Thread: Pascal's Wager Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.
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Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
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Probably everyone on the Ship is familiar with Pascal’s Wager, but just in case there are some who aren’t, it goes something like this:-
If we bet on God’s existence we have everything to win and nothing to lose (apart from the difficulties of observing Christian morality, which are offset by the purpose, security, identity and sense of belonging which religious belief provides) because if He doesn’t exist, we will never know that we were mistaken.
If we bet on God’s non-existence, we have everything to lose in a damned eternity, and nothing to win, apart from moral liberty in this life, which is offset by the burden of meaninglessness.
You can see it expressed in terms of formal logic in the Wikipedia site on Pascal’s Wager.
ISTM that there are at least two major objections to Pascal’s Wager.
The first is that of what version of God to believe in.
Pascal was a Jansenist Catholic, so might well have doubted the possibilities of salvation for non-Jansenist Catholics such as Jesuits, let alone Protestants, Orthodox, or Muslims (there is an Islamic version of the Wager on the Wikipedia site).
The second is the question of what standard of faith God (any omniscient god who knows our motivation) finds acceptable.
Will he (she?, it?) accept an allegiance based merely on a safe bet to avoid possible suffering, as opposed to a whole-hearted, loving and worshipful commitment to God’s existence, goodness and graciousness as revealed in Christ?
Or, as C.S. Lewis suggests somewhere, is God’s grace displayed pre-eminently in the fact that he accepts us despite our mixed and dubious motives in coming to him?
I suspect that a considerable proportion of Christians base their faith on some version of Pascal’s Wager (particularly if they have grown up in a familiar and comfortable Christian environment, and then develop doubts later in life, and think about apostatising) even though they are unaware of doing so, and might never have heard of the concept.
Posted by Lord Jestocost (# 12909) on
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Pascal's Wager to me is just one weapon in my armoury, suited to particular circumstances. There are others. Life throws too many changes to have a one-argument-fits-all tool to dispense with them.
Even then I tend towards the Puddleglum variation, which is that it's better to believe in Aslan, not out of fear for your own mortal soul but because even if you're wrong, you live a better life than the alternatives have to offer.
Posted by Komensky (# 8675) on
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That's not 'belief'. It's a thought experiment from Pascal. If there is a God (which there probably isn't) how much scripture can you cite that values faking belief in him?
K.
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on
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Lord Jestocost: Pascal's Wager to me is just one weapon in my armoury, suited to particular circumstances.
A weapon to achieve what?
Posted by venbede (# 16669) on
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I re-read Pascal recently. The first point he makes is that God's existence or otherwise is unprovable so belief is perfectly reasonable.
He says nothing about hell.
When I discovered the argument for myself it was a great relief. I was desperate to think that life was worth living at all, which given its anxious and mortal nature seemed unlikely. I was reading C S Lewis, the silly old dogmatist, and thinking all belief had to be proved. Pascal showed me scientific proof of God is impossible and indeed undesirable. Just get on dipping my finger in the holy water, and I'd get it.
Not being a mathematician, I've left out the argument based on the concept of an infinite number.
Posted by Lord Jestocost (# 12909) on
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Originally posted by LeRoc:
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Lord Jestocost: Pascal's Wager to me is just one weapon in my armoury, suited to particular circumstances.
A weapon to achieve what?
To help me keep believing ...
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on
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Lord Jestocost: To help me keep believing ...
Really? I'd never heard of some using Pascal's Wager for this purpose before. Does it work?
Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on
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I suppose I use a variation on it, because I would argue that any faith that does not make you a better person here on earth is not worth it. I would argue that I do not know whether my faith is right, but it does drive me to be a person who is living it out as if it is true, and that makes me, I hope, a person whose impact on others is positive. A divine being of any sort for whom that is not a plus seems like a vile creature, and if there is no God, then I have still been good to others.
I think, rather like the cat experiment I am named after, the purpose was not to actually carry out the experiment as such, as to crystalise an idea. Making this the basis for life would seem rather pitiful.
Posted by Lord Jestocost (# 12909) on
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Originally posted by LeRoc:
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Lord Jestocost: To help me keep believing ...
Really? I'd never heard of some using Pascal's Wager for this purpose before. Does it work?
Apparently!
I don't know enough about Pascal to say whether his hypothetical wagerer is starting from a position of non-belief, but I certainly find it can be applied to situations where belief is dwindling. To go through it in my head, consider the alternatives, and say "yet I will keep believing", even for a couple of seconds, acts like a parachute to keep me off rock bottom, high enough for God to get his hands beneath me and lift me up.
