The Fruit of Pascals Wager

[Roguish]

In conclusion I believe Pascals Wager shows explicitly that a rejection of the God of Abraham is intellectually irrational. The atheist is therefore left to reject God without intellectual excuse.

Of course Pascal’s Wager is logically flawless. But a “faith” based on Pascal’s Wager is a very impoverished faith, and therefore not True Faith. It is only an intellectual assent to the sensibleness of “betting on God”. This intellectual assent, no matter how complete it is, does not constitute the Baptism in the Holy Spirit that is the true starting point of one’s walk with God. In yet other words, a “faith” based on Pascal’s Wager will not commence or work the gradual transformation from sinner to saint that is at the heart of the religious life.

As for atheists, they simply don’t care about Pascal’s Wager because they are “confident” that no probabilities are involved. They are “sure” that God does not exist, so the “if-God-does-exist” part of Pascal’s Wager is irrelevant to them. Agnostics may be open to considering Pascal’s Wager of course, but as I said even if it convinces them they will not (yet) have arrived at True Faith.

This also shows that faith is not necessarily the suspension of reason.

I think you’re confusing two things here. As I said, Pascal’s Wager can lead to an intellectual assent. But when we say that True Faith is compatible with reason (and does not require its suspension), we are talking about something else. We are talking about the phenomenon that someone who has been baptized in the Holy Spirit, can gradually come to understand God, the world, life, death, himself, etc. not only in a mystical or intuitive way, but also in a rational way. This rational understanding however, is a fruit of True Faith, and subjugated to it. This is different from the rational understanding of Pascal’s Wager, which can be arrived at in the absence of True Faith.

 

[ProdglArchitect]

The problem of evil has been asked and answers so many times that it’s ridiculous. Your assertion that the evil disproves God is only true if God does not bring good out of the evils which occur. Given that you have no way to determine the sum effect of all decisions, and the amount of “good” which results from those decisions, you cannot rationally claim that the problem of evil disproves God.

You can certainly believe that, but it is far from the absolute you’re trying to make it.

You also fail to incorporate the “good” of Free Will. While I doubt you see that as a good unto itself, we would disagree with you on that. We view the good of free will as far superior to any evils the poor use of that will may cause. This stems from our understanding of the purpose of life, and is something I doubt you will ever be able to agree with while still insisting that God does not exist.

In short, the problem of evil is only a problem if God doesn’t exist, as you claim. If He does exist, and has the qualities which Christians historically attribute to Him, then the problem of evil is wholly answerable. Given that you deny the premise that God exists, you will never be able to find an answer for evil in the world apart from the nihilistic presupposition that life is meaningless and random, and therefore suffering and pain is equally meaningless.

 

[Roguish]

The Problem of Evil clearly shows that an Omnipotent, Omnipresent, and Omniscient being, as God is mostly often described either does not exist, or does not fit into human logic.

We’re entirely off-topic here, but this demands a response. There is no “Problem of Evil”, Mr. Lay-low. Man chose disobedience and as a consequence the world is now a mess. I repeat: the evil in the world is a consequence of man’s disobedience, it isn’t of God’s making. If you don’t believe that, that’s fine, but to say that there is a “Problem of Evil” that the Christian world-view does not address, is plain nonsense. The Christian world-view addresses it very well and very clearly.

Unless of course it is accepted that a father allow his children to do as they please to the point of hurting themselves, only to neglect their pain and ultimately punish them for not know better.

But the Father that is under discussion does not neglect our pain: he has provided the means (Christ) for his children to restore themselves to perfect obedience and thus be re-admitted to a Perfect Afterlife. If you choose to disregard this solution, or don’t believe in it, again that’s your choice, but to say that God has been negligent in caring for his children is nonsense.

 

[tafan2]

Pascal’s wager says nothing abbout the probability God exists, it is about the cost/reward of being right or wrong on the matter. You guys really have never read it, have you?

 

[niceatheist]

Not really. It excludes any possibility that is decidedly not Christian or essentially atheist. It goes out of its way to lump everything that doesn’t lead to heaven under one group.

 

[LateCatholic]

Trying to turn it into an argument for a particular belief system against (n-1) belief systems misses the point of the argument.

Not at all - in fact, that IS the argument. Pascal’s wager isn’t about Theism vs Atheism. It’s about believing in Catholicism versus any other belief system. Pascal’s wager is just as valid for a Satanist as it is for a Christian. Hence, it is invalid. My example of a ‘super-reward’ and ‘super-torment’ trumping Catholicism’s is not meant to belittle Christianity, it is just to show Pascal’s wager is invalid.

