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JulieAA
Guest
Dear fighting,
I have always felt that my love for God was so deep that nothing at all could ever touch it with any doubt whatsoever. I have not walked in your shoes (and I pray that this test will never reach me or my children) but I am humbled by your post about your precious Ruth and your response to Him upon taking Ruth to Himself. You have touched my soul more than you could possibly know right now and I thank you from the bottom of my heart! You are a testimony to what the unconditional love of God should be in all of us. May God bring you much peace and blessing to you always!
I have always felt that my love for God was so deep that nothing at all could ever touch it with any doubt whatsoever. I have not walked in your shoes (and I pray that this test will never reach me or my children) but I am humbled by your post about your precious Ruth and your response to Him upon taking Ruth to Himself. You have touched my soul more than you could possibly know right now and I thank you from the bottom of my heart! You are a testimony to what the unconditional love of God should be in all of us. May God bring you much peace and blessing to you always!
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FightingFat
Guest
Thank you Julie. There are some pictures of Ruth on my profile page if you want to check out what an extraordinary gift she was.
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JulieAA
Guest
I was just there as you wrote this. “Extraordinary gift” does not even begin to describe this child of God! Thank you for sharing your story. It truly has been an inspiration! You are definately an instrument that God is using in order for the rest of us to further open our hearts and minds to His Divine Will.
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PRmerger
Guest
Thank you for your invitation to view your Profile Page and the privilege of seeing your dear, beautiful Ruth. And your lovely family, too.
Your faith and strength and peace are inspiring. It is appears to be reminiscent of Immaculée Ilibagiza, the Rwandan author of the book “Left to Tell.” The peace in her soul emanates from her, as it does you.
Only faith can bring this.
Blessed be the name of God!
H
hecd2
Guest
So my point, to which you reacted, was that believing or not in God has no bearing over the truth of the proposition. I think that you now acknowledge that that is correct - the truth of the proposition “God exists” is independent of whether or not anyone believes it. Your point is different - that by wanting to believe something you can be driven to explore and understand the truth of the proposition, provided the proposition is indeed true. This last proviso is vital: in the case of the Wright brothers, the proposition was indeed true, but there are many other cases in which people wish to believe a proposition where the proposition is not true and thus they hold false beliefs. It is therefore not necessarily the case that the proposition is true, and Pascal acknowledges this by making it a wager. In claiming that is necessarily a good thing to will to believe in God you are assuming the truth of the proposition that God exists, which is fine, but is irrelevant to Pascal’s argument as his argument can carry no weight with you if you already believe in the existence of God. In the context of Pascal’s argument assuming that God exists based on other criteria is begging the question.
I think it is needlessly dramatic to characterise an honest disbelief in God as “spitting in His face”, but we can leave that for now. These are beliefs that you hold for whatever reason. Again that’s fine, but in the context of Pascal’s wager, if we are considering the case, as Pascal does, that one cannot come to a belief in God on purely rational grounds, then surely one cannot come to beliefs about the nature or likely action of the putative God on rational grounds. And if one cannot do that then the rational basis for the wager is undercut because it depends on these assumed consequences of disbelief for which we have even less rationale than the fundamental proposition in the first place.
In other words we are betting not just that God exists but that if He does then not believing in Him will result in a bad outcome (and if you say you know it will or you think it will, you are in a different position from someone to whom the wager applies). It seems to me that such a means to get to a belief is badly flawed as one can think up all sorts of unprovable propositions with unprovably bad outcomes if we bet the wrong way, and we can apply Pascal’s wager to them - the most obvious being the proposition that not believing in some non-Christian God will result in that religion’s version of hell, or the proposition that it is believing in God that results in the bad outcome (for which there is as much rationale as the converse, more conventional view). Pascal’s wager is simply a poor way to arrive at a key metaphysical belief if one’s objective is to align one’s beliefs with reality (and is poor even if one’s objective is to align one’s beliefs with one’s self-interest).
Alec
evolutionpages.com
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PRmerger
Guest
Catholics ought not disagree with you here, hecd.
In isolation, Pascal’s wager is indeed a poor way to arrive at a key metaphysical belief.
However, I doubt any Catholic uses Pascal’s wager as the only means of evangelization.
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hecd2
Guest
So it would be interesting to know what you think other means of evangelisation would be for Catholics to use that are philosophically compatible with Pascal’s wager.However, I doubt any Catholic uses Pascal’s wager as the only means of evangelization.
Alec
evolutionpages.com
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PRmerger
Guest
I think there’s 20 of them that I might use.
