Pascal's Wager

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“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.”

So we have a choice: we can perish, or we can belief in Jesus and have eternal life. Not far off of Pascal’s Wager.
 
empther said:
From post 41

**??? ** :coffeeread: :hmmm: 🤷

Has absolutely nothing to do with Pascal’s Wager.
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The unjust steward was faced with the same win or lose situation depicted by Pascal’s Wager. He was facing losing it all (being fired) and wagered on the option of “purchasing” the good will of others - the good will he could not be certain would eventually pay off. He was taking a gamble. Either lose it all, which would happen because he was fired (in Pascal’s terms: eternal death) or option to “buy” the good will of others (in Pascal’s terms: live a life being good toward others) which might pay off. The reason for the steward acting as he did was identical to the motive recommended by Pascal - he has nothing to lose and everything to gain.

The kicker is that God (the landowner in the parable) “commended” the steward - this entails that God will, at least, honour the steward’s action even though it was out of self-interest. By implication, God will also honour anyone taking the step depicted in Pascal’s Wager (doing good to others or, essentially, living a good life) even if it is done out of self-interest.

The lesson of the Unjust Servant parable is, in Jesus’ words, “I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.” Why would Jesus set the “bait” for the Wager by making that recommendation if he will not respect someone taking the option in the Wager (using worldly wealth, acting from self-interest) as at least being a step in the right direction, even if it is not from a perfect motive.
 
“The reason the argument seems absurd is because you are using absurd premises.”
Peter Plato
The concept of Brahman is very sophisticated and tho most likely does not instantiate thefreedictionary.com/instantiation ,the concept is not absurd… (See link at post 31). Actually, that does not matter because post 31 shows the absurdity of the propositions is not the issue. I was showing that Pascal’s wager is an invalid argument. See post 31 for the difference between validity and truth.

Note that one can believe in the conclusion of an argument ( that believing in God is beneficial) and still believe that it is an invalid argument. For example, I also believe in the conclusion reached in the following syllogism but find the argument not only invalid but silly.
  1. Dogs are mammals.
  2. Frank Sinatra was a great singer.
  3. Therefore God exists.
 
wittgenstein said:
“The reason the argument seems absurd is because you are using absurd premises.”
Peter Plato
The concept of Brahman is very sophisticated and tho most likely does not instantiate thefreedictionary.com/instantiation ,the concept is not absurd… (See link at post 31). Actually, that does not matter because post 31 shows the absurdity of the propositions is not the issue. I was showing that Pascal’s wager is an invalid argument. See post 31 for the difference between validity and truth.

Note that one can believe in the conclusion of an argument ( that believing in God is beneficial) and still believe that it is an invalid argument. For example, I also believe in the conclusion reached in the following syllogism but find the argument not only invalid but silly.
  1. Dogs are mammals.
  2. Frank Sinatra was a great singer.
  3. Therefore God exists.
Click to expand...
It wasn’t meant to be a syllogistic argument or proof for the existence of God, more like a persuasive “proof” based on weighing pros and cons for acting as if God does exist in spite of uncertainty, as I showed in post #38.

More like a reason for acting in a certain way rather than for believing an uncertain proposition to be true.
 
tafan said:
I don’t have a good answer, for a couple of reasons.
I don’t see Pascal’s Wager as something to live by. As I have said, its a starting point. Oh, I will admit, at least once in my life it has been a “restart”. You find yourself supposedly deserted, alone, and faith is lacking a bit, and then you realize that the first thing to do is tackle you lack of faith.

More importantly, I could not begin to describe the world if it truly lived by the Catholic faith. Such a scenario is just too hypothetical for me, beyond saying it would be much, much better than it is.
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I am with you that the Wager is only a beginning point…not a way of life. What I meant by my question was if people used it as a beginning point how would that influence the world?
 
wittgenstein
**
Note that one can believe in the conclusion of an argument ( that believing in God is beneficial) and still believe that it is an invalid argument. For example, I also believe in the conclusion reached in the following syllogism but find the argument not only invalid but silly.
  1. Dogs are mammals.
  2. Frank Sinatra was a great singer.
  3. Therefore God exists. **
The “following syllogism” you identified is not even a syllogism. Why do you call it one? None of the three elements relate to each other. In a syllogism, even an invalid one, there must be some connections stated between/among the two premises and the conclusion.

