PHIL 185 – Philosophy of Religion Online Notes

28/3/2021

Lecture 10

Belief in God

Belief in God

• Blaise Pascal (d. 1662) was a French philosopher who came up with a famous
“wager”:
o It is impossible to know for certain that God exist.
§ So, should we believe in God or not?
o Pascal saying that the rational thing to do is to believe in God.
o Because you got 2 options:
§ Option A:
• If you believe in God and He exist, you’ll be rewarded and
you’ll get eternal paradise.
• If you believe in God and He does not exist, you don’t lose
anything.
§ Option B:
• If you do not believe in God and he exist, you would be
punished forever. (eternal hell)
• If you do not believe in God and He does not exist, nothing will
happen.
§ So, the smart thing is to believe that God exist because you would have
the chance to gain everything, and you would lose nothing.

• Pascal’s Wager: Rational to believe in God:

o Rationally speaking, you should believe in God. Because, according to
decision making theory, that is the rational move (to believe in God).
§ And if you don’t believe in God, you are following your passion.

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PHIL 185 – Philosophy of Religion Online Notes

• Problem with Pascal’s wager:

o 1: if you believe in God and He does not exist, you will lose nothing.
§ That is not true, because you would be dedicating your whole life for
nothing which have to meaning (you would miss out on experiences
that you could have had).
o 2: According to David Huma, Pascal makes it seem like it’s an all or nothing
situation (you believe in God you’ll get everything. You don’t believe in God
you’ll lose everything), that’s not the situation.
§ Suppose a Christian believes in God but also believe that God has a
son. According to a Muslim he won’t be given a Jannah because this
would be shurk. (or the other way around)
§ It’s not just an option between believe and unbelieve. It is believing in
a way that God wants you to believe in Him and doing that things that
He asks you to do to get you to heaven, which is based on scripture.
And different scriptures say different things. So, every religion has
their own take on this.
o 3: if we really know nothing about God (because Pascal is saying that we
simply don’t know anything about God), then what makes you think that
believing in Him is what he wants you to do.
§ What makes you think that He will reward you if you believe in Him
and punish you if you don’t believe in him.

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