Agnosticism has the greek root "gnosis", which means "knowledge". It's technically defined as a view that some things ("God" being a common, but not sole example) are unknowable. It's an epistemological concept.
Theism has the greek root "theos", meaning "God". Its primary concern is with the actual existence of God, so it's an ontological concept.
It's possible to think of agnosticism as side-stepping the theism debate by saying, "the nature of knowing matters more to me than the nature of being," but they're definitely compatible. You can say that the existence of God is unknowable (agnosticism,) but you believe that He's still out there (theism.)
Agnosticism has the greek root "gnosis", which means "knowledge". It's technically defined as a view that some things ("God" being a common, but not sole example) are unknowable. It's an epistemological concept.
Theism has the greek root "theos", meaning "God". Its primary concern is with the actual existence of God, so it's an ontological concept.
It's possible to think of agnosticism as side-stepping the theism debate by saying, "the nature of knowing matters more to me than the nature of being," but they're definitely compatible. You can say that the existence of God is unknowable (agnosticism,) but you believe that He's still out there (theism.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnosticism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theism