- The Argument from Change
- The Argument from Efficient Causality
- The Argument from Time and Contingency
- The Argument from Degrees of Perfection
- The Design Argument
- The Kalam Argument
- The Argument from Contingency
- The Argument from the World as an Interacting Whole
- The Argument from Miracles
- The Argument from Consciousness
- The Argument from Truth
- The Argument from the Origin of the Idea of God
- The Ontological Argument
- The Moral Argument
- The Argument from Conscience
- The Argument from Desire
- The Argument from Aesthetic Experience
- The Argument from Religious Experience
- The Common Consent Argument
- Pascal’s Wager
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hecd2
Guest
Thanks. It seems to me, and Kreeft acknowledges this, that Pascal’s wager is not an argument to stand alongside the other 19, but a back-stop to be used in the event that the other 19 are not persuasive - in other words by using Pascal’s wager one is implicitly acknowledging that a compelling rationale for belief is not available and so one is resorting to a rationale for choosing the best outcome of a bet. Either the other 19 work and PW is not needed; or PW is needed, but must therefore stand on its own.
Nice signature btw.
Alec
evolutionpages.com
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PRmerger
Guest
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hecd2
Guest
Not sure I can say any more other than the explanation that I gave in my previous post but I’ll try once more. Since most of the arguments for God (the other 19 in Kreeft’s list for example) are based on reasoned approaches to demonstrate the truth of the proposition “God exists” *and *the PW is not such a reasoned approach to demonstrate a truth but an attempt at a rational basis for placing a bet on an unknown and unprovable outcome *then *the PW is fundamentally a different class of argument from the others. It is used to persuade action in cases where it is acknowledged that reaching a rational true belief in God’s existence is impossible. If the rational arguments for the God proposition are compelling then the PW is redundant. If the rational arguments for the God proposition are not compelling then the PW is a possible fall-back, but in that case the other arguments are not available having already been dismissed and thus the PW must stand on its own. Does that make it clearer at all?
Alec
evolutionpages.com
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PRmerger
Guest
On this, then, we are disagreed.
It is most assuredly not fundamentally different. It is, as you say, a rational (i.e. reasoned) approach, just like the others. (Not sure why you’re making a distinction between “reasoned approach” and “rational” in the above comment.
)It simply is not the best argument for the existence of God and ought not stand alone. In fact, no believer uses it alone, I say with assurance.
But, with 19 other ones, it certainly provide another “nail in the coffin”, so to speak. It’s not so much about redundancy, but, rather, is another (rational *or *reasoned) way to consider the existence of God.
How would this argument not eliminate the other 19 propositions? That is, why wouldn’t you argue this for, say proposition #1, and say, “If argument #1 is not compelling, then why the need for the other 19?”
Incidentally, quite curiously, here you are using “rational” synonymously with “reasoned.”
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hecd2
Guest
No distinction - they are the same thing and I am using them synonymously. All 20 arguments in Kreeft’s list are attempts at reasoned approaches and rational arguments. But 19 are arguments to show one thing and PW is an argument to show something else. Let me try one last time while being careful not to cause confusion by using two slightly different formulations to stand for the same idea. The fundamental difference between the PW and the other 19, is that the PW is NOT an argument for the existence of God as a metaphysical truth but an argument to bet on the existence of God or to act as though God existed in the case that the metaphysical truth of it has not been demonstrated or cannot be demonstrated by reason. Kreeft says this about the PW:It is most assuredly not fundamentally different. It is, as you say, a rational (i.e. reasoned) approach, just like the others. (Not sure why you’re making a distinction between “reasoned approach” and “rational” in the above comment.
which is what I am saying. My emphasis.
Well, I am surprised by the fact that you feel confident to speak on behalf of ALL other believers, and you’ll pardon me if I doubt the truth of your assertion, particularly since the PW isn’t an argument for the existence of God at all.
It would be redundant because if you are persuaded that the proposition “God exists” is true by one or more of the 19 then you don’t need a wager on His existence.
Because it is not an argument for the metaphysical truth of God’s existence and it didn’t end up as #20 on Kreeft’s list by accident. To put PW in gross terms it goes like this: “So buddy, you’re not convinced, despite all these arguments, that I’ve successfully demonstrated that God exists. Fine - let’s accept that we can’t prove His existence one way or the other. Well, if I were you, I’d act as if I believe in him anyway, because if you don’t and He does exist then really bad things might happen to you, whereas if you do and He doesn’t it’s no skin off your nose.” You see, PW is not an argument for the truth of a proposition but an argument about how to act in the absence of a metaphysical belief in order to maximise the probability of good outcomes.
