Nontheism covers a range of both religious and nonreligious attitudes characterized by the absence of espoused belief in a personal god or gods. The term nontheism is generally used to describe apathy or a noncomment toward the subject of God and differentiates from an antithetical, explicit, atheism. Nontheism does not necessarily describe atheism or disbelief in God. It has been used as an umbrella term for summarizing various distinct and even mutually exclusive positions, such as agnosticism, ignosticism, ietsism, skepticism, pantheism and atheism. It is in use in the fields of Christian apologetics and general liberal theology.