Pascal's Wager Argument

[Ranklyfrank]

Thanks for sharing your story, TS!

 

[PRmerger]

I am regularly directed to his blog. Don’t know the guy, just keep getting referred to his work. I read Stephen Law’s blog off and on, for instance, and even there, Feser pops up, this time with the ‘you don’t know classic theism’ thing…

Ah. Was the comment meant to be read picturing you sitting in your oversized chair by the fireplace, sherry in hand, attired in dressing gown and slippers tilting your head back as if returning from a reverie, as you chuckle, “Ah, Feser”?

Otherwise, what were we to make of that comment without your commentary above?


Quite curious!

 

[PRmerger]

On your other post, yes, born and raised an Arminian Protestant Evangelical, came here to get ready for RCIA about five years ago after coming to grips with the reasoning failures of sola scriptura. Things went sideways at that point, T-boned unexpectedly by unbelief, thanks in part to this forum(!). I had idealized Catholicism, and in rebuilding my faith in prep to “swim the Tiber” came to grips with the realization that the same kind of fundamentalism, credulity and self-indulgence was the same on the other side of the Tiber, and in some ways worse (some ways better), and there was no reasonable faith to be had.

But yes, was raised as Protestant, and remained a devout one until my mid-30s.

-TS

Very good, then.

You do indeed have, it seems, an impoverished understanding of Catholic theology regarding faith and reason.

No, no. That wasn’t a question. <me channeling Miranda Priestly in “The Devil Wears Prada” at 0:23 secs>

Just saying.

It really appears that you believe Catholicism has not written a single word about faith and reason.

 

[Touchstone]

This is begging the question then.

You must provide an argument as to why Truth could not be a Person. Otherwise you are simply prescribing a definition for Truth which excludes this.

Yes, but that’s a very reasonable and practical “simply”. My definition of gravity excludes gravity as a person, too, but hardly think that’s exclusionary in some negative way. If you read what I said above, I think I’ve given my reasons why “truth as a person” isn’t just unreasonable, but a kind of moral abdication (it validates Ghandi or Stalin unassailably just as well as Jesus).

Ok. But this is your own self-determined prescription.

It does not, by necessity, *have *to be this way.

Your are right, and I understand that. I was a devout, studious Christian for a long time, working through that lens, holding that belief. Words mean whatever we want them to mean, so yes, it could be otherwise, and I can understand what you mean, even if I think that uses debases the language. But I do think it debases the language, and so while I could adopt that kind of semantics, I think it’s problematic to do so.

Again, you’re starting this conversation from the point that one accepts “Stalin is the Truth.”

I don’t accept that proposition. Rather, I’m pointing out the epistemic nature of that proposition is a serious problem, and it’s a structural problem. Not (just) because Stalin was a monster (which he was), but because that kind of concept toward a person is a problem all on its own.

Take one step back and see where this discussion takes you when the proposer offers reasons why Stalin is Truth. Either they are rational and ought to be considered, or they can be dismissed.

Ok. I’ve done that. Now what? I don’t suppose I’m any more convinced by Stalin-worshipers than Jesus-worshipers, but again, to focus on that is to miss the salient caution: thinking of a person as Truth is itself a problem, prior to any consideration of any particular person as the Truth.

I can’t judge a rationale without considering it first, so I consider it all. But at the end of the day, my own faith in Jesus as the Truth was no more rational than someone who followed Stalin). Jesus was a much more likable and interesting guy, but the claims don’t begin to get there on their own merits. Other Christians as I pressed this were hardly more convincing on this than my own irrational mumblings when I pressed my own case.

I proclaim that there are no rational, reasoned arguments that support the hypothesis that Stalin is Truth.

Ok, well that’s a good vantage point to see where I’m standing with respect to Jesus. I don’t think a case for either obtains. Not nearly.

The above would be valid if one simply took the hypothesis “Jesus is Truth” on faith, without using reason.

