It reasons thereupon,and calls it nature, necessity, and can believe nothing else. If god does exist and you choose to believe in god, then your reward is very high eternal life in heaven. Warren buffet, climate change and pascals wager watts up. Taking pascals wager by michael rota overdrive rakuten. Pascals wager is an argument that asserts that one should believe in god, even if gods existence cannot be proved or disproved through reason blaise pascals original wager was as a fairly short paragraph in pensees amongst several other notes that could be considered wagers.
Mar 24, 2017 in this wireless philosophy video, susanna rinard harvard university explains pascal s wager, blaise pascal s famous argument for belief in god. Since there is an equal risk of gain and of loss, if you had only to gain two lives, instead of one, you might still wager. If you were to speak to the average theist or atheist one would think pascals wager is an argument for the existence of godit isnt. Jordan, jeff, editor 1994a gambling on god, lanham md.
He defines two sources in a humans belief formations. But if there were three lives to gain, you would have to play since you. Pascals wager, jordan argued, may be viewed as a kind of last ditch argument for apologists and theism 24. It only calculates with two options when there are, in fact, at least four alternatives. The main problem with pascal s wager is that it suffers from the fallacy of bifurcation. Therefore pascal s wager is invalid as an argument. See bostrom on infinite ethics for how much worse things get if you allow nonhalting turing machines. It posits that humans bet with their lives that god either exists or does not pascal argues that a rational person should live as though god exists and seek to believe in god. Jul 28, 2014 pascals wager, jordan argued, may be viewed as a kind of last ditch argument for apologists and theism 24. Pascal argues that a rational person should live as though god exists and seek to believe in god. It is an argument why one should consider spiritual matters and the reality claims made in the bible in comparison to a naturalistic worldview.
Pascals the wager is a reading that stands out most to me so far because he argues the real way believe in god is through our passions. Feb 28, 2016 this issue bears a similarity to pascals wager on the existence of god. If there is a god, he is infinitely incomprehensible, since, having neither parts nor limits, he has no affinity to us. Christians are to share and proclaim the gospel of jesus christ, which alone is the power of god for salvation to everyone who believes romans 1. Pascals wager, which he used as a proof of god, 3 is often used when illustrating decision theory, 4 particularly minimizing your losses. Pascals wager, practical argument for belief in god formulated by blaise pascal. Pascals wager simple english wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. So we may well know that there is a god without knowing what he is. While pascals wager really doesnt even come close to proving god, it can be useful to get someone to consider the importance of investigating the reality of the creator. Reason cannot settle which way we should incline, but a consideration of the relevant outcomes supposedly can.
Pascals wager is the most famous part of his collection of notes known as the pensees. The argument from superdominance pascal maintains that we are incapable of knowing whether god exists or not, yet we must wager one way or the other. Pascals wager, discussed in his pensees, has provoked discussion and strong views ever since its. If god existed, and the person believed in god, he would be rewarded with happiness forever. Full text of pascal s wager see other formats stop early journal content on jstor, free to anyone in the world this article is one of nearly 500,000 scholarly works digitized and made freely available to everyone in the world by jstor. Mar 17, 2009 pascal s wager is actually a serious problem for those of us who want to use kolmogorov complexity as an occam prior, because the size of even the finite computations blows up much faster than their probability diminishes see here. Pascals wager is an argument in philosophy presented by the seventeenthcentury french philosopher, mathematician and physicist, blaise pascal 16231662. Pascals wager has fascinated philosophers far in excess of its reputation as effective apologetics. Pascals wager vatican observatory foundation faith and.
Warren buffet, climate change and pascals wager watts. Very few of the wagers defenders, in fact, have retained more than an academic interest in its power to persuade. The pascals wager is a very popular argument among theists and deists as well. Chinese mathematician jia xian devised a triangular representation for the coefficients in the 11th century. Known as the early journal content, this set of works include research articles, news, letters, and other. Blaise pascal 16231662 offers a pragmatic reason for believing in god. Rota considers pascal s wager and the roles of uncertainty, evidence and faith in making a commitment to god. Pascals claim that if you lose, you lose nothing is some indication that he thought that belief dominated non belief.
Pascals wager attempts to bring the sceptic to the point of desiring belief in. By engaging with themes such as decision theory, the finetuning of the universe, divine hiddenness, the problem of evil, the historicity of the resurrection and the nature of miracles, he probes the many dynamics at work in embracing. It is an argument why one should consider spiritual matters and the reality claims made in the. Pascal is supposed to have pitched his wager at folks who understand only selfinterested. Pascals wager is actually a serious problem for those of us who want to use kolmogorov complexity as an occam prior, because the size of even the finite computations blows up much faster than their probability diminishes see here. It was one of the first efforts to incorporate the concept. Pascals wager superb analysis of the argument by alan hajek. Pascals wager vatican observatory foundation faith and science. Pascals wager is the product of the gain from a certain belief and the probability that it is the correct one in pascals reasoning 5050, but as mentioned above the probability is much less. In his pensees 165758, pascal posed the following argument to show that belief in the christian religion is rational. An argument often used by religious people is that they have nothing to lose by believing in god and that atheists are risking eternity in hell for no gain.
