what does it mean to be agnostic?

based on “what does it mean to be agnostic?” by enrique tierno galiván. 

popularity of agnosticism raises with each day, more and more people call themselves “agnostics”. but not all of then know, what does it actually mean to be one. most of worldly people around me tend to call themselves agnostics, and their answer about their faith and beliefs usually looks like that: 

“I’m not sure if there is a God, but i’m also no sure there is no God, so i’m in the middle”, or: “I don’t really want to think about religion, but there must be at least something” or something like that. 

however, agnosticism is more than “something in the middle of atheism and theism” or “at least something up there”. let’s see. 

so, to start with, there are two substances in our world: transcendent and immanent. 

transcendency means something we, humans, cant understand, something beyond our mind, our knowledge. for example, we cant understand God, the concept of enertity, infinity, universe, etc. all of these things are transcendent.

opposite to transcendency is immanency. it is something that we can understand with our naturally limited mind. we can understand our world, our soul, our inner world, other people, etc.

for example, there are two concepts of nothing. first, transcendent: it is quite difficult to imagine nothing. you have to think of at least something. white square, black square, empty room — no matter how hard you try, you barely get close to the concept of nothing. on the other hand, there is immanent concept of nothing — number 0! 

so, as being mentioned before, transcendency is a common concept in (christian) theology. God is transcendent, we can’t understand Him or His nature with our naturally limited minds. the idea and nature of Holy Trinity is impossible to understand, the only thing we can do is to accept It. «Credo quia absurdum» (I believe, because it is absurd) — Tertullian, «De Carne Christi». 

agnostics dont think so. if we believe, because it is absurd, they do, because it is reasonable, or, as we could say, because it is immanent. agnostics believe in what they can understand, they believe in immanency. and, as Galván said, as long as agnostics know and understands the world they live in, they can’t hate it, can’t do anything bad or harm anything or anyone, they can’t do anything but understand and accept this world. 

galván also mentioned, that a lot of people, who call themselves christians, are actually agnostics. in my opinion, thats dreary: we should sincerely and warmly believe in Our God, in seen by none but Son Father (Matthew: 11:27), in absurd Holy Trinity and absurd Resurrection, so with our faith and belief we can get closer to Kingdom of Heaven.