Abstract
This paper argues that Pascal’s formulation of his famous wager argument licenses an inference about God's nature that ultimately vitiates the claim that wagering for God is in one’s rational self-interest. Specifically, it is argued that if we accept Pascal’s premises, then we can infer that the god for whom Pascal encourages us to wager is irrational. But if God is irrational, then the prudentially rational course of action is to refrain from wagering for him.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
References to Pascal are from W. F. Trotter’s English translation of Pensées. The fragment numbering of this edition is Leon Brunschvicg’s.
Irrationality, then, does not entail a disavowal of reason. An irrational person in the grip of a delusion may marshal (bad) reasons or (insufficient) evidence in favor of the delusion.
One might quibble with the mention here of God’s lacking prudential good reasons, since prudential reasons are used to form beliefs, perform actions, make stipulations, etc., for which the reasoner has no evidence, and God, if he exists, is such that he cannot lack evidence. However, it is best to keep as far as possible with Pascal’s assumption that God is inscrutable, and given this assumption it is possible that he has prudential reasons – some of which might be bad – for some of his beliefs, actions, stipulations, etc.
Pascal used “salvation” in its ordinary (i.e., religious) sense to mean “deliverance” or “rescue” from annihilation or damnation. He held, further, that this deliverance would by constituted by an infinite reward from God. Some Pascalian arguments – e.g., what Jordan (2006) calls “the Jamesian wager” – suggest that belief in God is justified even if this deliverance is constituted by a large, but finite, payoff. For purposes of this discussion, this complication need not detain us. In what follows, let “salvation” mean a reward, either finite or infinite, bestowed by a traditionally conceived monotheistic deity.
Pascal, of course, has to subscribe to this view, at least in the context of his wager argument, since the wager would be superfluous if God didn’t require belief. But the view is also consistent with his devout Christianity, i.e., his Jansenism (roughly, Catholic Calvinism). The Christian tradition, though it has never treated belief as sufficient for salvation, typically treats it as necessary (which is understandable given the many Biblical injunctions stating that it is necessary—e.g., John 3:16-19; John 5:24; Acts 16:31; Rom. 10:9).
Since any wager argument that can be characterized as “Pascalian” is predicated on this assumption, the argument of this paper has substantial general applicability: it undermines any argument that suggests expedient reasons for believing in a deity who grants salvation only to believers.
A similar case can be found in my (forthcoming). See also Cargile (1966).
In the wager section of Pensées there is no mention of − ∞ for the return to unbelievers in case God exists, but since God is irrational, this could be the return. It should also be pointed out that if Pascal’s argument licensed a reading of − ∞, then proving that the wager (at least that version of it) founders on God’s being irrational could be done straightaway, since meting out an infinite punishment for mere unbelief is patently psychotic.
(It is worth remarking parenthetically that Pascal does occasionally mention hell in Pensées, and he even advances a version of the wager that is based on it: “Who has most reason to fear hell: he who is in ignorance whether there is a hell, and who is certain of damnation if there is; or he who certainly believes there is a hell, and hopes to be saved if there is?” [1958: Fr. 239].)
The wager can also be interpreted as a problem in decision making under uncertainty, i.e., as a problem in which no probability assignments for God’s existence are made. Under such a probability-shorn interpretation, one employs decision-theoretic acceptance principles, such as maximax or maximin (according to which, respectively, one pursues the course of action whose outcome has the most value or the course of action whose outcome has the least disvalue). This interpretation of the wager will not be discussed here, since its weaknesses are well known. For example, it leaves the wager defenseless against the many gods objection (see below in the text), and it is entirely unhistorical—Pascal himself begins by assigning a probability of .5 to God’s existence. For discussion of the difficulties facing the wager when it is interpreted as a problem in decision making under uncertainty, see Anderson (1995: 45-47) and MacIntosh (2000: 6-13).
Though it would not be inappropriate to say that since God is completely irrational, he is a kind of bizarre deity.
Ironically, some indirect support for the claim that God’s irrationality makes him an unsafe bet can be found in one of Jordan’s defenses of the wager against the bizarre deity objection. He writes: “Can any other reason be given for denying that deviant theologies carry a significant utility? Perhaps this: any agent who would punish or reward counter to our standard sense of fairness lacks trustworthiness and is not, thereby, a stable object of utility” (2006: 125n40).
I don’t take seriously the doctrine that all unbelievers are, in some way and to some degree, culpable for their unbelief.
Assuming he does want people to believe. He requires it (for salvation), by our assumption, but one can require something without wanting it. Pascal’s Jansenism is relevant here. As a Jansenist, Pascal held that God selects those who receive salvation, but he does not select everyone. This means that, on Pascal’s view, God does not want to maximize the number of people who receive salvation. My argument, however, does not imply that God wants this; indeed, it doesn’t imply anything about what he wants (or doesn’t want). It simply brings to light a critical assumption underlying Pascal’s wager argument – namely, that God requires belief for salvation (irrespective of whether he wants people to believe) – and then shows that the argument founders on this assumption.
