Jan

14

Fascinating reference to Pascal’s Wager from the Atheist Richard Dawkins in his book, “The God Delusion”

January 14, 2008 |

Posted by sthomsen · Filed Under Atheism, Calvinism/Arminianism, Christian Philosophy, Salvation, Apologetics 

Dawkins writes:

The great French mathematician Blaise Pascal reckoned that, however long the odds against God’s existence might be, there is an even larger asymmetry in the penalty for guessing wrong. You’d better believe in God, because if you are right you stand to gain eternal bliss and if you are wrong it won’t make any difference anyway. On the other hand, if you don’t believe in God and you turn out to be wrong you get eternal damnation, whereas if you are right it makes no difference.

There is something distinctly odd about the argument, however. Believing is not something you can decide to do as a matter of policy. At least, it is not something I can decide to do as an act of will. I can decide to go to church and I can decide to recite the Nicene Creed, and I can decide to swear on a stack of bibles that I believe every word inside them. But none of that can make me actually believe it if I don’t. Pascal’s wager could only ever be an argument for feigning belief in God. And the God that you claim to believe in had better not be of the omniscient kind or he’d see through the deception.

“The God Delusion” page 103-104

In his recent review of the book, Glenn R. Kreider comments:

Dawkins is correct that Pascal’s wager is often used this way, to encourage people to make a wise decision, to choose to believe in God because the risk is greater to deny Him than to believe in Him. Stated this way, conversion is seen as a matter of personal choice, assuming that people have the ability to believe and that when presented with an offer framed in such a way, the choice should be obvious.

Dawkins seems to understand faith quite well and his implicit critique of apologetic and evangelistic approaches that treat faith as a willful decision needs to be heard.

Review of “The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins
Bibliotheca Sacra / January-March 2008
Review by Glenn R. Kreider


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