Pascal's Wager Argument

[Charlemagne_II]

jonfawkes

*It is forcing belief where there is none, where belief is an affront to the unbelievers reason , BECAUSE …Pascal says there is a God one that will punish you if you don’t believe. That is the wager, it is in your self interest to believe. So even if you can’t, try anyway. Try and deceive yourself because it is better for you (the unbeliever) in the long run. *

I still can’t believe that as a Catholic you object to anyone finding Christ in this manner. He is not deceiving himself because you know there is a God, and the atheist now has a chance to find out for himself by opening up his mind an heart and learning to understand and love God.

Whew! :banghead:

 

[jonfawkes]

jonfawkes

*It is forcing belief where there is none, where belief is an affront to the unbelievers reason , BECAUSE …Pascal says there is a God one that will punish you if you don’t believe. That is the wager, it is in your self interest to believe. So even if you can’t, try anyway. Try and deceive yourself because it is better for you (the unbeliever) in the long run. *

I still can’t believe that as a Catholic you object to anyone finding Christ in this manner. He is not deceiving himself because you know there is a God, and the atheist now has a chance to find out for himself by opening up his mind an heart and learning to understand and love God.

Whew! :banghead:

Sigh - All I am saying is it is self deception. If a persons being is telling them “nope, not buying it” Pascal prescribes self deception as the cure. They have to trick themselves into believing. Regardless of the “truth” of the belief. I can believe it’s true, you can believe it’s true, 1.18 billion other Catholics can believe it’s true. If that one person can’t believe that it is true they have to trick themselves into believing. I’m not putting a value judgment on it.

You may not like the words deceit, trick, fool, pretend, etc but that is what Pascal is describing and prescribing.

Maybe you like this better:

He is advocating a Holistic cure. Using self deceit to cure the self deceit of atheism.

:banghead:

 

[Charlemagne_II]

jonfawkes
*
If that one person can’t believe that it is true they have to trick themselves into believing. I’m not putting a value judgment on it. *

Why call it a trick of self deception? Where does Pascal say that the atheist should deceive himself? He says only that one might act as if God exists, and from that action learn that God does exist.

When the Wright brothers acted as if they could invent a machine that could fly, were they deceiving themselves when they discovered that the machine could fly? They were not certain it could fly when they began to experiment, any more than the atheist can be certain that God exists when he experiments with God by giving God the benefit of the doubt and investing himself in the process of discovery. And when the convert discovers later the proof of his trust, which is obtained not by the knowledge of God, but by the love of God, he is home free and there is no longer any “as if” left.

 

[jonfawkes]

jonfawkes
*
If that one person can’t believe that it is true they have to trick themselves into believing. I’m not putting a value judgment on it. *

Why call it a trick of self deception? Where does Pascal say that the atheist should deceive himself? He says only that one might act as if God exists, and from that action learn that God does exist.

From Sec III paragraph 233 -

Endeavour, then, to convince yourself, not by increase of proofs of God, but by the abatement of your passions.

Don’t use logic, but rather quiet your disbelief. How?

Follow the way by which they began; by acting as if they believed, taking the holy water, having masses said, etc. Even this will naturally make you believe, and deaden your acuteness. “But this is what I am afraid of.” And why? What have you to lose? But to show you that this leads you there, it is this which will lessen the passions, which are your stumbling-blocks.

Pretend that you believe. It will deaden your reason, which is holding you back from the truth.

When the Wright brothers acted as if they could invent a machine that could fly, were they deceiving themselves when they discovered that the machine could fly? They were not certain it could fly when they began to experiment, any more than the atheist can be certain that God exists when he experiments with God by giving God the benefit of the doubt and investing himself in the process of discovery. And when the convert discovers later the proof of his trust, which is obtained not by the knowledge of God, but by the love of God, he is home free and there is no longer any “as if” left.

Pascal also says In Sec III, Paragraph 233 -

by faith we know His existence; in glory we shall know His nature.

and

We are then incapable of knowing either what He is or if He is.

He is not appealing to empirical evidence. It is faith.

Again Sec III, Paragraph 233 -

But at least learn your inability to believe, since reason brings you to this, and yet you cannot believe. Endeavour, then, to convince yourself, not by increase of proofs of God, but by the abatement of your passions.

Reason is the downfall of the faithless. You have to convince yourself in spite of your reason. God isn’t scientifically provable. You can’t get there that way. It is only achievable by faith.

Pascal’s advice to the faithless, deaden your reason and pretend you have faith until you achieve it.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

jonfawkes
*
Pascal’s advice to the faithless, deaden your reason and pretend you have faith until you achieve it.*

I’m a bit puzzled by the disconnectedness of your quotes from Pascal. Where in these quotes does Pascal say the atheist should lie to himself about believing in God?