Here are Pascal’s implied syllogisms:

Anyone who chooses to believe in God has a chance at salvation.
I am a person who believes in God.
I have a chance at salvation.

Alternate syllogism.

Anyone who chooses not to believe in God has no chance at salvation.
I am a person who chooses not to believe in God.
I have no chance at salvation.

Both of the above syllogisms are valid (logical). Which syllogism would you choose to apply to yourself? Pascal reckons that if you have a modicum of common sense, you would choose the first, rather than the second.

The first syllogism’s major premise relies upon whether there is a God to believe in. Pascal allows that this cannot be proven. The second syllogism’s major premise relies upon whether there is no God. Again, that cannot be proven.

Since neither major premise can be proven, which is the premise you will gamble on? Only a fool would bet on the second major premise. The fool is one who gives up hope when there is no reason to give up hope. There may be a will to give up hope, but that is far from a convincing reason to give up hope.

Hope will be the pathway to furthering our self interest.
Believing in God will give us hope.
Believing in God will be a pathway to furthering our self interest.

Despair of eternal life will not be the pathway to furthering our self interest.
Atheism leads to despair of eternal life.
Atheism will not be a pathway to furthering our self interest.

Yes, self interest is at the core of Pascal’s argument. But when did Christ not lay down his ultimate offer based on self interest and the fear of throwing away our self interest?

“Everyone who acknowledges me before others I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father. But whoever denies me before others, I will deny before my heavenly Father.” Matthew 10:32-33
 
jmj
**
I am with you that the Wager is only a beginning point…not a way of life. What I meant by my question was if people used it as a beginning point how would that influence the world? **

Only God knows. 👍
 
The unjust steward was faced with the same win or lose situation depicted by Pascal’s Wager. He was facing losing it all (being fired) and wagered on the option of “purchasing” the good will of others - the good will he could not be certain would eventually pay off. He was taking a gamble. Either lose it all, which would happen because he was fired (in Pascal’s terms: eternal death) or option to “buy” the good will of others (in Pascal’s terms: live a life being good toward others) which might pay off. The reason for the steward acting as he did was identical to the motive recommended by Pascal - he has nothing to lose and everything to gain.
Click to expand...
The unjust steward knew that his master existed, and knew that he had sinned which he could only know if he believed his master existed, and did good to others to ingratiate himself with the master.
Has nothing to do with Pascal’s Wager.
The kicker is that God (the landowner in the parable) “commended” the steward - this entails that God will, at least, honour the steward’s action even though it was out of self-interest. By implication, God will also honour anyone taking the step depicted in Pascal’s Wager (doing good to others or, essentially, living a good life) even if it is done out of self-interest.
Click to expand...
Yes, Jesus commands us to do good to others.
Has nothing to do with Pascal’s Wager.
The lesson of the Unjust Servant parable is, **in Jesus’ words, “I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.” **Why would Jesus set the “bait” for the Wager by making that recommendation if he will not respect someone taking the option in the Wager (using worldly wealth, acting from self-interest) as at least being a step in the right direction, even if it is not from a perfect motive.
Click to expand...
Again…
Yes, Jesus commands us to do good to others. But here he is talking to believers, otherwise it would not be a command.
Has nothing to do with Pascal’s Wager.
 
empther

“Everyone who acknowledges me before others I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father. But whoever denies me before others, I will deny before my heavenly Father.” Matthew 10:32-33

Does that have anything to do with Pascal’s wager?

Gain heaven or lose it all?
 
empther said:
Written by Pascal, you mean.
Interesting that neither the Bible nor the Catechism of the Catholic Church use it as a starting point. It must not be very useful in practice.
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Well, it is addressed to a small audience: the ones who really have no idea if God exists. The ones who can look at all the arguments trying to demonstrate that God exists - and arguments trying to demonstrate that He does not - and say “It is all so complicated! What am I supposed to do?!”.

If someone does not belong to such a group (as one might guess, “almost none” of the Catholics and “almost none” of the atheists belong to it), then the Pascal’s Wager stops at the point where Pascal says “According to reason, you can defend neither of the propositions.”. The rest of it simply does not apply.

And someone who becomes a Catholic on the basis of Pascal’s Wager can be expected to find a lot of evidence that makes Pascal’s Wager irrelevant. That is another reason why this argument is not useful for most of the people.