His claim is that, if you want to believe, but are having difficulties, then just start the practice of Catholicism (prayers, Mass, etc), and you will attain to faith.

That’s yet another reason why it is invalid. It is no longer a zero-sum game. Logically, the argument is only valid and consistent if the the cost is null. Pascal’s wager says the following: “All things being equal, you should believe in God because you have nothing to lose by doing so, and much to gain”.

But you just invalidated it. You are now saying spend time in prayer and faith, possibly give your resources (money) to the Church, perhaps even sacrifice your principles. You have a LOT to lose. Hence, the wager is invalid.

Agreed. But, doing so would be making a different argument. If it proceeds from Pascal’s Wager, it would have to take the terms of the Wager into account. Simply lining up n religions and making n parallel arguments doesn’t cut it.

I don’t follow your logic. I am saying Pascal’s Wager can be used for any religion, including Satanism. You seem to imply this is OK. It’s not. Religions are exclusive. You can’t be BOTH a Christian and a Satanist. You can’t be a Muslim and a Jew. We are not talking about lottery tickets here. If we were, your argument makes sense. All things being equal, take every free lottery ticket you can. But religions are exclusive. If you are a Satanist, you will get eternal torment if Christianity is true, and vice versa. This is one reason why Pascal’s wager is invalid.

Also, why does it matter if you want to call it something else when applied to a different religion?

Pascal’s Wager has been refuted for centuries.

First, the existence of Christ is historicity. Pascal’s Wager is philosophy. Apples and Oranges. Another example - I say that the that flat earth theory has been refuted for centuries, you say yeah, yeah, and UFO’s have been refuted too. There’s no connection between the two. pascal’s Wager HAS BEEN refuted in philosophical circles through reason and logic. It is also invalid on theological grounds. Just giving lip service to God will not get you into heaven. That is what Pascal’s Wager says.

 

[catholicray]

Been at work for the last eight hours this day. “While the cat is away the mice will play.” Obviously a well written rebuttal is on its way. This isn’t the last you’ve heard from catholicray.

 

[Roguish]

Pascal’s wager says nothing abbout the probability God exists, it is about the cost/reward of being right or wrong on the matter. You guys really have never read it, have you?

Not sure who you’re addressing, but I’ve known about Pascal’s Wager for a long time, so no condescension is necessary.

Of course it doesn’t say anything specific about the “probability that God exists”. Yet it does assume that the matter isn’t certain, so it implicitly assumes a very weak faith to being with. Someone who already has True Faith does not need the “compelling argument” provided by Pascal’s Wager. It is only of relevance to those who are in doubt (“agnostics”), and it can only lead them to intellectual assent, which is not True Faith (but may lead to it later). See, whoever is convinced by Pascal’s Wager that it is best to believe in God, still will not live out of certainty. He would only be living out of the notion that’s he has placed his bet wisely in the absence of a certain outcome. True Faith requires Baptism in the Holy Spirit, which is the arrival of certainty as a result of the recognition of the Presence of the Living God here and now.

 

[Roguish]

This isn’t the last you’ve heard from catholicray.

Sounds ominous I’m barricading my doors.

P.S. You should quit your job so you can attend to this forum 24-7.

 

[catholicray]

P.S. You should quit your job so you can attend to this forum 24-7.

I would but I have bills to pay…

 

[tafan2]

Knowing about Pascal’wage is different then reading it. He addresses all of your critiques. I am not being condescending, I am just pointing out that if people are going to argue with Pascal’s Wager, they should start from his points that you don’t agree. He was not a dumb man, he obviously knew the simple arguments against just the risk/reward aspects.
IIRC, the Pensee 233 is three or four pages long, I can’t help be point out the wagaer is typically expressed in a parapgraph, and ignoring the rest.

 

[Roguish]

@tafan2

He addresses all of your critiques.

That’s amazing, because I don’t have any. I already wrote above that Pascal’s Wager is logically flawless. I’m just saying that Pascal’s Wager can only lead to intellectual assent, not to Baptism in the Holy Spirit. That isn’t a critique, that’s an observation. Intellectual consideration alone cannot trigger or constitute Baptism in the Holy Spirit. Or are you saying that Pascal’s Wager is not an intellectual consideration?

And FYI, I read the entire Pensees (the whole work, not just the 4-page Wager) about a decade ago. That’s not a bluff. I read it because at that stage of my spiritual journey I was reading many classics of philosophy and theology. Obviously the Pensees are a well-known classic. That’s why I said you are condescending, and you still are, by assuming that others on this forum don’t actually read what they are discussing.

 

[tafan2]

@Roguish

Sorry, typed that this morning, should have read who and what was ty[ed more closely. I had originally responded to NiceAtheist, and was just thinking the conversation was ongoing.

