Ms. Yoonhee Kang: “Pascal’s Wager: Betting on God, why not?” 

“God is, or He is not.” But to which side shall we incline? Reason can decide nothing here […] A game is being played at the extremity of this infinite distance where heads or tails will turn up […] Which will you choose then? […] Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. […] If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is. (Pascal, Blaise, 1670, Pensées, §233)

Abstract: Is theism justified? How? Traditional philosophical arguments for theism (Anselm’s ontological argument, Aquinas’ cosmological argument, Descartes’s ontological and cosmological arguments, and so on) attempt to provide “proofs” for the existence of God. But Pascal – French philosopher, mathematician and physicist (1623-1662) –is unconvinced by those attempted proofs for God. Pascal develops a rather pragmatic argument providing prudential reasons for believing in God. Pascal claims, roughly to put, we should wager that God exists because it is the best bet!

In this talk, I will introduce Pascal’s Wager argument – his view on probability, voluntarism, and the use of the concept of infinity etc. I will also discuss various possible objections to his argumentation.