Pascals Wager

[tafan]

Any citation from Pascal available here? I am very interested on it.

The argument from Pascal Wager’s, which I think is closest to what SteveGC posted:

“I confess it, I admit it. But, still, is there no means of seeing the faces of the cards?” Yes, Scripture and the rest, etc. “Yes, but I have my hands tied and my mouth closed; I am forced to wager, and am not free. I am not released, and am so made that I cannot believe. What, then, would you have me do?”

True. 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. You would like to attain faith and do not know the way; you would like to cure yourself of unbelief and ask the remedy for it. Learn of those who have been bound like you, and who now stake all their possessions. These are people who know the way which you would follow, and who are cured of an ill of which you would be cured. 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?

Lot’s of people are critical of Pascal’s wager, will comment endlessly on it, and never take the time to read it. I am always amazed by that.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

tafan

**Lot’s of people are critical of Pascal’s wager, will comment endlessly on it, and never take the time to read it. I am always amazed by that. **

They read the paragraph or two they think is the only part that counts. They are too lazy to read any further. The entire Pensees (1,000 thoughts) is the wager argument amplified in every possible direction.

 

[tafan]

tafan

**Lot’s of people are critical of Pascal’s wager, will comment endlessly on it, and never take the time to read it. I am always amazed by that. **

They read the paragraph or two they think is the only part that counts. They are too lazy to read any further. The entire Pensees (1,000 thoughts) is the wager argument amplified in every possible direction.

Maybe, but not the way I would look at it. I have read all of the Pensees, most of them seem unrelated to the wager. I only wish people would read 233, that would be sufficient to address 90% of the comments made against it.

I think I see his wager as just one of his many thoughts, but we will never know, since he did not have a chance to organize them into a book.

 

[tonyrey]

Maybe, but not the way I would look at it. I have read all of the Pensees, most of them seem unrelated to the wager. I only wish people would read 233, that would be sufficient to address 90% of the comments made against it.

I think I see his wager as just one of his many thoughts, but we will never know, since he did not have a chance to organize them into a book.

Pensee 226:

What say [the unbelievers] then? “Do we not see,” say they, “that the brutes live and die like men, and Turks like Christians? They have their ceremonies, their prophets, their doctors, their saints, their monks, like us,” etc. If you care but little to know the truth, that is enough to leave you in repose. But if you desire with all your heart to know it, it is not enough; look at it in detail. That would be sufficient for a question in philosophy; but not here, where everything is at stake. And yet, after a superficial reflection of this kind, we go to amuse ourselves, etc. Let us inquire of this same religion whether it does not give a reason for this obscurity; perhaps it will teach it to us.[15]

That seems to confirm his intention in writing the Pensees… He was anticipating Sartre and the inevitability of commitment.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

tafan

I have read all of the Pensees, most of them seem unrelated to the wager.

I have also read all of the Pensees, and draw the opposite conclusion; not that all of them are directly tied to the wager, but that they are tangentially tied to it in that Pascal was building a case to answer every objection that could be raised against the Catholic faith.

The original title that he meant to give Pensees was Defense of the Christian Religion. In all likelihood the wager argument was the crux of the defense so far as the atheists were concerned, but naturally to persuade an atheist to pick the Christian religion over all others, you would have to extend the wager argument to apply to every aspect of Christianity, including the wager that Christianity excels all other religions. This is very much what Pensees does.

As you say, these are notes for a planned book, rather than the final product. So naturally there would be reflections jotted down that might have been discarded in the final draft.

Don’t we all do that? I know I have.

 

[cho_pilo]

I’m all for common sense.

Are you saying that by means of common sense one can assess whether something is divine or not?

 

[Charlemagne_II]

cho pilo

Not by common sense alone. But also by revelation, some knowledge of history, an open heart, quiet meditation, and the grace of God. Pascal brings all these elements into play in his Pensees.

Keep in mind Pascal is not writing the book for Protestants. It is written for all who are not Christian, including Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Atheists, etc. That he was conscious of the rise of atheism in France in his lifetime there can be no doubt. This is why the wager argument is central to his thinking and the single passage for which he is most remembered in all of his works.