You apparently don’t think I’ve thought this through before, and that’s fine. Maybe we break that into a different thread if you’re interested, but I would say I made that very challenge a focus, and an important one (my marriage, family relationships, job, all the things I valued were endangered by a failure on this, as a Christian deeply immersed in the church community/extended family that was devout).

The more reason is applied, the worse the case gets for Jesus is Truth, I say. But if that touches off a tangent, best to spawn another thread if it’s to be pursued at all.

This, TS, demonstrates an extremely impoverished understanding of Christianity.

I suggest reading this. Then let’s chat!

OK, thank you, I don’t think I’ve read that, and have it marked on my iPad to read some tonight.

-TS

 

[Touchstone]

Ah. Was the comment meant to be read picturing you sitting in your oversized chair by the fireplace, sherry in hand, attired in dressing gown and slippers tilting your head back as if returning from a reverie, as you chuckle, “Ah, Feser”?

Otherwise, what were we to make of that comment without your commentary above?


Quite curious!

Yeah, it was sort of said that way, with a mischievous raising of the eyebrow. That guy keeps popping up, and people tell me I HAVE to read this guy! I don’t agree with Peter Kreeft, for example, but I think he’s a very smart, skilled thinker, and an earnest, straightforward guy. That’s a Catholic philosopher I would like to argue with, but can admire in my disagreeing with him.

Francis Beckwith is a guy who “swam the Tiber” around the time (shortly after, as I recall) I was getting my theological Speedo on, so to speak, and he was one of the few Evangelical thinkers I knew of that wasn’t an embarrassment. His move to Rome was something I followed closely, and his analysis of both the impoverishment of Protestantism in many important ways AND the fundamental ecumenism that existed on important issues like justification and sanctification despite all the Rome/Geneva sniping was quite close to my own reading as I spent more and more time looking into the RCC, and talking with local priests, and good, smart personal friends who’d been lifelong Catholics.

But this Feser dude keeps getting brought up, and it’s really disappointing, because it’s such a clownish, tone deaf approach to the subjects he takes on. And such high regard for his own schtick… philosophy is a highly overrated endeavor, but one gauge I find useful is the measure of a thinker, no matter what his views, from Nietzsche to Plantinga, Plato to Marx, is the thinker’s ability to be authentic in his/her self-criticism and self-scrutiny. Even if the analysis on that is wrong the effort can be seem. Kreeft and Beckwith have that.

Feser is a fail!

Anyway, I get referred to this guy’s writings and blog regularly, and I always end up thinking the referrer is trying to pull my log when I go read the guy. Really? This is what you want me to contend with??? That guy just elicits the very strong urge to roll one’s eyes and go find something else to do.

It really does confuse me.

-TS

 

[Touchstone]

Very good, then.

You do indeed have, it seems, an impoverished understanding of Catholic theology regarding faith and reason.

No, no. That wasn’t a question. <me channeling Miranda Priestly in “The Devil Wears Prada” at 0:23 secs>

Just saying.

Hah. I hear ya, and that was good for some grins.

It really appears that you believe Catholicism has not written a single word about faith and reason.

No. I was drawn to Rome because I saw a lot of reasoning and rigorous thought that as conspicuously absent that is the intellectual wasteland that is modern Evangelicalism. There’s no denying that. The problem is not that the edifice is not there – Rome has baroque edifices which are in many ways unequaled built up over two millenia. But the framework is only as solid as its foundation, and that’s where Catholicism falls into the very same pit that the (by contrast knuckle-dragging) Evangelicals do – the foundation is rotten, flimsy, corrupt.

You can build a ton of ornate edifice on that. And Rome has (and my recurring theme – Aquinas as poster boy for this kind of elaborate, intricate, yet massive fail).

The edifice is there, and there are parts that are quite impressive, no dispute from me on that (see the Catholic approach to creationism for example, much more reasonable and enlightened than the proudly ignorant strains of virulent creationism that dominate Evangelicaldom. Catholicism even has a respectable faction that sees the sham that Intelligent Design is, as it is popularly formulated by Dembski et al (and I will give Feser credit where it’s due; I’ve read him as a critic of ID on at least two occasions)).

