As Samuel Leith [sic. he means, I think, ‘Leith Samuel’] once pointed out, here are three kinds of agnostics. One says he doesn’t know, but wishes he did. The answer to him is the promise of Christ. Seek and ye shall find. He won’t be an agnostic long.

The next is the agnosticism of someone who spends all his time in nightclubs cruising for sex. “I don’t know and I don’t care.” This guy doesn’t require an answer. It is not an intellectual stance.

But then there is the dogmatic agnostic. “I don’t know, you don’t know, and nobody can know.” But notice that this is not really a profession of ignorance. It necessarily contains within it a dogmatic claim about the nature of God. We don’t know if He exists or not, but if He does, He is the kind of being who cannot be known by us. But how did we learn that important truth about Him? When did we learn it? What branch of theology is this? What sacred book reveals this to us? When did we find out that this was among the attributes of God?

This third kind of agnosticism makes an astonishing claim, and so may reasonably be called upon to give reasons for it.