What is your definition of “intellectual assent”? This term is often, wrongly IMO, denigrated by protestants. I cannot envision having faith without a body of dogmatic beliefs that are intellectually convincing. BTW, I know this may be thread drift, so will just be interested in your answer.

 

[Gorgias]

Gorgias:

Trying to turn it into an argument for a particular belief system against (n-1) belief systems misses the point of the argument.

Not at all - in fact, that IS the argument. Pascal’s wager isn’t about Theism vs Atheism. It’s about believing in Catholicism versus any other belief system.

Actually, it’s not. The more you write about Pascal’s Wager, the more it becomes obvious that you seem to never have read it. Are you responding based on your personal reading of the Pensees? Or, perhaps, you’re responding based on your reading of someone else’s analysis of it? I’d recommend reading it yourself.

Here’s the thing: in the Pensees, Pascal spends a lot of time discussing the relative merits of Christianity against other religions (as well as atheism!). And, as it turns out, he finds Christianity rational and reasonable, and all other religions unreasonable. However, that’s not the argument of the Wager. Rather, having asserted that only Christianity stands as a reasonable choice, he then poses his wager: it’s Christianity or nothing. The expected value of ‘nothing’ is zero, and the expected value of Christian belief is non-zero. Therefore, Christianity is the logical choice.

Seriously. Please read the Pensees.

Pascal’s wager is just as valid for a Satanist as it is for a Christian. Hence, it is invalid.

Only if you completely gut his argument and use the bare shell – which, as it turns out, is precisely what you’re doing. By shoving the arguments of the document to the side, and only looking at the wager in a vacuum, you’re completely misrepresenting Pascal’s argument. (The image that comes to mind is standing up from the Thanksgiving table, pointing at the turkey carcass, and exclaiming, “that’s not a turkey!” Well… duh! But it was a turkey before you carved it up and took it off the plate!)

My example of a ‘super-reward’ and ‘super-torment’ trumping Catholicism’s is not meant to belittle Christianity, it is just to show Pascal’s wager is invalid.

All it shows is that you’re cherry-picking the Pensees and ignoring the meat of the argument within.

Gorgias:

I don’t follow your logic. I am saying Pascal’s Wager can be used for any religion, including Satanism. You seem to imply this is OK.

No. I’m saying that it’s not at all the project of the Pensees, so you cannot reasonably excise out a paragraph from a document and make the claim that you’re following its logic.

Also, why does it matter if you want to call it something else when applied to a different religion?

Because then you’re not talking about Pascal’s Wager anymore. If you want to go off and start talking about @LateCatholic’s Wager, be my guest. I’ll be perfectly willing to discuss the invalidities in that argument.

 

[Gorgias]

LateCatholic:

That’s yet another reason why it is invalid. It is no longer a zero-sum game.

Why must ‘belief’ be a zero sum game?

Logically, the argument is only valid and consistent if the the cost is null.

Why?

Pascal’s wager says the following:All things being equal, you should believe in God because you have nothing to lose by doing so, and much to gain.

You’re misquoting him.

The terms of the bet are eternal life. If you don’t have it, you don’t lose it. If it’s for the taking, and you refuse it, then you lose it. However, your notion that the stakes include “things you can lose” doesn’t apply.

But you just invalidated it. You are now saying spend time in prayer and faith, possibly give your resources (money) to the Church, perhaps even sacrifice your principles. You have a LOT to lose. Hence, the wager is invalid.

Not. Even. Close.

So, what you’re saying (which is completely off the topic of the Wager, BTW) is that, if God doesn’t exist, and you spend time attempting to be a good person (in meditation and prayer, in giving resources for the good of others, etc), then you’ve lost something? What, pray tell, have you lost? And, if by being altruistic and caring of others, even though there’s no eternal reward, wouldn’t a reasonable person make the argument that you really have gained something? So, in contradiction to your claim, I’d say that you still win, even on a small scale, if there is no God.

Just giving lip service to God will not get you into heaven. That is what Pascal’s Wager says.

No. It doesn’t. You really haven’t ever read it. Please let me quote it to you, so that you might get your first glance at it:
Blaise Pascal:

“ am so made that I cannot believe. What, then, would you have me do?”

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.

Pay close attention to the final sentence. It’s not about ‘faking it’; it’s about attaining true belief. If the unbeliever “follow(s) the way that [current believers] began”, then this set of actions “will naturally make you believe.”

It’s not a suggestion to attempt to dupe God; it’s a heuristic for attaining real faith.

 

[Roguish]

What is your definition of “intellectual assent”?