But the further down you go, the more hostile to reason Catholicism becomes, unfortunately, and the more credulous, fundamentalist and, well, I’ll say it – cowardly – it becomes. Doesn’t mean there isn’t lots of reasonable development of ideas built on top of that foundation. But as you know, no amount of perfect reasoning on top of bogus axioms and irrational and superstitious premises can overcome those flaws.

-TS

 

[PRmerger]

I can’t judge a rationale without considering it first, so I consider it all. But at the end of the day, my own faith in Jesus as the Truth was no more rational than someone who followed Stalin). Jesus was a much more likable and interesting guy, but the claims don’t begin to get there on their own merits.

Could you please elaborate on what these “claims” were that you considered and now reject?

 

[PRmerger]

I don’t accept that proposition.

Of course. Nor do I. The point is that if someone does, he must provide arguments supporting that proposition. They are, naturally, untenable.

You are operating from the position that proclaiming “Stalin is Truth” would be supported by reason.

Ok. I’ve done that. Now what? I don’t suppose I’m any more convinced by Stalin-worshipers than Jesus-worshipers, but again, to focus on that is to miss the salient caution: thinking of a person as Truth is itself a problem, prior to any consideration of any particular person as the Truth.

I can’t judge a rationale without considering it first, so I consider it all. But at the end of the day, my own faith in Jesus as the Truth was no more rational than someone who followed Stalin). Jesus was a much more likable and interesting guy, but the claims don’t begin to get there on their own merits. Other Christians as I pressed this were hardly more convincing on this than my own irrational mumblings when I pressed my own case.

Could you please elaborate on the arguments you considered supporting Jesus as Truth and that you now reject?

 

[PRmerger]

Yeah, it was sort of said that way, with a mischievous raising of the eyebrow. That guy keeps popping up, and people tell me I HAVE to read this guy! I don’t agree with Peter Kreeft, for example, but I think he’s a very smart, skilled thinker, and an earnest, straightforward guy. That’s a Catholic philosopher I would like to argue with, but can admire in my disagreeing with him.

Francis Beckwith is a guy who “swam the Tiber” around the time (shortly after, as I recall) I was getting my theological Speedo on, so to speak, and he was one of the few Evangelical thinkers I knew of that wasn’t an embarrassment. His move to Rome was something I followed closely, and his analysis of both the impoverishment of Protestantism in many important ways AND the fundamental ecumenism that existed on important issues like justification and sanctification despite all the Rome/Geneva sniping was quite close to my own reading as I spent more and more time looking into the RCC, and talking with local priests, and good, smart personal friends who’d been lifelong Catholics.

But this Feser dude keeps getting brought up, and it’s really disappointing, because it’s such a clownish, tone deaf approach to the subjects he takes on. And such high regard for his own schtick… philosophy is a highly overrated endeavor, but one gauge I find useful is the measure of a thinker, no matter what his views, from Nietzsche to Plantinga, Plato to Marx, is the thinker’s ability to be authentic in his/her self-criticism and self-scrutiny. Even if the analysis on that is wrong the effort can be seem. Kreeft and Beckwith have that.

Feser is a fail!

Anyway, I get referred to this guy’s writings and blog regularly, and I always end up thinking the referrer is trying to pull my log when I go read the guy. Really? This is what you want me to contend with??? That guy just elicits the very strong urge to roll one’s eyes and go find something else to do.

It really does confuse me.

-TS

Actually, I wasn’t referring you to “that guy”. I referred you to the thread that discussed Euthyphro’s dilemma.

 

[hecd2]

I don’t think you’ve “bottom-lined” the wager enough to see its true import. You’re still searching for speculative or deductive reasons to prop it up.

Ok let’s play with that a little and your clarifications below.

Belief matters very much if God exists and is the Christian God – one who wants you to have trust and take a leap of faith, but not demonstrative/certain knowledge. Obviously, if God is really a cosmic sadist, belief in him wouldn’t seem to matter as much. But then again, such a God is not worth wagering on.

