agnosticism

What it means

1. countableuncountableThe view that absolute truth or ultimate certainty is unattainable, especially regarding knowledge not based on experience or perceivable phenomena.
2. countableuncountableThe view that the existence of God or of all deities is unknown, unknowable, unproven, or unprovable.

   Holonyms: epistemology, cosmology, ontology, philosophy

   Antonyms: antiagnosticism

3. countableuncountableDoubt, uncertainty, or scepticism regarding the existence of a god or gods.

   1956, January 31ˢᵗ: Alan Alexander Milne; quoted in:

   1 more example

   The Old Testament is responsible for more atheism, agnosticism, disbelief — call it what you will — than any book ever written; it has emptied more churches than all the counterattractions of cinema, motor bicycle and golf course.

   1988: James B. Simpson, Simpson’s Contemporary Quotations, № 4,393 (Houghton Mifflin)

In a sentence

Holonyms: epistemology, cosmology, ontology, philosophy

Where it comes from

Coined by Thomas Henry Huxley. From a- + gnostic + -ism (see also agnostic).