If anything, his continual theme throughout Pensees is that reason is misleading the atheist, and that his passion for reasoning in the wrong way needs to be subdued. The acting as if is a way of overcoming the passion to reason against God. It is simply a matter of giving in, of yielding to God, of opening up one’s mind and one’s heart to let the Spirit of God enter that the soul’s love of God may begin to return upon that Spirit. This is accomplished by seeking God, rather than fleeing from Him. How do we begin to seek if we do not grant God the benefit of the doubt when our reason and passions have thus far refused to do so?

As Pascal says:

“He (God) has given signs of Himself which are visible to those who seek Him, and not to those who do not seek Him…. It would not have been right, therefore, for Him to appear in a way that was plainly divine and absolutely bound to convince all mankind; but it was not right either that he should come in a manner so hidden that He could not be recognized by those who sought Him sincerely. He chose to make Himself perfectly knowable to them; and thus, wishing to appear openly to those who sought Him with all their heart, and hidden from those who flee Him with all their heart, He tempered the knowledge of Himself, with the result that He had given signs of Himself which are visible to those who seek Him, and not to those who do not seek Him.”

But how can a man seek God if he is passionately reasoning against God? The door must be opened somehow. A man must turn the knob to open the door. Giving God the benefit of the doubt, acting as if, turns the knob and the door begins to open with the hope that Someone is waiting on the other side of the door.

It may take days, weeks, months, years to get through that door.

Conversion is not an instantaneous motion of the soul toward faith. The soul moves gradually toward God, just as it has moved gradually away from Him in most instances. I believe this is where you do not give Pascal credit for the psychological insight he has expressed, and you have even touched on, in the quotes you cited.

Try not to just offer quotes from Pascal. Reason more about what Pascal is really saying in between the lines. If you have read Pensees in its entirety, you know that Pascal talks also about humility. The atheist needs to suppress the passionately arrogant lies he has been told, or has told himself, about God. The atheist needs to concede the possibility of a brain and a heart vastly bigger than his own. Again, acting as if is the first step in the suppression of arrogance, to be followed by other steps on the journey to faith.

Why not dip one’s finger in the holy water, make the sign of the cross, and begin the journey of faith? Or as Pascal says in the wager argument: you have everything to gain and everything to lose if it’s all true.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

jonfawkes

It has been a real pleasure jousting with you.

But I think we are pretty much played out and repeating ourselves* ad nauseam* at this point. Don’t you agree?

This will be my last post in this thread.

God bless and thanks to all who participated. :sad_bye:

 

[jonfawkes]

We are describing the same process - denying reason to hopefully develop faith.

You find Pascals language and reasoning seductive, I don’t.

Peace be with you.

 

[Candide_West]

No, it is certainly not based on that general position. It is based on the claim that *in certain situations *we are forced to take a definitive stance - belief in God, or unbelief, being one of those situations (which claim we can discuss as necessary).

Ok, fair correction, that is the basis. But I’m not convinced I agree that we must be definative. To me simply “I don’t know” seems logical given pascals starting point of “we cannot know what he is or if he is”. I don’t see a definitive being forced on me.

So your question is: why is this a bad analogy to Pascal’s wager? It is because you have no reason to think there’s a madman behind you. And if you did think there was such a risk, you wouldn’t just sit there repeatedly turning around, would you? You would try to secure yourself from danger. If there were no way to do so, there’s not much to say: you’d just have to take your chances.

So you’re right (first two sentences above), but you’re wrong, since part of the point of the wager is to point out to the atheist that he does have reasons and that he can do something about securing himself.

Hmmm, I may have completely missed the point here, my understanding of the wager is that pascal was trying to start out at a 50:50, is or is not and then say that even accepting the 50:50 odds you should still believe because the cost / benefit ratio is so high. Hence no need for judgement of evidence. But you are saying that pascal was trying to introduce judgement of the evidence as well?

I suppose it still fits with my original statement though, the wager is meaningless without evidence to support the proposition. Just like my sneaky stabber. If you introduce evidence to support the proposition then the wager stands or falls on the quality of that evidence, just like any other argument for the existence of God. Equally the proposition that I should take action about sneaky stabber is dependent on the quality of the evidence that someone is trying to kill me, not only on the postulated consequences. As far as I can see the analogy stands.

 

[Betterave]

Again this is Pascal’s advice to the “non-believer” - not advice to a Catholic, one that says “hey, I’m just not built that way, what am I to do”

He says go through the motions,pretend, try it, you may believe one day. You will quiet you rational objections.

Where does he say “pretend,” which, as I have repeatedly pointed out, is semantically equivalent to “try to fool God” in this context?

Again, I never said the intention was to fool God. Never.