[Contains metaphors and somewhat cheesy sentiments thought up on the spur of the moment as I was writing, never having been called out on this before, so thank you for the opportunity.]
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on
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Wow. I'd always thought of PW as a rather theoretical thought experiment, or perhaps as a dodgy evangelisaiton tool. It never crossed my mind that it could be an instrument for individual faith crises. I suspect that Pascal didn't intend it in this way. I guess I learned something new today. Thank you for sharing.
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on
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It doesn't matter IMHO how Pascal intended it, anything (not immoral, illegal, etc.) that helps you stay faithful during a crisis is a good thing. I'm not saying that anybody could build a life on it--or faith for a lifetime. But people are weak, and no matter what we believe in, we are likely to have moments of utter doubt just because we are ordinary human emotional creatures who live in time and are subject to change. If you need a crutch to get through that bad minute (hour, whatever), grab it.
It's like marriage. It is far short of ideal to stay faithful to your spouse simply because you recall the marriage vows you once took--or because you have (in a better moment) taken practical steps to betray yourself should you ever be mad enough to consider adultery. Nobody ought to build a whole marriage on that.
But when you are infatuated with the coworker down the hall, such measures may get you through the infatuation--and once you've returned to your proper love, you'll be damned glad you did. However "unworthy" such stopgap measures are. It's not about being high minded at such moments, it's about surviving minor bouts of insanity.
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on
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Lamb Chopped: It doesn't matter IMHO how Pascal intended it, anything (not immoral, illegal, etc.) that helps you stay faithful during a crisis is a good thing.
Yes, I agree. I just found it curious, that's all.
Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on
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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
It doesn't matter IMHO how Pascal intended it, anything (not immoral, illegal, etc.) that helps you stay faithful during a crisis is a good thing.
This may be tangential. I think faith morphs, changes, expands or otherwise is altered by crisis. My experience is of change in crisis. Not outright loss.
Posted by HCH (# 14313) on
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I rather like another, rather brief, statement of the same kind:
"Man is perishing. That may be, and if it is nothingness that awaits us let us so act that it will be an unjust fate.”
― Miguel de Unamuno, Tragic Sense of Life
Posted by Callan (# 525) on
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Originally posted by venbede:
I re-read Pascal recently. The first point he makes is that God's existence or otherwise is unprovable so belief is perfectly reasonable.
He says nothing about hell.
He talks about falling into the hands of an angry God which, to my mind, is much of a muchness.
I think the whole point of Pascal's wager is that it is not intended as a 'proof' of God's existence in the way that some Thomists use the First Cause argument. It is intended as an argument directed at a 17th Century Frenchman who is torn between what was then called 'libertinism' and Catholic Christianity. Now, if the two options on the table are libertinism and Christianity it is more rational to adopt Christianity because the pleasures of libertinism are fleeting and the pains of Christianity are somewhat less so. Pascal's point is that once one has chosen the path of faith one will begin to experience the rewards thereof in this life not to mention in the next. It isn't an argument which can arbitrate between Protestant fundamentalism, Catholic traditionalism and, say, those forms of Islam which posit eternal damnation for unbelievers, all of which posit undesirable outcomes for those who guess wrongly. But if the live options on the table are libertinism and Catholicism then, Pascal is basically correct. This isn't intended as a definitive statement about the great perhaps but it's enough, perhaps, for a French aristocrat havering as to his personal choices.
Posted by Truman White (# 17290) on
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A few years ago I got copied into some stuff running round Facebook which was a question "Are you in the game?" As I remember it (and I wasn't taking that much notice) however you answered, and even if you didn't, the fact you got copied in meant you were "in the game" ''cos you had to take a mo' to try and work out what was going on.
There's a bit of that in the Wager. Pascal asks you to consider the potential consequences of belief and unbelief. Even if you don't accept his conclusions, or even his premises, you have been confronted with questions about the nature of being, eternity, and your significance in the universe. As he puts it, once you've had the options put in front of you, you have to take a bet on whether Christianity is true or not. Even if you reject everything he says, you're taking a bet that he's wrong.
You've been offered the Wager - you're in the game.
Posted by W Hyatt (# 14250) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Or, as C.S. Lewis suggests somewhere, is God’s grace displayed pre-eminently in the fact that he accepts us despite our mixed and dubious motives in coming to him?
Yes.
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on
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Truman White: You've been offered the Wager - you're in the game.
Bullshit, I'm not in any game. I'm a Christian, but not because of Pascal's Wager.
Posted by George Spigot (# 253) on
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What's the argument that limits the wager to only two possible outcomes?
Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on
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Be careful what you bet on, there may be more tears from won wagers than lost ones. Would you enjoy being in a heaven filled with people who didn't believe but pretended to in order to win this wager?
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on
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If hearing about a game and finding it daft makes you part of the game, then I'm a racewalker.
Posted by Callan (# 525) on
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Originally posted by George Spigot:
What's the argument that limits the wager to only two possible outcomes?
There isn't a formal logical argument to that effect. Pascal is putting his argument to a seventeenth century Frenchman torn between libertinism and Christianity. I imagine that if, say, he had been obliged to put his case to 21st century atheists or Hindus, he would have chosen a different argument. A great deal of religious apologetic depends upon what are the live options on the table. If, for example, I was trying to convert you (I'm not by the way) I would not waste time explaining the deficiencies of the worship of Thor. When St. Anskar was converting the Norse he might have spent rather more time on that particular issue.
Posted by Callan (# 525) on
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Originally posted by Palimpsest:
Be careful what you bet on, there may be more tears from won wagers than lost ones. Would you enjoy being in a heaven filled with people who didn't believe but pretended to in order to win this wager?
The point is not that you pretend to believe. It is that you attempt to believe and take it from there.
Pascal had his faults but a great deal of the criticism of his wager runs along the lines of "God, that Pascal was thick, did he not spot..." Of course he spotted it. He was a bright bloke, cleverer than you and I. He wasn't trying to do what you take him to do.
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on
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Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
It doesn't matter IMHO how Pascal intended it, anything (not immoral, illegal, etc.) that helps you stay faithful during a crisis is a good thing.
This may be tangential. I think faith morphs, changes, expands or otherwise is altered by crisis. My experience is of change in crisis. Not outright loss.
I've seen outright rejection (last year, in fact, by a friend of mine newly widowed).
![[Tear]](graemlins/tear.gif)
I'm hoping it's just a temporary grief reaction, but only God knows.
Posted by Truman White (# 17290) on
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Originally posted by George Spigot:
What's the argument that limits the wager to only two possible outcomes?
Alright George? As I remember it, Pascal's premise was that the likleihood and unlikelihood of Christianity's truth were equally balanced. Given that, you'd have to be a mug not to wager on truth.
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on
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Pascale's argument also used for Global Warming
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on
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itsarumdo: Pascale's argument also used for Global Warming
My internet connection doesn't allow me to watch videos, but in this context the argument makes sense.
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on
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He divides it up into 2 rows (Is there GW. Yes/No?) and 2 columns (do we do anything about it, Yes/No?) an then looks at consequences. If your assessment is that the odds GW is happening is so close to zero to be utterly negligible, then I guess you could choose "No response", but otherwise the net losses of responding as if it is are tiny compared to the potential consequences of not responding (end of civilisation, and in extreme, end of most warm blooded life on earth).
The point is - do you argue about the rows (does it exist or not - maybe you won't know until it's too late) or do you look at the columns (do I respond)?
I've only attempted to use Pascale once tr twice in arguments with atheists and it's never been useful at all - I think because unlike GW (for most people at least) "spiritual" can be sufficiently divorced from "!reality" as to mean zero. So, with a zero probability of winning, Pascale doesn't appeal anymore to the gambler.
Posted by George Spigot (# 253) on
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Also you could argue that Global warming either is or isn't.
When used as an argument for believing in God you have God is or isn't or is but only saves Jews or is but only saves people with brown eyes or is but only saves people who sin in his name or....
You get the idea. The possibilities are endlesd.
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on
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Tower of Babel
Posted by Truman White (# 17290) on
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Originally posted by George Spigot:
Also you could argue that Global warming either is or isn't.
When used as an argument for believing in God you have God is or isn't or is but only saves Jews or is but only saves people with brown eyes or is but only saves people who sin in his name or....
You get the idea. The possibilities are endlesd.
None of your additional possibilities are possible without considering the primary possibility - either God is or God isn't.
Posted by HughWillRidmee (# 15614) on
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Originally posted by venbede:
I re-read Pascal recently. The first point he makes is that God's existence or otherwise is unprovable so belief is perfectly reasonable.
I agree with his analysis, I can't see how he leaps from there to his conclusion. I might as well maintain that, since I can neither prove nor disprove the existence of nocturnal, subterranean, invisible, miniature wildebeests at the bottom of my garden it is reasonable to believe that they are there. That way lies an incredibly complicated world.
I also find difficult the apparent assumptions that
a) I can switch belief on/off at will - I can't
b) His God is stupid enough not to know the difference between genuine belief and pretence.