Now I have explained the case to the best of my ability and if you still disagree we’ll have to leave it there.
Alec
evolutionpages.com
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The_Exodus
Guest
I agree. The wager is a practical argument. The other arguments are theoretical/speculative.
I think they can still be used together however. Think of someone A who has been presented with the 19 speculative arguments alone, and someone B who has been presented with PW alone.
Person A will be aware of all sorts of speculative reasons for thinking God exists. Each of them may have some persuasive power. All of them together may have a great deal of persurasive power, although the individual’s mind is still not led to a necessary assent to God’s existence. Belief in this person’s case has some sort of grounds - even if not demonstratively certain grounds. But, seeing as his mind is not made up all the way, he sees no reason for not remaining an agnostic about the whole matter.
Person B will have no such theoretical basis for confirming belief. He will simply be trying to manufacture his own reasons to use as his own grounds. He may very much want to believe, after hearing only PW, and may find the practical reasons set forth quite reasonable. Indeed, he sees that he makes such actions in daily life all the time, and, if someone told him the same odds were present in some material affair he would not think twice about betting. But again, he has no rational or speculative grounds for his belief to rest on, just a sort of naked will to believe in what he can find no reason to think true besides his own hope that it is.
Now imagine person C, who has heard all 20 arguments. This person is in a position to assent - for he has 19 speculative reasons - and has good reason to move his will towards the affirmative of those 19 speculative reasons - for he has heard PW.
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Charlemagne_II
Guest
hecd2
Pascal’s wager is simply a poor way to arrive at a key metaphysical belief if one’s objective is to align one’s beliefs with reality (and is poor even if one’s objective is to align one’s beliefs with one’s self-interest).
Pascal has already with this argument assumed that there is no rational way to decisively prove or disprove the existence of God. He also directs this argument at those who already agree with him that there is no decisive proof either way. Therefore the rationality of the argument is not at issue, though you are certainly making a strenuous effort to assert that it should be.
The argument’s rationale is practical rather than theoretical. Pascal does not end his argument here. His assumption is that once you get into the habit of thinking about God and relating to God in a meaningful way because it is in your interest to do so, you will then discover things about God that you could not discover when you set up theoretical barriers to proving His existence. The typical atheist never gets this close to God because he does not give God the benefit of the doubt. As the inventor discovers the truth of the airplane by living with the airplane and believing in the airplane for a very long time, so also the theist discovers more about God by living with Him and believing in Him.
Your point is well taken, that some of the things we live with are illusions, and it takes us a long time to find out they are illusions. However, God cannot be one of these things because we cannot judge God to be an illusion for the obvious reason that we have to get to the other side, and then it is too late to recover from our decision not to believe in God … a decision that you refer to at one point as an honest decision. There is nothing honest about it, for the simple reason that honesty must be based on conviction, and the only way you can persuade yourself that God does not exist is to deceive yourself into thinking it must be so. The reasons for so thinking may vary from one person to another, but you know very well there is no way to prove that God does not exist … so why go with it as an assumption when it is directly opposed to your long range interest as a human being (and maybe) a child of God?
God knows our hearts better than we do. There is such a thing as a sincere liar, I suppose. But a sincere liar seems to me no nobler than an insincere one.
Pascal’s wager is simply a poor way to arrive at a key metaphysical belief if one’s objective is to align one’s beliefs with reality (and is poor even if one’s objective is to align one’s beliefs with one’s self-interest).
Pascal has already with this argument assumed that there is no rational way to decisively prove or disprove the existence of God. He also directs this argument at those who already agree with him that there is no decisive proof either way. Therefore the rationality of the argument is not at issue, though you are certainly making a strenuous effort to assert that it should be.
The argument’s rationale is practical rather than theoretical. Pascal does not end his argument here. His assumption is that once you get into the habit of thinking about God and relating to God in a meaningful way because it is in your interest to do so, you will then discover things about God that you could not discover when you set up theoretical barriers to proving His existence. The typical atheist never gets this close to God because he does not give God the benefit of the doubt. As the inventor discovers the truth of the airplane by living with the airplane and believing in the airplane for a very long time, so also the theist discovers more about God by living with Him and believing in Him.
