it instead to describe a choice based not upon complete evidence (something I see as unavailable to humans), but rather upon the sense of sufficient evidence.  (Although both the theist and the atheist claim sufficient evidence to support their respective choices, the atheist is, I think, correct in pointing out the qualitative differences in what each side counts as evidence.)

But let’s return to the notion of non-belief.  I think that the believer who moves from belief to non-belief passes through the gate of un-belief rather than disbelief.  Perhaps this sounds like a silly attempt at hair-splitting, but I see both belief and disbelief as the product that comes from a sense of sufficient evidence and, therefore, two sides of the same thing.  One can feel there is sufficient evidence to believe or one can feel there is sufficient evidence to disbelieve.  Unbelief, however, seems to me to be a moment collapse in a believer’s life when he or she perceives the evidence that once seemed sufficient to be, in reality, insufficient.  With that collapse, the former believer does not necessarily move from belief to disbelief.  Such a movement implies that the sufficiency of evidence supporting belief is replaced by a sufficiency of evidence supporting disbelief.  On the contrary, many believers once robbed of their belief, find themselves skeptical of the possibility for a sufficiency of evidence to support a new act of belief.  Thus, they do not adopt the atheist’s disbelief, but rather the agnostic’s non-belief.

Some atheist writers dismiss agnostics as intellectually dishonest cowards or logical weaklings.  But their “once burned, twice shy” attitude feels to the agnostic less like cowardice and more like wisdom.  At least, it does to me.

I began this exploration with the question about choosing non-belief.  I have the sense that belief and disbelief are both a matter of choice, but that non-belief is not.  I am not attempting to reject accountability.  I am simply attempting to explain my inability to imagine myself either joining the disbelievers or rejoining the believers.

Someone may insist that not choosing is the same as choosing not to choose, but this sounds to me more like word play than rational argument.  As an agnostic, I am not paralyzed by not taking sides in arguments over the big, ultimate questions.   I am fully capable of responding to and interacting with the world around me in a meaningful way because I have the sense that there is sufficient evidence for all of the ways I choose to respond and interact.  What seems most important, however, is my even stronger sense that there is insufficient evidence to support taking sides in questions concerning ultimate truth.  It is so strong, in fact, that I don’t feel like I am able to choose a side.

So I return to my original question: if we are not fully determined and can choose belief or disbelief, can one choose non-belief or is it forced upon one by a collapsing moment of unbelief.  If one can choose non-belief (in the way in which I have defined the word), how then can one un-choose it?

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