Is Blaise Pascal's approach to "curing unbelief" in the proposition that God exists philosophically sound?

Question

Hence it comes that, if there are as many risks on one side as on the other, the course is to play even; and then the certainty of the stake is equal to the uncertainty of the gain, so far is it from the fact that there is an infinite distance between them. And so our proposition is of infinite force, when there is the finite to stake in a game where there are equal risks of gain and of loss, and the infinite to gain. This is demonstrable; and if men are capable of any truths, this is one. "I confess it, I admit it. But still is there no means of seeing the faces of the cards?"—Yes, Scripture and the rest, &c.—"Yes, but I have my hands tied and my mouth closed; I am forced to wager, and am not free. I am not released, and am so made that I cannot believe. What then would you have me do?"

[The Heart Has Its Reasons]

True. But at least learn your inability to believe, since reason brings you to this, and you cannot believe. Endeavor then to convince yourself, not by increase of proofs of God, but by the abatement of your passions. You would like to attain faith, and do not know the way; you would like to cure yourself of unbelief, and ask the remedy for it. Learn of those who have been bound like you, and who now stake all their possessions. These are people who know the way which you would follow, and who are cured of an ill of which you would be cured. Follow the way by which they began; by acting as if they believe, taking the holy water, having masses said, &c. Even this will naturally make you believe, and deaden your acuteness.—"But this is what I am afraid of"—And why? What have you to lose?

But to show you that this leads you there, it is this which will lessen the passions, which are your stumbling—blocks.

The heart has its reasons which reason does not know. We feel it in a thousand things. I say that the heart naturally loves the Universal Being, and also itself naturally, according as it gives itself to them; and it hardens itself against one or the other at its will. You have rejected the one, and kept the other. Is it by reason that you love yourself?

It is the heart which experiences God, and not the reason. This, then, is faith; God felt by the heart, not by reason.

Source: https://philosophy.lander.edu/intro/introbook2.1/x4404.html

It seems to me that Blaise Pascal is suggesting that one can "fake it till you make it"—that by acting as if one believes that God exists, genuine belief will eventually follow, thus "curing" unbelief. And this cure will actually take the form of one somehow experiencing God in one's heart (whatever Pascal meant by that), as opposed to a logical/rational conclusion being grasped by reason. Hence the well-known "The heart has its reasons which reason does not know".

Is my understanding of Pascal more or less correct? If so, does his approach to "curing unbelief" in the proposition that God exists make sense philosophically?

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Somewhat related: Is the Skeptic's Prayer a valid scientific experiment?

Answer 1

I think it's important to distinguish what Pascal believes from what he's attempting to establish philosophically. He believes that if you reach out to God, even without faith, God will embrace you in a way that is convincing. We can hazard a guess that this is how he would describe his evolution into a believer.

But he's a careful and conscientious philosopher, and he doesn't want to advance an argument to a skeptic that presupposes belief, since that would be useless. So his philosophical argument is that it's rational to perform the experiment, even from a position of skepticism. Leaving the controversial infinite quantities out of the argument, we might gloss his claim as "can't hurt, might help, therefore rational to try, even if you don't believe it will help."

He's being upfront and honest about what he believes will happen, he's not trying to trick anyone. But it's important to his aims that his belief not be taken as a prerequisite. It's also helpful to note that Pascal does not frame this as an apologetic aimed at the committed atheist, but rather as an aid to the person drawn to faith, but unable to overcome their rational skepticism. It's intended as a path for that person around that obstacle.

Answer 2

A rational person wants to believe just those things that are rationally warranted. Therefore, if a rational person doesn't believe X initially, they don't want to have their belief in X changed by an emotional, rationally unwarranted process.

It may be true that going to church regularly could in time induce them to believe X, due to the sunk cost fallacy, the bandwagon fallacy, the tendency to believe something that they hear repeated often enough, the tendency to believe something that they wish were true, and the tendency to believe and repeat whatever gains them status in their local community.