Again, read post 737 in its entirety - you objected to this and the fact that you never typed the words “fool God” (other than to deny that you had typed them) is irrelevant: that is what your objection amounted to.

Jon, your objections are demonstrably absurd and you repeatedly ignore the demonstrations that are offered of their absurdity. Would you say that you are here as someone who is genuinely open to the truth and ready to admit when he is wrong, so as to engage in real constructive dialogue? Could you please seriously look at yourself and answer honestly?

 

[Betterave]

Sorry, Augustine.

Reverse construction doesn’t mean I’m denying the antecedent.

Do you even know what denying the antecendent means??

He making the assumptions. It is a very Catholic argument, I don’t disagree with it. I’m just pointing out that it makes Catholic assumptions not shared by everyone, therefore not universally convincing or applicable. If you don’t agree with his initial assumption that man is created to praise God. The rest falls apart. That is true for the subsequent assumptions.

So you think that his assumption is correct? If it is, then the rest doesn’t fall apart.

Obviously if the premises of any argument are false, the argument will not be sound. But an argument doesn’t fall apart just because someone might believe that one (or more) of its premises is false. In any case, unless the unbeliever *knows *that the premise is false - and Pascal shows that he *cannot *know this -, then the wager still applies.

 

[Betterave]

Ok, fair correction, that is the basis. But I’m not convinced I agree that we must be definative. To me simply “I don’t know” seems logical given pascals starting point of “we cannot know what he is or if he is”. I don’t see a definitive being forced on me.

First, Pascal claims that we cannot know by reason… and we’ll need to look at what he means by that.

Second, that is clearly not enough to show that nothing is being forced on you. Consider if someone says to you, “You have until 5 o’clock to invest in this company and you have a lot to gain by doing so.” You can’t say, “I don’t *know *whether it is a good investment or not, so I will exercise my epistemically-grounded prerogative to simply not make a decision” - if you haven’t said “yes” by five o’clock, then you’ve said “no.” That’s just the reality of the situation.

Hmmm, I may have completely missed the point here, my understanding of the wager is that pascal was trying to start out at a 50:50, is or is not and then say that even accepting the 50:50 odds you should still believe because the cost / benefit ratio is so high. Hence no need for judgement of evidence. But you are saying that pascal was trying to introduce judgement of the evidence as well?

Certainly he was: for starters he was pointing out that neither the rational proofs nor their refutations were in fact rationally compelling.

I suppose it still fits with my original statement though, the wager is meaningless without evidence to support the proposition. Just like my sneaky stabber. If you introduce evidence to support the proposition then the wager stands or falls on the quality of that evidence, just like any other argument for the existence of God. Equally the proposition that I should take action about sneaky stabber is dependent on the quality of the evidence that someone is trying to kill me, not only on the postulated consequences. As far as I can see the analogy stands.

But you’ve missed the point: the wager doesn’t attempt to start from a blank slate; it starts from a slate that is full of inconclusive proofs and counter-proofs which somehow need to be resolved. And they do need to be resolved somehow, just as the decision to invest by 5 o’clock or not does. There is no such *full *slate or *forced *decision when it comes to your sneaky stabber.

 

[jonfawkes]

Where does he say “pretend,” which, as I have repeatedly pointed out, is semantically equivalent to “try to fool God” in this context?

Again, read post 737 in its entirety - you objected to this and the fact that you never typed the words “fool God” (other than to deny that you had typed them) is irrelevant: that is what your objection amounted to.

Jon, your objections are demonstrably absurd and you repeatedly ignore the demonstrations that are offered of their absurdity. Would you say that you are here as someone who is genuinely open to the truth and ready to admit when he is wrong, so as to engage in real constructive dialogue? Could you please seriously look at yourself and answer honestly?

As I have said repeatedly when I say pretend I am talking about self delusion. Not trying to fool God.

Please go read 737 and see that isn’t my post. I didn’t write anything in 737.

This is what I am saying -

forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=7677672&postcount=821

 

[Betterave]

As I have said repeatedly when I say pretend I am talking about self delusion. Not trying to fool God.

That is idiotic, though, jon. Pascal did not believe that we are justified in the eyes of God through God’s seeing that we have wilfully engaged in self-delusion (I don’t think *anyone *believes that!).

Please go read 737 and see that isn’t my post. I didn’t write anything in 737.

I know it’s not your post. It is the post you objected to and as such it sets the context for interpreting your objection.

This is what I am saying -

forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=7677672&postcount=821

So you appear to be saying that “abate your passions” implies “deaden your reason”? But you have that completely wrong. The abatement of passion is supposed to allow reason to function properly. And this idea is hardly Pascal’s invention.