Christians are to share and proclaim the gospel of jesus christ, which alone is the power of. Pascal, it may be recalled, argued that if there were only a tiny probability that god truly existed, it made sense to behave as if he did because the rewards could be infinite whereas the lack of belief risked eternal misery. In that case, pascals wager provides a rational reason to continue to believe in god. It posits that humans bet with their lives that god either exists or does not. We shall see that pascals wager fails as a result of its reliance on jansenist. Pascals wager or pascals gambit the name for an idea that blaise pascal had. Suppose someone you loved lay dying, and the doctor offered to try a new miracle drug that he could not guarantee but that would have a 5050 chance of saving your beloveds life.
Its the difference, in kantian terms, between believing as a means to an end, and believing as an end in itself. After all, suppose one were to come up with an argument which convinced you that the truth of theism is quite unlikely indeed. Jan 02, 2020 in conclusion, pascals wager, while an interesting piece of philosophical thought, should have no place in a christians evangelistic and apologetic repertoire. Pascal s wager or pascal s gambit is the name for an idea that blaise pascal had. In conclusion, pascals wager, while an interesting piece of philosophical thought, should have no place in a christians evangelistic and apologetic repertoire. I cant imagine that there is an omnipotent god who watches over all of us. Pascals wager is the name given to an argument due to blaise pascal for believing, or for at least taking steps to believe, in god. Pascals wager excerpted from pens ees, available on project gutenberg. But pascals wager suggests that atheists like me should leave their sinful ways and start believing in god because it is the most logical and beneficial choice. Pascals wager is an argument in philosophy presented by the seventeenth century french.
Today we conclude our unit on philosophy of religion and hank gets a little help from indiana jones to explain religious pragmatism and pascals wager, fideism, and. A live hypothesis is a proposition whose adoption would not. Blaise pascal biography from the catholic encyclopedia. May 06, 2012 the flaws of pascals wager an argument often used by religious people is that they have nothing to lose by believing in god and that atheists are risking eternity in hell for no gain. Hence it comes that, if there are as many risks on one side as on the other, the course is to play even. Although it is a utterly fallacious argument, it is still used for selfsatisfaction. Rota considers pascals wager and the roles of uncertainty, evidence and faith in making a commitment to god. It has no scientific utility, since asserting without evidence that a creator being made the universe has no more explanatory power than saying the universe emerges from the properties of spacetime. The christian god and afterlife, some other god and afterlife, atheism with afterlife, and atheism without afterlife. Seems to me that, intuitively speaking, why one chooses to believe is just as important as whether one does, in fact, believe. Pascals wager is an argument posed by the mathematician and physicist blaise pascal to deal with gods existence to help explain here is an illustration.
If the christian god does exist, the agnostic gains. Learn pascal wager with free interactive flashcards. Pascal s wager was originally put forth by blaise pascal, a 17 th century philosopher and mathematician. Our soul has been cast into the body, where it finds number, time and dimension. Drange the argument call it pw may be formulated as follows. Pascals wager assumes that the entire universe of possibilities consists of.
Sep 28, 2015 i propose to reformulate pascals wager as urging those who doubt gods existence to embrace a doubt of desire rather than a doubt of indifference. Pascals wager, socalled because it was devised by the brilliant catholic philosopher blaise pascal 16231662, is an apologetics method in the form of a wager aimed at getting atheists and agnostics to consider the possibility that god exists and that there is a heaven and hell. Pascals wager or pascals gambit is the name for an idea that blaise pascal had. The name is somewhat misleading, for in a single section of his pensees, pascal apparently presents at least three such arguments, each of which might be called a wagerit is only the final of. If i saw everywhere the marks of a creator, i would repose peacefully in faith.
Pdf on jan 12, 1991, graham oppy and others published on rescher. He said that it is not possible to prove or disprove that god exists. This leads us to the conclusion that we should pick the. Pascals wager routledge encyclopedia of philosophy. It is named for the 17thcentury french mathematician blaise pascal, but it is far older. This essentially is what has become known as pascals wager, a barebones approach to challenging the folly of unbelief.
Pascal s wager has fascinated philosophers far in excess of its reputation as effective apologetics. In this wireless philosophy video, susanna rinard harvard university explains pascals wager, blaise pascals famous argument for belief in god. Pascal, who is said to be the father of modern probability, felt that that religion should be approached as a gamble. Pragmatic arguments for theism are designed to motivate and support belief even in the absence of strong evidence. May 23, 2016 today we conclude our unit on philosophy of religion and hank gets a little help from indiana jones to explain religious pragmatism and pascals wager, fideism, and kierkegaards leap to faith. With the wager, pascal attempted to provide a compelling reason to believe in god based upon happiness and possible outcomes. Very few of the wager s defenders, in fact, have retained more than an academic interest in its power to persuade. Choose from 40 different sets of pascal wager flashcards on quizlet.
But, seeing too much to deny and too little to be sure, i am in a state to be pitied. Pascals wager about god internet encyclopedia of philosophy. If the christian god does not exist, the agnostic loses little by believing in him and gains correspondingly little by not believing. The rejection of pascals wager brief refutation of pascal by paul tobin. Blaise pascal 16231662 is widely regarded as a brilliant mathematician, but he is less wellknown as a deep student of religion and the bible. While pascals wager really doesnt even come close to proving god, it can be useful to get someone to consider the importance of investigating the reality of the creator s existence. Apr 24, 2017 pascals the wager is a reading that stands out most to me so far because he argues the real way believe in god is through our passions. This is a plausible principle, and one which is employed in some versions of pascals wager. On the face of it, it is quite convincing but it falls apart once you seriously examine it.