Right, so here we see that we ware wagering not on the existence of an arbitrary God but on the Christian God with certain characteristics, one of which is His desire that we believe in Him, a desire that is so great that He determines our eternal well-being on whether or not we comply. And, sure, if such a God exists, believing in Him matters very much. So that is one term of the wager somewhat narrowed down and clarified. In other words, you are agreeing with my assessment when I say that to accept its terms we need to make a leap not just from unbelief to belief but from complete ignorance of His nature to assumptions about Him and how He will act in certain circumstances. But now we have some very weighty contrary possibilities to put in the other pan of the scales, including the jealous God or gods of other religions or a God who will act exactly counter to the assumption above by condemning believers and rewarding unbelievers. If such a God exists, believing, or rather not believing, in Him matters very much, but in this case, the terms of the wager are exactly reversed. Which way to place the bet?

The wager is made on the Christian conception of God. There is no way to falsify the idea that “God wants you to make an act of trust.” If he doesn’t exist, then what I’m saying is just wishful thinking and a sort of God of the gaps argument. But, if he does exist and does want you to make such a movement, then it is exactly what one should expect. And so again, we come to the wager.

See above. Why should I place the wager on the Christian concept of God (actually a rather narrower EENS-like concept where belief is a necessary condition for salvation) rather than on another concept?

Perhaps my language didn’t convey best my point.

I don’t think one ought to accept anything one has good reasons to think false. If you think your best reasoning shows that the Christian God is an impossibility, I think it would be a great sin (and though you’re not religious, I think you may agree) to delude yourself into thinking so.

Agreed. But I go further. I think it is wrong (for me anyway) to abandon reason and evidence as warrants for our foundational beliefs about reality, and to that extent acceding to a proposition for which there is no evidence and building one’s entire world view on that is as bad as accepting something that one is persuaded is an impossibility (which latter is not, of course, the case here). To maintain epistemic integrity, one must be afraid of deluding oneself (acceding to the proposition on the terms of the wager opens one up to self-delusion by the very abandoning of the need for a good warrant for belief)

But once the mind comes to the position where it sees that evidence does not compel either way: once, that is, reason has swept aside the contradictions in the Christian idea of God (as was the case with me), and once it sees that such an idea, though it could never be proven to be true, is nevertheless possible, then it falls in one’s lap whether they will actively believe or not.

There are all sorts of propositions for which there is no compelling evidence but which are not contradictory, and as far as I can see one’s proper position with regard to them is agnosticism

Again, perhaps “delusion” was a bad word-choice. I think of it as “actively believing” in what, in principle, I cannot know. And personally I see nothing wrong with that. Perhaps I am wrong? Yet nevertheless, I believe.

Yes, and if you’ll forgive me for speculating about your state of mind, I suspect that you believe, not on the grounds of the wager (ie on the basis of the consequences of belief or not belief), but because you find the idea of the Christian God (that idea carrying all sorts of import about His nature) consorts well with other ideas that you have about reality and the nature of the world, and this provides you with a good personal justification for your belief. Perhaps I’m wrong here, and then I hope you’ll explain more about how you are using the wager as the foundation for your belief.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[Betterave]

fair enough! But would you rely on feeling alone?

It’s tempting to say, sometimes that’s all we’ve got!

It’s also tempting to say, there’s no such thing as “relying on feeling alone” (at least I don’t know what that is supposed to mean).

And if you have choice?

If… What to do with the “if”? Not an easy question. I think ‘grown-up’ atheists try to avoid asking questions like that.

Yes, I know, and I’ve argued over this point in the past as well. Short term thinking is probably why we’re in the mess we’re in! Too much borrowing, not enough production! Irresponsibility is the inevitable reaction. Short term thinking is the ruin of most peoples lives way before the end, by which time, even the short term just gets grimmer - you can deny the passage of time, but it passes anyway…

But most atheists I know don’t seem to live so much in the short term, but in a sort of ‘clipped’ long run, as if to deny the consequences of an end, or percieve of procreation as extension of themselves, or somesuch distraction.