 

[Betterave]

jon, remember that for Pascal the heart has reasons - he means that. (He doesn’t *really *mean the heart has no reasons.) Pascal thinks that reason in the narrow sense gets stuck and he tries to prove this using reason (similar to Kant’s antinomies of reason). Therefore the reasons of the heart must be used to get beyond the impasse created by the use of pure reason in the narrow sense (something which again has a counterpart in Kant’s philosophy: the postulates of practical reason).

 

[jonfawkes]

That is idiotic, though, jon. Pascal did not believe that we are justified in the eyes of God through God’s seeing that we have wilfully engaged in self-delusion (I don’t think *anyone *believes that!).

It’s not about being justified in the eyes of God, it’s about gaining faith. But yes I do think it’s idiotic though.

I know it’s not your post. It is the post you objected to and as such it sets the context for interpreting your objection.

I wasn’t condoning what he said but rather discounting your objection.

But your construal of the wager is fallacious: it’s a straw man. Obviously Pascal isn’t recommending simply going through the motions, not really meaning it, and merely pretending to do God’s will (whatever that would entail). Where did you get that idea from?

Pascal does prescribe going through the motions - “do the rituals see if it helps.” If there is no faith behind the rituals you are just going through the motions.

So you appear to be saying that “abate your passions” implies “deaden your reason”? But you have that completely wrong. The abatement of passion is supposed to allow reason to function properly. And this idea is hardly Pascal’s invention.

“If your reason doesn’t lead you to faith you aren’t thinking correctly” How Orwellian, I’m sure very convincing to an Atheist

 

[jonfawkes]

jon, remember that for Pascal the heart has reasons - he means that. (He doesn’t *really *mean the heart has no reasons.) Pascal thinks that reason in the narrow sense gets stuck and he tries to prove this using reason (similar to Kant’s antinomies of reason). Therefore the reasons of the heart must be used to get beyond the impasse created by the use of pure reason in the narrow sense (something which again has a counterpart in Kant’s philosophy: the postulates of practical reason).

Faith is love The head and heart don’t have align, and seldom do. You can’t force love.

 

[Betterave]

It’s not about being justified in the eyes of God, it’s about gaining faith. But yes I do think it’s idiotic though.

I’m glad you recognize that. Now try to recognize that it is idiotic for you to attribute that idiotic idea to Pascal.

I wasn’t condoning what he said but rather discounting your objection.

Uh, yeah! - but obviously discounting my objection *implies *defending what he said (that to which I was objecting!).

Pascal does prescribe going through the motions - “do the rituals see if it helps.” If there is no faith behind the rituals you are just going through the motions.

There must be a kind of faith, i.e., intellectual assent, as well as acting in good faith, grounding “going through the motions,” though - can’t you see that? Otherwise you would never even “go through the motions.” It’s probably not an affective faith to begin with, it’s not love (you can’t love someone you don’t believe in), but it is the expression of a desire for love, which is in fact the start of love.

“If your reason doesn’t lead you to faith you aren’t thinking correctly” How Orwellian, I’m sure very convincing to an Atheist

Your comment here is stupid and has nothing to do with what I wrote.

 

[Betterave]

Faith is love The head and heart don’t have align, and seldom do. You can’t force love.

What a completely random and senseless response.

 

[jonfawkes]

I’m glad you recognize that. Now try to recognize that it is idiotic for you to attribute that idiotic idea to Pascal.

Uh, yeah! - but obviously discounting my objection *implies *defending what he said (that to which I was objecting!).

There must be a kind of faith, i.e., intellectual assent, as well as acting in good faith, grounding “going through the motions,” though - can’t you see that? Otherwise you would never even “go through the motions.” It’s probably not an affective faith to begin with, it’s not love (you can’t love someone you don’t believe in), but it is the expression of a desire for love, which is in fact the start of love.

Your comment here is stupid and has nothing to do with what I wrote.

Pascal does prescribe self delusion, and that’s what I think is idiotic.

No, I can disagree with both of you. I think he is wrong and you are wrong, for different reasons. For him - I don’t you can trick God. For you - Pascal does prescribe going through the motions.

No I can’t see that - It says to avoid a punishment that you don’t believe in and to receive a reward that you don’t believe in, practice these rituals you don’t believe in, It’s going through the motions. It isn’t the desire for love. It is the avoiding of possible punishment and the gain of possible reward. Because, the effort of going through the motions, according to Pascal is without cost. Which is ridiculous. There is a cost to everything. Time, effort, physiological well being etc. It’s a stupid argument for faith.

It is in direct response to what you wrote.If you are not thinking in the proper thoughts, your ability to think must be in someway malformed. It is also ridiculous. Also a stupid argument for faith.

 

[jonfawkes]

What a completely random and senseless response.

“The heart has it’s reasons” - He’s talking about love. Not the heart “thinking”.

Do you have Asperger’s? I’m not trying to be insulting here. You seem to be missing a point to faith and love that Pascal is making.