357 ATHEISM

YOUCAT Lesson 357

YOUCAT the catechism for Catholic youth

357  Is atheism always a sin against the First Commandment?

Atheism is not a sin if a person has learned nothing about God or has examined the question about God’s existence conscientiously and cannot believe.  [2127-2128]

Jesus before Pilate by Nikolai Ge (1831-1894).  So Pilate said to him, “Then you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say I am a king.   For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.  Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”  Pilate said to him, “What is truth?” --John 18:37-38

The line between being unable to believe and being unwilling to believe is not clear.  The attitude that simply dismisses faith as unimportant, without having examined it more closely, is often worse than well-considered atheism.  5

Atheism (Greek theos=God): the view that God does not exist.  A general term for various forms of denying God’s existence in theory or in practice.

Agnosticism (Greek gnosus=knowledge): the view that God cannot be known.  A general  term for a position that leaves open the question about God’s existence because it supposedly cannot be decided or because God cannot be known with certainty.

   

[2127-2128]

Agnosticism

2127 Agnosticism assumes a number of forms. In certain cases the agnostic refrains from denying God; instead he postulates the existence of a transcendent being which is incapable of revealing itself, and about which nothing can be said. In other cases, the agnostic makes no judgment about God's existence, declaring it impossible to prove, or even to affirm or deny. –Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition

2128 Agnosticism can sometimes include a certain search for God, but it can equally express indifferentism, a flight from the ultimate question of existence, and a sluggish moral conscience. Agnosticism is all too often equivalent to practical atheism. --CCC