Gambling on God: Essays on Pascal’s Wager - PhilPapers.
Pascal’s Wager is the name given to an argument put forward by the French philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal in the 17th Century. His argument for belief in God was based not on an appeal to evidence that God exists, but rather on the idea that it is in our own interests to believe in God and it is therefore rational for us to do so.
But the 17 th century intellectual Blaise Pascal argues that a wager might just save a soul, especially if that wager is on God. Born in 1623 in France, Pascal was a child prodigy and he went on make huge contributions in mathematics, physics and philosophy.
That’s likely the line of thinking that contributes to high risk investing and gambling. And this is where the wager gets into trouble. When Pascal offered this wager, he offered it under the impression that the possibility of attaining reward is actual. Unfortunately, it’s not and there’s no way to argue that.
A Critical Discussion of Blaise Pascal's The Wager In the gambling world bets are made based on odds, the probability or likelihood that something would happen. In the court of law, cases are decided upon by the weight of evidence presented by the respective parties.
This is an attempt to divide one into zero and determine the probability of being correct about God’s existence, which looks rather silly to me. Pascal’s theory is at once the most persuasive argument for belief in God and the lamest. It is clearly an effort to hedge his bets and make sure his bases are covered.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. Explores the ways in which belief and doubt are expressed linguistically in Pascal’s work. Jordan, Jeff, ed. Gambling on God: Essays on Pascal’s Wager.
See Anthony Flew, God and Philosophy (London: Hutchinson, 1966), chapter 9. This argument is alluded to by R. G. Swinburne in 'The Christian Wager', Religious Studies IV (1969), 217-28. () As many scholars have pointed out, Pascal was not so naive as to suppose that one could believe in God by an act of willHowever, he did think that belief could be developed by acting in certain religious.