The cumbersome “if he exists” qualifier is here omitted for stylistic reasons, but it should be clear that the presentation of the text is equivalent to the following: If God exists, then God has intentionally made belief a necessary condition for salvation. The same goes, mutatis mutandis, for the other premises.
Skeptical theists will no doubt exploit this possibility clause, arguing that it may be impossible for God to reveal the reasons in question: perhaps human beings are logically incapable of understanding the reasons for God’s belief requirement. This is a plainly empty claim, however, if all it means is that it is possible that it’s impossible for God to reveal his reasons for requiring belief. Bare possibilities are a dime a dozen. For the response to be worthy of attention, a case would have to be made that it is probable that it is impossible for God to reveal his reasons for requiring belief. But it’s altogether unclear how such a case could be made. Certainly there is nothing prima facie logically awry about the notion that an omnipotent deity could equip us with the capacity to understand such reasons.
Without the “non-confrontational” and “non-pedagogical” qualifiers PFD would be rationally rejectable. A captured spy, engaging in confrontational discourse with his captors, would be acting rationally in refraining from divulging his good reasons, assuming he has them, for spying on his captors. And a teacher would be acting rationally in refraining from divulging the good reasons for x if, as a pedagogical exercise, he wants his students to discover the good reasons for x by some other means.
Thanks to Miri Albahari and Peter Murphy for helpful discussion. Thanks also to Darren Domsky and to the anonymous reviewers for this journal for stimulating comments and criticisms on earlier drafts. This paper is a sequel (of sorts) to my (Janzen, 2010). While writing that paper, I realized it contained the ingredients for a novel argument against Pascal’s wager, which I present here.
References
Almeida, M. J., & Oppy, G. (2003). Sceptical theism and evidential arguments from evil. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 81, 496–516.
Alston, W. (1991). The inductive argument from evil and the human cognitive condition. Philosophical Perspectives, 5, 29–67.
Anderson, R. (1995). Recent criticisms and defenses of Pascal’s wager. International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 37, 45–56.
Bergmann, M. (2001). Skeptical theism and Rowe’s new evidential argument from evil. Noûs, 35, 278–296.
Brown, G. (1985). A defence of Pascal’s wager. Religious Studies, 20, 465–479.
Cargile, J. (1966). Pascal’s wager. Philosophy, 41, 250–257.
Carter, A. (2000). On Pascal’s wager, or why all bets are off. The Philosophical Quarterly, 50, 22–27.
Fitzpatrick, F. J. (1981). The Onus of proof in arguments about the problem of evil. Religious Studies, 17, 19–38.
Hacker, P. M. S. (2007). Human nature: The categorial framework. Oxford: Blackwell.
Hacking, I. (1972). The logic of Pascal’s wager. American Philosophical Quarterly, 9, 186–192.
Janzen, G. (2010). Is God’s belief requirement rational?, Religious Studies. doi:10.1017/S0034412510000429.
Jordan, J. (2006). Pascal’s wager: Pragmatic arguments and belief in God. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Mackie, J. L. (1982). The miracle of theism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Martin, M. (1990). Atheism: A philosophical justification. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
MacIntosh, J. J. (2000). Is Pascal’s wager self-defeating? Sophia, 39, 1–30.
Maitzen, S. (2007). Skeptical theism and God’s commands. Sophia, 46, 235–241.
Maitzen, S. (2009). Skeptical theism and moral obligation. International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 65, 93–103.
Nozick, R. (1993). The nature of rationality. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Pascal, B. (1958). Pensées, trans. W. F. Trotter, New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc.
Piper, M. (2007). Skeptical theism and the problem of moral aporia. International Journal for the Philosophy of Religion, 62, 65–79.
Piper, M. (2008). Why theists cannot accept skeptical theism. Sophia, 47, 129–148.
Plantinga, A. (2000). Warranted Christian Belief. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Rescher, N. (1985). Pascal’s wager: A study of practical reasoning in philosophical theology. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.
Rowe, W. (2006). Friendly atheism, skeptical theism, and the problem of evil. International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 59, 79–92.
Saka, P. (2001). Pascal’s wager and the many Gods objection. Religious Studies, 37, 321–341.
Schlesinger, G. (1994). A central theistic argument, In J. Jordan & M. D. Lanham (Eds.) Gambling on God: Essays on Pascal’s wager (83-100). Rowman and Littlefield.
Sobel, J. H. (1996). Pascalian wagers. Synthese, 108, 11–61.
Sehon, S. (2010). The problem of evil: Skeptical theism leads to moral paralysis. International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 67, 67–80.
Wachterhauser, B. (1985). The problem of evil and moral scepticism. International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 17, 167–174.
Wykstra, S. (1984). The Humean obstacle to evidential arguments from suffering: On avoiding the evils of “Appearance.”. International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 16, 73–93.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Janzen, G. Pascal’s Wager and the Nature of God. SOPHIA 50, 331–344 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-010-0213-5
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-010-0213-5