Posted by George Spigot (# 253) on
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@Truman White
You're right. My example just highlights the presupposition.
Posted by Truman White (# 17290) on
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Originally posted by George Spigot:
@Truman White
You're right. My example just highlights the presupposition.
Right you are. Tempted to ask what does still make you think twice about eternity. But I'm off for a while. Cheers.
Posted by venbede (# 16669) on
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quote:
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
a) I can switch belief on/off at will - I can't
b) His God is stupid enough not to know the difference between genuine belief and pretence.
I suspect that is treating an evangelical protestant view of the matter as normative. I don't think it is. Fidelity to the sacraments and a loving and self-disciplined life are expressions of faith as much or better than subjective feelings and belief.
I get the impression from Pascal, and I'd have thought Derrida and The Cloud of Unknowing would agree, that all our summaries in language are inadequate to reality.
And surely God loves us whatever.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
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Originally posted by George Spigot:
What's the argument that limits the wager to only two possible outcomes?
I suppose we could break it down.
Either there is no afterlife or there is some version of afterlife. No matter how many possible versions of the afterlife they are, betting on one of them is a better bet than betting on no afterlife.
If we're betting on an afterlife, we then need to decide which possible candidate is most likely, which is a different set of arguments. Pascal wrote enough notes for a short book, some of which notes as far as I remember do address the question of how to decide between Christianity and Islam. I may remember wrong.
But if we go by the pure logic of the wager:
I suppose we then need to bet on whether the entry to the afterlife is perverse or not. That is, are we more likely to come up with an afterlife that rewards trying to live for it than one that rewards trying to reject it. Is there a God who sends all believers to Hell and awards the afterlife to atheists? On the whole it seems more reliable to bet on a non-perverse outcome: in other words you get what you bet for, rather than having to second guess yourself.
I think that boils us down to two choices: either go for a revealed religion, or go for a natural religion. It's unlikely that the God of natural religion would reject someone going for either of the revealed religion as long as they don't violate any natural law ethics in doing so, so it's safer to go for revealed religion. At which point I think you toss a coin, or perhaps weight your choice by the number of adherents (it being probable that the God of revealed religion helps along whatever religion they've actually revealed).
(Disclaimer: I don't believe in automatic Hell or non-existence for non-believers, so to that extent I think the wager is invalid.)
[ 23. March 2015, 21:01: Message edited by: Dafyd ]
Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on
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Originally posted by LeRoc:
Wow. I'd always thought of PW as a rather theoretical thought experiment, or perhaps as a dodgy evangelisaiton tool. It never crossed my mind that it could be an instrument for individual faith crises. I suspect that Pascal didn't intend it in this way. I guess I learned something new today. Thank you for sharing.
...whereas I've always seen it as an aid to individual faith choices. If you're not sure about God, etc., if you can go either way, then choosing to follow/live a faith may be a better bet--especially if some sort of hell or annihilation is a possibility.
It doesn't have to be fake at all. There's more than one kind of belief--and it can simply be where you choose to stand, what you choose to do. As Granny Weatherwax said to Rev. Mightily Oats in Carpe Jugulum, "Don't worry about being faithful--just try to live faithfully". (And that's really what that whole book is about.)
And I've never understood the idea that wanting to avoid hell is some lesser sort of faith. If there really is a hell--whether the Christian lake of fire, a Tibetan Buddhist bardo, whatever is in the Egyptian Book Of The Dead, etc.--why not do what you can to avoid it? If your religion preaches hell and a way to avoid it, be glad there's a way!
(Note: I'm universalist now, but I grew up Christian fundamentalist. I know the drill.)
ETA: I also think what your faith can do for you in *this* life is important. Whether or not there's any afterlife at all, any God at all, a faith can give you something to hold onto when times are tough. And it can also be problematic. But it can be a good choice.
[ 24. March 2015, 10:18: Message edited by: Golden Key ]
Posted by George Spigot (# 253) on
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@ Dafyd
Hmmm. That seems like a very tenuous list of what if's and possibles to base a lifestyle on.
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on
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(Just to be clear again: I have nothing against people who use PW as a tool to strengthen their personal faith, rather to the contrary. Whatever floats your boat is Ok by me. It's just that it hadn't crossed my mind before that it could be used like this, that's all.)
Posted by venbede (# 16669) on
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Alain de Boton in his Religion for Atheists is very enthusiastic about Pascal generally. For de Boton, Pascal's pessimism is a Good Thing as it prevents us being disappointed in life when it sucks.
[I've read the relevant section again - in English translation, although I have tried it in French with a crib - and it never mentions hell.]
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