Your point is well taken, that some of the things we live with are illusions, and it takes us a long time to find out they are illusions. However, God cannot be one of these things because we cannot judge God to be an illusion for the obvious reason that we have to get to the other side, and then it is too late to recover from our decision not to believe in God … a decision that you refer to at one point as an honest decision. There is nothing honest about it, for the simple reason that honesty must be based on conviction, and the only way you can persuade yourself that God does not exist is to deceive yourself into thinking it must be so. The reasons for so thinking may vary from one person to another, but you know very well there is no way to prove that God does not exist … so why go with it as an assumption when it is directly opposed to your long range interest as a human being (and maybe) a child of God?
God knows our hearts better than we do. There is such a thing as a sincere liar, I suppose. But a sincere liar seems to me no nobler than an insincere one.
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hecd2
Guest
Your point is well made and well taken. In the case of C, she is well disposed to the 19 arguments but finds them insufficient on their own to assent to the truth of the proposition, but PW persuades her to act as though the proposition were true. Would PW have had the same effect if she had not heard the 19, which is B’s case; or if she had not heard PW would the 19 suffice, which is A’s case? So you are saying that there are circumstances in which the 19 are insufficient to compel assent but tilt the balance so that one is predisposed to assent to PW, and in these cases PW doesn’t stand on its own. OK, I get you. I think this picture is psychologically true to how people think, although not strictly defensible in purely logical terms (for if the 19 are insufficient to compel belief then they should have no influence on the decision to assent to PW as they have already been rejected as flawed or fallacious in some way).
But I think Pascal developed PW to be effective also in cases where the 19 are wholly unpersuasive and in such a case the argument has to stand on its own. And returning to my original points, not only is it a poor argument for arriving at belief, but also a poor argument for willing to act as though one believed in the proposition of God’s existence (which we agree is its purpose) for the reasons I laid out in earlier posts.
By the way, I also think that most people who live by PW or some internal informal version of it do not think deeply about the metaphysical arguments for the existence of God - that’s a personal observation and I have no reference in support of it or further proof for it.
Thanks for your observation though, which was helpful.
Alec
evolutionpages.com
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Charlemagne_II
Guest
hecd2
But I think Pascal developed PW to be effective also in cases where the 19 are wholly unpersuasive and in such a case the argument has to stand on its own. And returning to my original points, not only is it a poor argument for arriving at belief, but also a poor argument for willing to act as though one believed in the proposition of God’s existence (which we agree is its purpose) for the reasons I laid out in earlier posts.
In the absence of the nineteen proofs, one must still choose between God and no God. The fate of one’s immortal soul vastly outweighs any reason for choosing nothingness over eternal life. You have not answered this argument at all.
And you will find hope, on one’s deathbed, to be the most persuasive argument of all!
See post # 36.
But I think Pascal developed PW to be effective also in cases where the 19 are wholly unpersuasive and in such a case the argument has to stand on its own. And returning to my original points, not only is it a poor argument for arriving at belief, but also a poor argument for willing to act as though one believed in the proposition of God’s existence (which we agree is its purpose) for the reasons I laid out in earlier posts.
In the absence of the nineteen proofs, one must still choose between God and no God. The fate of one’s immortal soul vastly outweighs any reason for choosing nothingness over eternal life. You have not answered this argument at all.
And you will find hope, on one’s deathbed, to be the most persuasive argument of all!
See post # 36.
L
lemondiesel
Guest
There is a difference in saying “I believe,” and actually believing. Would God accept me if I lived a life of belief, only because it was the “smart” choice?
H
hecd2
Guest
Are you saying that PW is not an attempt at a rational argument? Or that its reasoning is unassailable? I would have to disagree with you in either case. It is an attempt to make a rational argument in order to guide the wager - people do that all the time with betting and risk analysis - even though the outcome of some things cannot be certainly known by reason, one’s action can still be guided by reason and that is what Pascal is attempting. I also think that elements of his reasoning are flawed in ways that I have set out in earlier posts in this thread.
Fine - I’m sure you know more about Pascal’s intention than I do. But his intention does not save the quality of the argument itself which is what I’m talking about. Understandably, given your beliefs, you beg the question about God’s existence. (As an aside, I don’t know what a typical atheist is, but I don’t generally find such generalistions to be very helpful. There are atheists, and by no means an insignificant number, who have given God “the benefit of the doubt” for decades, but who ultimately conclude after serious reflection that they do not have sufficient reason to believe in the truth of the proposition).
I hope you’ll forgive me for declining to comment in detail on your blatant question-begging, wrapped up as it is in your conviction that all atheists must be liars. I hadn’t realised that being a believer endowed one with a perfect ability to read minds and hearts as it seems to have done in your case.
Because personal integrity demands that one assents only to propositions that one sees to be true?
Alec
evolutionpages.com
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