 

[cho_pilo]

tafan/tonyrey-
The passage you quote makes no difference for me.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

cho pilo

**The passage you quote makes no difference for me. **

Probably didn’t make any difference to Sartre either. Sartre had a closed heart, at least until the end, when there is evidence that he ceased to be an atheist. Apparently whatever he had read of Pascal (and no doubt he read at least some of Pascal) finally had its effect as Sartre neared the point when he realized that maybe he had bet on the wrong horse … atheism.

 

[tafan]

I have also read all of the Pensees, and draw the opposite conclusion; not that all of them are directly tied to the wager, but that they are tangentially tied to it in that Pascal was building a case to answer every objection that could be raised against the Catholic faith.

Of course they were trying to answer objections to the Catholic faith, that to me seems like it was Pascal’s main goal; not to support his wager. His wager was just another one of his answers. That’s all I was saying.

 

[tafan]

tafan/tonyrey-
The passage you quote makes no difference for me.

Have you read the pensees, in particular 233 in its entirety? You seem to be dodging that question. Maybe it makes no difference to your concern, because I provided a quote that is out of context to rest of the wager argument.

 

[Joel_PF]

Pascal’s Wager is not meant as a proof of God for the unbeliever, but as a persuasive argument to the vacillating believer, who is in doubt whether it is worth it to live up to the calling of Faith or whether to reject it all and just “take it easy”. It points that there is a lot to gain in accepting and living the Faith, and a lot to lose from giving it up.

Different religions increase the likelihood of God not existing? In a superficial sense, yes; but not any more than the different physical theories of the early Greek philosophers (“everything is water”, “everything came from fire”, “everything is made of atoms, some of which are spherical and therefore lighter”, etc.) made physics less credible.

The harder a kind of knowledge is to obtain, the more people will make wrong conclusions about it (look at economics!). Theological knowledge is among the hardest and the most distant from our everyday experience; so it is to be expected that many errors will be made regarding it.

Most of what Catholics know about God came from divine revelation, and not through rational inquiry. But the existence of God can be proved, and therefore atheism can be rejected on rational grounds.

And the basic things about God that can be known by our reason unaided by Faith are very widely known: that God exists, that He is all-powerful, that there is nothing greater than Him, that He is intelligent, that He knows everything, etc.

 

[SteveGC]

pilo, have a listen to Dr. Kreeft.

www.peterkreeft.com

All of his work is compelling, but specifically, download the “Arguments for God’s Existence” mp3. At the 34 minute mark, Pascal’s wager is discussed.

-Regards,

Steve

 

[tonyrey]

Have you read the pensees, in particular 233 in its entirety? You seem to be dodging that question. Maybe it makes no difference to your concern, because I provided a quote that is out of context to rest of the wager argument.

I have and you have not explained how and why it is inconsistent with 226 which
clearly states that** “everything is at stake”.**

 

[Charlemagne_II]

In the previous thread on Pascal that was closed we went over all this in great detail.

Clearly Pascal did not intend # 233 to be the only statement about the wager question. Though he did not organize the Pensees himself (it was done by others after his death) when you read the entire book from the point of view of what he was trying to do, you see that he is leading not only atheists but all others to the Christian faith by a process of reasoning that appeals to the knowledge of history as well as common sense and intuition.

For example, if the atheist can bring himself to be open to #233, the wager, he must begin to open himself to the question of which religion. There is no question that Pascal was marshaling together evidence for the Christian religion as the one most logically appealing to anyone who is looking for a God of “love and consolation” (his words).

There are other gods in other religions. Pascal asked if any one of them pretends to be, or proves himself to be, a God of “love and consolation.” Why would anyone seek to believe in a God who is not a God of love and consolation? One might prefer to choose such a god, make up such a god, even worship such a god, but why? Why would one will to imagine and worship an evil god? Perhaps only if one intended to advance one’s own evil purposes?

But if there is a good God, where do you find a better one than Christ?

I cannot offhand cite all the passages where Pascal makes these points, but I know they are there, and would have been there in even greater detail if he had lived to flesh out the book … which I suppose you could say we are left to flesh out for ourselves by following the trail he has blazed.