Intellectual assent is assent to a certain argument based on having understood it’s logical adequacy. It is the foregoing of further disagreements because one has realized no disagreement is possible; the argument has been seen to be compelling and its conclusion inescapable.

This is not without value. But it does not constitute True Faith, which is supernatural.

I cannot envision having faith without a body of dogmatic beliefs that are intellectually convincing.

That is fine. But authentic dogmas are those that have originated from Faith (or as the Catholic terminology goes, from the Deposit of Faith); they are not theorems upon which Faith is (or could be) constructed. True Faith gradually infuses the mind with a heightened clarity in which God, heaven, hell, etc. (all of the Christian belief system) can be seen to be compatible with reason – or reconcilable if you will. But that doesn’t make reason the basis for faith. To put it differently, True Faith is superior to reason. True Faith assists and corrects reason, not the other way around.

P.S. This is precisely why something like Pascal’s Wager will never be declared dogma or doctrine. The Wager is a rational consideration that applies to those who do not yet have True Faith, while dogma and doctine have originated from men who already had it. And extending this to the Wager’s author and the general tendency of his writings, this is why Pascal has never been declared a Doctor of the Church, while someone like Aquinas has. Pascal reasons toward faith (at least in Pensee 233), while Aquinas always reasons from faith.

 

[Gorgias]

That’s why I said you are condescending, and you still are, by assuming that others on this forum don’t actually read what they are discussing.

Well… to be fair, some of the comments here seem to betray the fact that folks have read commentaries on the Pensees, without having actually read the actual essay themselves.

 

[Roguish]

(cc: @tafan2)

[…] some of the comments here seem to betray the fact that folks have read commentaries on the Pensees, without having actually read the actual essay themselves.

OK, then I stand corrected on that point.

 

[Gorgias]

But isn’t there an assumption here, that one doesn’t already have eternal life. Which would be a logical argument if one is dealing with someone of the same mindset. But if you’re dealing with someone who already believes that they have eternal life, regardless of your assertion otherwise, then the argument is moot…correct?

Pascal’s interlocutor is one who doesn’t believe in God, so… no. The argument isn’t moot: he’s talking to someone who isn’t convinced there’s eternal life. That’s why the argument works – Pascal is arguing for eternal life (in the Christian context)!

 

[IWantGod]

The logic is as follows:
Rejection results in zero gain. If you are right all of your gain is temporary (boasting in your own intellect), lost completely at death. If you are wrong your loss is infinite (eternal hellfire).

One thing i always tell myself, is that my God is a reasonable God, and that he would not commit somebodies soul to hell for what he or she couldn’t possibly know about.

That’s one of the problems i have with this wager.

Pascal wager only has the possibility of working for somebody who actually wants to be a Christian but has not achieved enough knowledge to satisfy his rational mind. And even then, i would modify the argument. You have to know that you are losing something. One does not A-prior know that one is losing salvation by not believing. Anyone can present a threat, but if that threat isn’t in some way known as a potentiality, it’s hard to see why one would take a leap of faith based merely on a blind threat.

For the atheist, it just sounds like you are making a threat, and since you haven’t proven that the threat exists, there is no reason for the person to take it seriously.

I presented my own version of pascals wager here Why Does The Idea Of Having Faith Get a Bad Rep?

But i changed the parameters. Instead of presenting a threat unknown, i identified a threat that all reasonable people can know and identify.

If you are in a burning building, and there is only one exit, is it not reasonable to have hope that there is safety on the other side? Would it not also be irrational to give up hope and stay in the building on the premise that we don’t know whats on the other side of the door?

We find ourselves in a world that generally has two existential possibilities regarding the human condition.

1. There is no meaningful significance, moral value, or purpose beyond what we imagine inside our heads, and ultimately when the human race dies our lives and what we imagined to achieve will amount to absolutely nothing.

2. Our existence and our actions really mean something, and has purpose, and our lives will not ultimately come to nothing but will become something greater than we can imagine.

Why would someone choose option 1 merely on the basis of not knowing? Is that a reasonable skepticism, or is it negative pessimism disguised as something reasonable?

Is it not reasonable to have hope in something greater rather than resign to oblivion in the absence of evidence?

It seems to me that option two is the very definition of being positive, and i venture to argue that it is more rational to have hope than to not have hope.

In this quote i identify the fact that if we accept nihilism, then we are losing something that most people value because it affects are very nature and value as personal beings. The threat is established.

I like what pascal tries to do, but if you presented it to me in it’s original form as a serious proposition, i would call it “pascal’s wafer”, because it’s wafer thin on good reasons to accept it’s parameters.