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Pascal s Wager was developed from Blaise Pascal (1623 - 1662), a physicist, philosopher and mathematician. He was also a deeply religious man, follower of the Jansenist movement and a French Christian sect, which emphasized personal holiness and especially predestination. Pascal put up a philosophical defense of faith as a fundamental mean of understanding the universe. (Massimo) He was interested in the question of whether it could be rational to believe in God, even if you think it is enormously improbable that God exists. In this paper I will explain Pascal s wager as a unique blend of theism and the probability theory. Pascal argues that believing that God exists is a sensible wager, even if there is no evidence that God exists. The wager consists of the following simple argument.
We don t know if god exists. Therefore, we are faced with an optional choice of believing in him or not. If we do not believe, we can live whatever life we please on Earth, but we are faced with potential eternal damnation afterwards. If we believe, we may forgo some earthly pleasures on the short run, but we may gain an everlasting reward after we die. Pascal s conclusion, based on his probability theory, is that we should obviously go for the latter choice.
The potential reward is infinite, while the sure loss is meager. (Massimo) Pascal s wager can be represented as a solution to a problem in decision theory. This modern theory that describes how you should choose among different available actions by seeing what the utilities are of the different outcomes. You have to decide whether or not to believe there is a God. Either there is a God or there isn t. Hence, there are four possible outcomes-an outcome being composed of your performing an action when the world is a particular way. The four outcomes are represented in the two-by-two table below: Ways the World Might Be God Exists There is no God Believe that ETERNAL We ve missed a few pleasures but God Exists REWARD edified ourselves through prayer Actions Do not believe ETERNAL We re ok, and we ve had some That God exists DAMNATION good times (Solomon) The upper-left entry represents the outcome in which you believe in God and there is a God.
The result, Pascal says that the payoff to you is an infinite reward-you go to heaven. On the other hand, if you don t believe in God, you occupy the lower-left cell. This is the outcome in which you don t believe there is a God, but God in fact exists. In this case, you suffer an infinite punishment-you receive eternal damnation. (Sober) The upper-right entry states your belief in God, but there is no God. In fact you have wasted your time with religious rituals and observances you might have preferred to skip had you only known there was no God listening to your prayers. This isn t a horrible result, though it should be represented as an inadequate use of time and thought.
On the other hand, if you don t believe in God and there is no God (the lower-right entry), you receive a modest benefit. Instead of engaging in religious practices that you may find boring at times, you can get involved in activities that are more rewarding. (Sober) The structure of the problem is the process of deciding which action to perform. The possible outcomes are given by the possible pairings of the available actions with the different ways the world might be. With each possible outcome you associate a utility (a payoff), which represents how good or bad the outcome is for you. The expected utility of believing there is a God needs to take account of two possibilities: There is the utility you receive if you believe and there is no God, and the quite different utility you receive if you believe and there is a God.
Likewise the expected utility of not believing must take account of both outcome possibilities (represented in the bottom row). Pascal s solution states that even if you think the existence of God is very improbable, the expected utility (outcome) of believing is higher than the expected utility of not believing. The reason is that though the existence of God is very improbable, there is a huge benefit if you are a theist and God exists, but only a small cost if you are a theist and there is no God. It makes sense to bet on the existence of God, even if the existence of God is very improbable. (Sober) Through Pascal s Wager the existence of God goes to show that even if God s existence cannot be known through reason, it is still worthwhile to believe in God. Blaise Pascal held that belief in God is a better wager than non belief because there are infinite rewards to gain and little to lose by believing, versus infinite rewards to lose and little to gain by not believing. (Encarta) To me I see the infinite rewards with little to lose as the best option. To think that you could be eternally satisfied with just believing in God, sounds like a gimmick, but in reality is the best option.
Even though putting your trust into something with almighty power is a wager. You don t lose anything if God, in the end, doesn t exist. A free trip to heaven stands as your prize for winning the wager of believing in God and having God exist in the end. In reality I don t see how someone would want to take the opposition of believing in God.
To not believe means that you wager eternal bliss. Eternal bliss is not something that I would put on the line. Believing in God is a very simple concept, and with this concept comes everlasting rewards. God is, or He is not. But to which side shall we incline? Reason can decide noting here.
There is an infinite chaos, which separated us. A game is being played at the extremity of this infinite distance where heads or tails will turn up Which will you choose then? Let us see. Since you must choose, let us see which interests you least. You have two things to lose, the true and the good; and two things to stake, your reason and your will, you knowledge and your happiness; and your nature has two things to shun, error and misery. Your reason is no more shocked in choosing one rather than the other, since you must of necessity choose But your happiness?
Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is If you gain, you gain all; if you lose you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is. (Stanford) Pascal states that you should be able to weigh out the reasons for believing or not believing and settle on believing in God. (Sober) I agree. To believe is just saying that you can have a few points of happiness throughout your life, and with that will come eternal bliss, which outweighs eternal damnation. Pascal said it best when he was posing his point on wagering in belief. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is. (Stanford) Wagering for God involves the wanting to attain faith and hoping that God will steer you in the right direction and keep you from harm (eternal damnation).
One perhaps cannot simply believe in God at will; and rationality cannot require the impossible. Pascal believes that one can take steps to cultivate such belief: 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 But to show you that this leads you there, it is this which will lessen the passions, which are your stumbling-blocks. (Stanford) Believing in God is a presumably one way to wager for God. This passage suggests that even the nonbeliever can wager for God, by striving to become a believer.
Critics may question the psychology of belief formation that Pascal presupposes, pointing out that one could strive to believe (perhaps by following exactly Pascal s prescription), yet fail. To this, a follower of Pascal might reply that the act of genuine striving already displays a pureness of heart of that God would fully reward; or even that genuine striving in this case is itself a form of believing. (Stanford) Eternal bliss and eternal damnation is what everything boils down to. The outcome of believing is high than the expected outcome of not believing. There is a huge benefit if you are a theist and God exists, but only a small cost if you are a theist and there is no God. It makes sense to bet on the existence of God, even if the existence of God is very improbable. (Sober) References Solomon, Robert C.
The Big Question: Pascal s Wager. Florida: Harcourt Brace &# 038; Company, 1998. Sober, Elliott. Core Questions in Philosophy: Pascal and Irrationality. New Jersey: Prentice Hall Inc. , 1995. Theism.
Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia 99. CD-ROM. 1993 - 1998 Microsoft Corporation. Alan Have. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. The Metaphysics Research Lab Center for the Study of Language and Information, Ventura Hall, Stanford University.
web Massimo Pigliucci. A refutation of Pascal s Wager and why skeptics should be non- theists. web
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