But if you really did run into someone who was sufficiently confused to belong to the intended audience of the Pascal’s Wager (yes, that is not very likely), or somehow managed to get an atheist to that point using other arguments (yes, that is also not very likely), what would you do? Do you still think that using Pascal’s Wager would be a bad idea in that case? And what other options would you have?
 
empther said:
The unjust steward knew that his master existed, and knew that he had sinned which he could only know if he believed his master existed, and did good to others to ingratiate himself with the master.
Has nothing to do with Pascal’s Wager.

Yes, Jesus commands us to do good to others.
Has nothing to do with Pascal’s Wager.

Again…
Yes, Jesus commands us to do good to others. But here he is talking to believers, otherwise it would not be a command.
Has nothing to do with Pascal’s Wager.
Click to expand...
In both, there is an “uncertain” possible good that may result (the gamble or wager, so to speak) that is crucial to the situation. In the Parable, the uncertain “good” is the possibility of being received into the company of those whose debts were reduced by the actions of the Unjust Servant. In Pascal’s Wager the uncertain “good” is being received into the company of Heaven because of the choice of actions, good done or even the forgiveness of others debts. (As you forgive so you shall be forgiven.)

In a sense, the existence of God (or Master) is a “background” to the dilemma in both cases, because “belief” in God (Master) is sort of irrelevant - as James (2:19) says, “The devils also believe,” but that is not sufficient to be saved. It is the action that one takes that is the crucial element of the wager.
 
Peter
**
“The devils also believe,” but that is not sufficient to be saved.**

Belief is not sufficient to be saved. But lack of belief is sufficient to be damned. That is the point of Pascal’s Wager. In Pensees he goes on, after discussing the Wager, to show how belief grows into conviction and conviction grows, or should grow, into virtue. Many critics of Pascal’s Wager isolate the argument and disregard the fact that it is prelude to a whole host of other arguments in favor of Christianity, including the wisdom of why the thoughtful and searching person should choose the Christian God over all others. Most atheists like to raise that objection: What if I choose to believe in the wrong God? The fact that they even ask the question proves that they have never read Pensees in its entirety and have never seen how Pascal labors to answer every objection to his argument.
 
Charlemagne_II said:
Peter
**
“The devils also believe,” but that is not sufficient to be saved.**

Belief is not sufficient to be saved. But lack of belief is sufficient to be damned. That is the point of Pascal’s Wager. In Pensees he goes on, after discussing the Wager, to show how belief grows into conviction and conviction grows, or should grow, into virtue. Many critics of Pascal’s Wager isolate the argument and disregard the fact that it is prelude to a whole host of other arguments in favor of Christianity, including the wisdom of why the thoughtful and searching person should choose the Christian God over all others. Most atheists like to raise that objection: What if I choose to believe in the wrong God? The fact that they even ask the question proves that they have never read Pensees in its entirety and have never seen how Pascal labors to answer every objection to his argument.
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Two things:

First, you have to be careful how you define belief here. For example, those who are invincibly ignorant still have the possibility of salvation if they seek God with a sincere heart. One can argue how broadly this actually applies, but it does seem to imply that lack of belief (in these sense of explicit mental acceptance) is not sufficient for damnation.

Of course, there may be a way to say that those who are seeking but lack the circumstances to know explicitly what they are seeking actually do believe that there is a higher good that they should serve, and so in some way to believe in God without realizing it explicitly. Or not. But if not, then because of invincible ignorance, one cannot say that all who do not believe are damned.

Second, belief in this sense can be seen as an action.

[Slight tangent to address a common objection]Many people have said that you can’t decide what you believe - but this is simply not true. You have limited influence over your gut feelings about things, and your emotional reaction to ideas (though those can be trained as well), but one can make an act of the will that says “x is true and I will behave as such whether my gut agrees that this makes sense or not.”

Some say that this belief as an action of will seems sinister, like self brainwashing - but it isn’t, and in fact is done in math classes all the time with hard or weird concepts (You mean a curve of infinite length can enclose a finite area? A curve of finite length can enclose an infinite area? Time slows down as you move faster!!11!??1?!1?//1?!!/1!?!?!1).[/tangent]

And after making this act of will to believe, and working with the concepts, the truth of the concepts does become more apparent, as you (and Pascal) say. So if belief is thought of as an action, there’s no contradiction here.