 

[razredge]

I personally think belief requires a gift of faith from God OR a leap of faith by the believer - belief really can’t come about by mere intellectual assent.

Perhaps there should be an similar ‘wager’ where rather than just believing there is a God in case there is one, you should live your life as if there was a God, in case there is one.

I think that makes for a stronger proposition (it would avoid the problem of why God would reward insincere faith).

 

[tafan]

I have and you have not explained how and why it is inconsistent with 226 which
clearly states that** “everything is at stake”.**

I am confused about this conversation, I thought I was asking another user a question, not challenging you. Sorry, I best bow out. I don’t have time to do this.

 

[cho_pilo]

Pensee 226:

That seems to confirm his intention in writing the Pensees… He was anticipating Sartre and the inevitability of commitment.

You are speaking with the benefit of hindsight.

And you seem to be alluding to Sartre’s eventual renunciation of his existentialist philosophy and turning to Christianity.
(Supposedly Camus had made arrangements for a baptism too shortly before his death.)

I agree that commitment is inevitable, but it is not clear to what or to what extent.

This is an issue that is very much alive for me. It may sound proud, but I would gauge Pascal’s stance to be one I was at until about two years ago.
I, too, thought “Well, just close your eyes and jump” - and at the time, it made sense, and I did it. But not for long. My “religious experiment” felt too much like a charade, it was a brute act of will, devoid of heart.
What Pascal says there simply strikes me as too simplistic.

 

[cho_pilo]

The argument from Pascal Wager’s, which I think is closest to what SteveGC posted:

Lot’s of people are critical of Pascal’s wager, will comment endlessly on it, and never take the time to read it. I am always amazed by that.

Let’s look at it.

“I confess it, I admit it. But, still, is there no means of seeing the faces of the cards?” Yes, Scripture and the rest, etc.

He seems to be alluding to deism there. They are the ones who question the credibility of special revelations and hence ‘can’t see the faces of the cards’. But Pascal, in his newly heightened religiosity, feels the pull of scripture and tips his hat to it.

“Yes, but I have my hands tied and my mouth closed; I am forced to wager, and am not free. I am not released, and am so made that I cannot believe. What, then, would you have me do?”

I’m not sure what that means or who “you” is. God? Or perhaps he’s addressing part of himself. This sounds like a cry of pain. Who or what ties his hands and closes his mouth? When he writes that he is “so made that he cannot believe”, he seems to be suggesting that he still hasn’t succeeded in throwing off all of his previous deist doubts.

True. 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.

This seems to be an accusation directed towards reason, since it’s what has brought him to “this”. It isn’t clear what ‘this’ is, but it likely refers to the existential predicament that he feels has trapped him. So if it’s reason that got him into trouble, then he isn’t going to be looking to reason to rescue him by increasing proofs of God. He needs to look elsewhere for the answer, to his passions, to his affective side.

You would like to attain faith and do not know the way; you would like to cure yourself of unbelief and ask the remedy for it.

I assume that he’s addressing himself in the third person there, along with others like him who want with all of their hearts to have calm and confident faith but can’t seem to find it.

Learn of those who have been bound like you, and who now stake all their possessions. These are people who know the way which you would follow, and who are cured of an ill of which you would be cured. Follow the way by which they began; by acting as if they believed, taking the holy water, having masses said, etc.

But the people that Pascal so envies, the people who placidly go to church, who perform the religous practices, and who believe so easily, were never people like Pascal. They aren’t intellectuals, they were never deist-style rationalists, and few if any of them have any sense that they are throwing dice into the dark.

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?

And that’s a very peculiar way to end. Does Pascal really dream of (and perhaps dispair of ever being capable of) deadening his own acuteness? The fear he refers to here seems to the fear of surrendering one’s critical intelligence.

My impression is that this isn’t really a straightforward presentation of the “wager” argument at all. Maybe he provides that elsewhere in another of his written ‘thoughts’. This quoted one seems to be a rather eloquent and moving expression of his own inner struggles.

 

[thecone137]

Choosing God is the only smart option…

webenhanced.lbcc.edu/philml/phil6ml/bigpic.html