Of course; and their justification: “evolution made me do it.”
But in the end, this too can only be a visceral embrace of amor fati.

The continuation via imagined selves in infinite multiple realities we have no reason to believe exists except science fictional calculation appears popular as a current delusion, what with tying in neatly with tenuous explainations of our own unlikelihood to exist, but again, it’s an ideological extension of self - not a real one, and one more delusion of continuance - even if the overall scenario were real. I suppose that’s similar to Nietsche’s characteristically faulted concept of ‘eternity’ of self

It may be a delusion of continuance, but I don’t know if it’s a delusion of personal continuance. *That *kind of thing tends to be disdainfully dismissed.

 

[Betterave]

The more reason is applied, the worse the case gets for Jesus is Truth, I say. But if that touches off a tangent, best to spawn another thread if it’s to be pursued at all.

TS: You clearly seem to view yourself as some kind of apostle of reason. The question is: aren’t you just an irrational fundamentalist on this point? You go on and on about how reasonable you are, you repeatedly make the same blank assertions, again and again, but when your dogmas are criticized with specific arguments you inevitably fall back on more irrelevant general rambling about how rational you are, instead of addressing the criticisms of your view. It’s quite remarkable.

All this invites the question: What do you think “reason” is?

 

[Betterave]

Yes, but that’s a very reasonable and practical “simply”. My definition of gravity excludes gravity as a person, too, but hardly think that’s exclusionary in some negative way. If you read what I said above, I think I’ve given my reasons why “truth as a person” isn’t just unreasonable, but a kind of moral abdication (it validates Ghandi or Stalin unassailably just as well as Jesus).

Since TS is so frankly critical of the Church - although he is awfully chary when it comes to giving actual arguments backing his criticisms -, let us feel free to be brutally honest about his view: This is a pathetically stupid argument.

1. An assessment of a person as somehow being the embodiment of truth is clearly not unintelligible, although it does invite questions about the meaning of ‘truth’ (especially in this context).
2. It is also clearly not any kind of moral abdication.
3. Saying that “Jesus is the truth” also clearly does not “unassailably validate” Ghandi or Stalin - or Jesus, for that matter: the function of the statement is not to “unassailably validate” Jesus, whatever that squishy phrase is supposed to mean.

 

[Touchstone]

Actually, I wasn’t referring you to “that guy”. I referred you to the thread that discussed Euthyphro’s dilemma.

I understood that at the time, and wasn’t supposing you were pointing me at Feser. It was just one of the first things I noticed when I went where you pointed me. Feser, again!

Really, it was a distraction, sorry I brought it up.

-TS

 

[The_Exodus]

In other words, you are agreeing with my assessment when I say that to accept its terms we need to make a leap not just from unbelief to belief but from complete ignorance of His nature to assumptions about Him and how He will act in certain circumstances.

I don’t really see the dichotomy here I don’t guess. “Complete ignorance” may as well equate to “unbelief,” don’t you think?
hec:

But now we have some very weighty contrary possibilities to put in the other pan of the scales, including the jealous God or gods of other religions or a God who will act exactly counter to the assumption above by condemning believers and rewarding unbelievers. If such a God exists, believing, or rather not believing, in Him matters very much, but in this case, the terms of the wager are exactly reversed. Which way to place the bet?

But this seems to me not to undercut the bet but only to illustrate the conditions on which it can be made. I think that – personally speaking – the Christian God is the only one worth betting on.

The wager must be, it seems to me, a personal decision, for it is up to the individual to make his mind up regarding whether or not he thinks the Christian God is worth betting on.
hec:

Why should I place the wager on the Christian concept of God (actually a rather narrower EENS-like concept where belief is a necessary condition for salvation) rather than on another concept?