Again, note that this isn’t a requirement to somehow force one’s gut to go along with it. That will take care of itself. It’s the action of “I will decide to treat this statement as true.”
 
Iron Donkey

In this thread I think we are not talking about invincible ignorance. If the atheist is even remotely aware that Christ has offered himself for our salvation, and he refuses to believe, Christ himself has promised the sad judgment.

“Everyone who acknowledges me before others I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father. But whoever denies me before others, I will deny before my heavenly Father.” Matthew 10:32-33

Christ will sort out the invincible from the vincible. 🤷
 
Charlemagne_II said:
Iron Donkey

In this thread I think we are not talking about invincible ignorance. If the atheist is even remotely aware that Christ has offered himself for our salvation, and he refuses to believe, Christ himself has promised the sad judgment.

“Everyone who acknowledges me before others I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father. But whoever denies me before others, I will deny before my heavenly Father.” Matthew 10:32-33

Christ will sort out the invincible from the vincible. 🤷
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Is the lack of conviction about the existence of something a rejection to that something? I don’t think it is.

If I tell you that your dead bird is alive and he exists somehow on a tree and what I said didn’t convince you for some reasons you are almost sure he’s dead, is your lack of conviction about your bird’s existence a rejection to him?

No, if your bird appeared to you somehow on your window, you’ll probably hug him. 😛
 
“The “following syllogism” you identified is not even a syllogism. Why do you call it one? None of the three elements relate to each other. In a syllogism, even an invalid one, there must be some connections stated between/among the two premises and the conclusion.”
Charlemagne II
Actually, it is a syllogism, an invalid one. Syllogisms are constantly being proven invalid. There is such a thing as an invalid syllogism. I think you are making a very minor grammatical point that is not correct. An invalid syllogism is one whose premises do not connect.
 
Peter_Plato said:
It wasn’t meant to be a syllogistic argument or proof for the existence of God, more like a persuasive “proof” based on weighing pros and cons for acting as if God does exist in spite of uncertainty, as I showed in post #38.

More like a reason for acting in a certain way rather than for believing an uncertain proposition to be true.
Click to expand...
Yes, that is why I said that it does not prove that ( from a purely selfish perspective) that believing in God is beneficial.
My Frank Sinatra syllogism was meant to show that one can believe in the conclusion of the syllogism and yet still believe that the syllogism is invalid.
 
wittgenstein
**
Actually, it is a syllogism, an invalid one. Syllogisms are constantly being proven invalid. There is such a thing as an invalid syllogism. I think you are making a very minor grammatical point that is not correct. An invalid syllogism is one whose premises do not connect. **

I taught syllogisms. Your example was not a syllogism. It is three entirely unrelated statements. A syllogism, even an invalid one, must at the very least attempt to show connections between the premises and the conclusion. Yours does not. 🤷
 
I was not saying that my syllogism proved the existence of God. Just the opposite.
So there are no such things as invalid syllogisms?
Anyway, my degree is in philosophy. I know that there are invalid syllogisms. Actually, why you want to debate such a minor grammatical point is beyond me. Next you will be searching for minor spelling errors.
“A syllogism, even an invalid one, must at the very least attempt to show connections between the premises and the conclusion.”
Charlemagne II
What on earth is an attempt? So now you are appealing to motives? One should only look to the syllogism to determine if it is valid or invalid. In other words if there is ( or is not) a connection between the premises.
 
wittgenstein

**1. Dogs are mammals.
2. Frank Sinatra was a great singer.
3. Therefore God exists. **

The major and minor premises have nothing to do with the existence of God, so there is no effort to prove anything.

An invalid syllogism might run something like this:

Dogs are mammals.
Frank Sinatra was a great mammal.
Therefore Frank Sinatra was a dog.

The valid form of the above syllogism would be:

Dogs are mammals.
Frank Sinatra was a dog.
Frank Sinatra was a mammal.

The minor premise is false (unless you think Sinatra was a dog:D) but the conclusion is still both valid and true.

Don’t mean to be mean or picky. Just setting the record straight about syllogisms.

If anyone else disagrees with the point I am trying to explain, please jump in.
 
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