To the high-minded objector who refuses to believe for the low motive of saving the eternal skin of his own soul, we may reply that the Wager works quite as well if we change the motive. Let us say we want to give God his due if there is a God. Now if there is a God, justice demands total faith, hope, love, obedience, and worship. If there is a God and we refuse to give him these things, we sin maximally against the truth. But the only chance of doing infinite justice is if God exists and we believe, while the only chance of doing infinite injustice is if God exists and we do not believe. If God does not exist, there is no one there to do infinite justice or infinite injustice to. So the motive of doing justice moves the Wager just as well as the motive of seeking happiness. Pascal used the more selfish motive because we all have that all the time, while only some are motivated by justice, and only some of the time. Because the whole argument moves on the practical rather than the theoretical level, it is fitting that Pascal next imagines the listener offering the practical objection that he just cannot bring himself to believe. Pascal then answers the objection with stunningly practical psychology, with the suggestion that the prospective convert act into his belief if he cannot yet act out of it. If you are unable to believe, it is because of your passions since reason impels you to believe and yet you cannot do so. Concentrate then not on convincing yourself by multiplying proofs of Gods existence but by diminishing your passions. You want to find faith, and you do not know the road. You want to be cured of unbelief, and you ask for the remedy: learn from those who were once bound like you and who now wager all they have. . . . They behaved just as if they did believe. This is the same advice Dostoevskys guru, Father Zossima, gives to the woman of little faith in The Brothers Karamazov. The behavior Pascal mentions is taking holy water, having Masses said, and so on. The behavior Father Zossima counsels to the same end is active and indefatigable love of your neighbor. In both cases, living the Faith can be a way of getting the Faith. As Pascal says: That will make you believe quite naturally and will make you more docile. But that is what I am afraid of. But why? What have you to lose? An atheist visited the great rabbi and philosopher Martin Buber and demanded that Buber prove the existence of God to him. Buber refused, and the atheist got up to leave in anger. As he left, Buber called after him, But can you be sure there is no God? That atheist wrote, forty years later, I am still an atheist. But Bubers question has haunted me every day of my life. The Wager has just that haunting power.
Posted on: Thu, 19 Jun 2014 18:40:48 +0000
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