Well that would be up to you. Considering the pros and cons and the ideal to which you are committing yourself, it is necessarily a personal affair. If you feel that Zeus or Vishnu or John Calvin’s God is worth committing yourself to, then I think you ought seriously to consider the bet from that perspective.
hec:

I think it is wrong (for me anyway) to abandon reason and evidence as warrants for our foundational beliefs about reality, and to that extent acceding to a proposition for which there is no evidence and building one’s entire world view on that is as bad as accepting something that one is persuaded is an impossibility (which latter is not, of course, the case here).

Well I don’t see the situation nearly so bad as that. It seems to me I have no logical reasons to show that God’s existence is impossible or that Christ was not his son – unless I smuggle in my own preconceived notions. So I really see no problem in believing these things to be true. Mind you, I don’t claim at all to be able to “certainly know” or “demonstrate” such things, but as far as belief goes, I think it quite absurd (particularly on materialist grounds) to say it is “wrong” to believe in anything.
hec:

To maintain epistemic integrity, one must be afraid of deluding oneself (acceding to the proposition on the terms of the wager opens one up to self-delusion by the very abandoning of the need for a good warrant for belief).

Yes, but if the sort of God exists which I believe does, then the sort of warrant you are wanting (some absolute certainty) is not offered. It makes no sense to say you’ll make an act of faith but only after he has been proven to exist.
hec:

There are all sorts of propositions for which there is no compelling evidence but which are not contradictory, and as far as I can see one’s proper position with regard to them is agnosticism

I personally just don’t find agnosticism worth anything as far as the possible existence of the Christian God goes. It has perfectly zero merit. It is a pragmatically emtpy conclusion.

 

[PRmerger]

I understood that at the time, and wasn’t supposing you were pointing me at Feser. It was just one of the first things I noticed when I went where you pointed me. Feser, again!

Really, it was a distraction, sorry I brought it up.

-TS

Yes. It certainly was a peculiarly irrelevant comment. One has to wonder what your point was. I can’t help but think it was contrived to provide some sort of image of you you’d like us to consider?

 

[Mystic_Banana]

It’s tempting to say, sometimes that’s all we’ve got!

It’s also tempting to say, there’s no such thing as “relying on feeling alone” (at least I don’t know what that is supposed to mean).

Intuition? Instinct?

If… What to do with the “if”? Not an easy question. I think ‘grown-up’ atheists try to avoid asking questions like that.

Of course; and their justification: “evolution made me do it.”
But in the end, this too can only be a visceral embrace of amor fati.

Determinism, in practice can effectively work as a justification for anything… whether nature or nurture. Not that every atheist is a determinist.

It may be a delusion of continuance, but I don’t know if it’s a delusion of personal continuance. *That *kind of thing tends to be disdainfully dismissed.

I’ve heard it expressed in such a way - as a comforting thought of the self being elsewhere - odd.

I’ve also known atheists who talk of their children as extensions of themselves… to an extent personally I find really quite freaky, but there you go

 

[PRmerger]

Yes, but that’s a very reasonable and practical “simply”. My definition of gravity excludes gravity as a person, too, but hardly think that’s exclusionary in some negative way.

Ok. But let’s say you do propose “Gravity is a person. It’s Michael Moore.”

Now, I would certainly consider your proposal. I’d want to hear your arguments as to why Gravity is Michael Moore.

Similarly, when we propose “Truth is a person. It’s Jesus Christ”, you ought to consider the arguments as to why this has been proposed.

You claim you reject them, but I’d like to hear what arguments you reject first. It sounds like you’ve rejected the Arminian Protestant Evangelical argument, and I agree that there is much to reject in that paradigm.

However, it sounds as if you’ve not really been exposed to Catholic arguments as to why Jesus is Truth?

In addition to reading Veritatis Splendour, I suggest you also read the magnificent Fides et Ratio.

 

[PRmerger]

But the further down you go, the more hostile to reason Catholicism becomes,

No, certainly not hostile to reason, but definitely beyond reason. Supra-rational, so to speak.

For how reasoned is it to give your cloak to the one who has none?

How reasoned is it to lay down one’s life for a stranger, ala Maximilian Kolbe?

In fact if reason is what rules, then that poor Jewish prisoner in the concentration camp would not have had his life spared by Maximilian Kolbe’s sacrificial and holy gift of love. For reason (and atheism) would declare that it was illogical for Kolbe to cede his safety for a stranger.

No atheist has ever done anything even close to the sublime, unwarranted, and totally free gift of self as did St. Maximilian Kolbe.

 

[hecd2]

I don’t really see the dichotomy here I don’t guess. “Complete ignorance” may as well equate to “unbelief,” don’t you think?

I hear you and grasp your point but not sure I agree. The wager applies to agnosticism about the existence of a God… In order to make the terms intelligible we have to narrow down what God means in general and for us in particular. I don’t equate ignorance with unbelief, not even nearly, when so many believers say to me that they believe but that they cannot truly know. Can we believe in something that we are ignorant about? I think so - the ancients accepted the existence of the planets and stars in spite of being ignorant of what they are, how they behave and how they influence us (or not).

But this seems to me not to undercut the bet but only to illustrate the conditions on which it can be made. I think that – personally speaking – the Christian God is the only one worth betting on.

I don’t understand that and I must be missing something, because as I see it, the same PW logic applies to this different (and contrary with respect to the convention) concept of God, and the two concepts cannot be distinguished within the wager - we don’t know which way to bet if the wager logic is all we have. It seems to me that you are stepping outside the wager to make a choice based on some other preference or logic - and in that case what are you doing wagering at all? The concept of God that you adhere to comports with your preferences and with the rest of your world view and in that case you arrive at the wager already persuaded - you are guilty of insider dealing .

But look at the true agnostic - not only does he lack evidence and arguments for the existence of God but he also really has no way of telling how God, should He exist, will treat belief or unbelief - in this case, should he accept the PW, he really is gambling because not only has he no way of telling whether God exists, but he also bets on his existence not knowing what odds he is being given or whether a particular outcome will result in a win or a loss.

The wager must be, it seems to me, a personal decision, for it is up to the individual to make his mind up regarding whether or not he thinks the Christian God is worth betting on.

I agree that it’s a personal decision, of course, but what do you mean here by “worth betting on”? Isn’t this begging the question for the agnostic?

Well that would be up to you. Considering the pros and cons and the ideal to which you are committing yourself, it is necessarily a personal affair. If you feel that Zeus or Vishnu or John Calvin’s God is worth committing yourself to, then I think you ought seriously to consider the bet from that perspective.

OK - but doesn’t this undermine the wager as an argument for belief in any particular idea of God?

Well I don’t see the situation nearly so bad as that. It seems to me I have no logical reasons to show that God’s existence is impossible or that Christ was not his son – unless I smuggle in my own preconceived notions. So I really see no problem in believing these things to be true. Mind you, I don’t claim at all to be able to “certainly know” or “demonstrate” such things, but as far as belief goes, I think it quite absurd (particularly on materialist grounds) to say it is “wrong” to believe in anything.

I appreciate your position on this and the only response that I can make is that it’s not mine but thanks for sharing your perspective on that.

Yes, but if the sort of God exists which I believe does, then the sort of warrant you are wanting (some absolute certainty) is not offered. It makes no sense to say you’ll make an act of faith but only after he has been proven to exist.

Fair enough, but that sort of God is just what I can’t believe does exist. I’m not looking for absolute certainty (for after all what do we know with ‘absolute certainty’?), but I do need a degree of evidence that doesn’t undermine my epistemic integrity. But this is getting to our personal reasons for belief and unbelief - that’s fine; I don’t think there is anything exceptional in our positions - but I wonder to what extent these views colour our perception of PW. You see the wager only in terms of the God you already believe in, but I bring no such pre-conception to considering its merits as an argument.

At least we can agree, I think, that PW per se doesn’t help us to discern between different God concepts.

Alec
wwww.evolutionpages.com