But none of these are rational warrants to believe X. So a rational person would not want to be persuaded by them.

A rational person would only want to be persuaded by rational arguments.

Now, many people are not rational, and in fact don't mind being persuaded by irrational fallacies. They can go ahead and do that if they like. But it's not philosophy; philosophy concerns itself with what is rationally warranted to believe.

So no, it's not "philosophically sound."

Answer 3

Is my understanding of Pascal more or less correct? If so, does his approach to "curing unbelief" in the proposition that God exists make sense philosophically?

Your understanding of Pascal is more or less the same as mine. And his approach to "curing unbelief" does make some sense philosophically, imo. It can be interpreted/developed in at least two radically different ways that kind of mirror each other:

• It pushes the project of apologetics (really: religious education, and missionary activities) out of philosophy
• It pulls in non-rationalistic variants of playing the game of philosophy, where more explicit and implicit appeals to emotions and basic desires are accepted

So, it actually seems to go together with a change in the concept of philosophy itself...

We can see that nowadays no academic philosophers and even no modern Christian theologians seriously care anymore about proofs of Gods existence. Pascal gave one blow, Hume gave another, Kant didn't dare to go all the way, but is sometimes credited with giving the final blow. Not even fundamentalist creationists seriously care about those proofs anymore (actually, there are still holdouts, but how many and who takes them seriously?) If they are still studied today, then it's not to check if they, perhaps, really prove the existence of God or not, but for totally different reasons. Pascal is interesting because he stood just on the cusp of that historical breaking point (between a medieval point of view and a modern one).

Pascal's own rationalistic proof of Gods existence (Pascal's wager) is also a case in point. It's the most simple, purely rationalistic argument possible - you could probably explain it to a 7-yr old! The game-theoretic structure is beautiful in its stark simplicity, and the argument as such is perfectly valid. But, as Pascal himself fully realized, it won't convince anyone who doesn't already believe in a God.

For the second point - what I have in mind are utterances like Nietzsche's

Jetzt entscheidt under Geschmack gegen den Christentum. (Now, our taste decides against christianity.)

Clearly, that's not a rationalistic argument. (It also won't convince anyone to become an atheist, unless you already are one.) Some may also say that it's not an argument at all, but just an exclamation expressing Nietzsche's distaste of Christian bigotry. However, if you somehow already like Nietzsche's style or are impressed by his intellectual honesty, and then read this, then it can actually influence you and confirm/clarify your own values. Philosophy then, apparently, can also work through it style - through slowly moulding or modifying someone's general taste and sensitivities.

We like certain philosophers more than others, just because of their style - and ultimately, I think, just because we can see more of ourselves in the persona behind their philosophy.

Answer 4

I think your understanding of a "fake it till you make it" is correct seeing the pretty obvious sentence "acting as if they believe". I would say to commenter Conifold saying "following [the heart] is not 'faking'" that in this argument it seems that faking, and a self-manufactured habit, is precisely the practical way given to follow the heart in a context where it is blocked.

About this making sense, "this will naturally make you believe" seems to me to be an unproven psychological assertion more than reasoning. Even if we accept that "the heart naturally loves the Universal Being", the fact that it is before accepted that one was "made that [they] cannot believe" and some "have been bound like you" means to me that whatever the solution it needs to prove its effectiveness in practice (as it is compared to blockers that have an unknown amount of effect). That's the proof he points out in the people who supposedly "are cured", but who are they? All in all I would be more inclined to concede that this "fake it till you make it" actually working be a (weak) argument to say that "the heart naturally loves the Universal Being", this seems to be a little backwards.

I tried to keep the proposition that god exists, or that it is better to believe it, out of this and as an assumption as it is obviously a whole other can of worms.. and not in your question i think? though answers seem to mix that a lot.

Answer 5

I think it is philosophically sound as most people who are theists are not theists through rational argument but through reasons of the heart that the mind does not know. This is why I've always been dubious about rational demonstrations of the existence of God.

Answer 6

Little of it is philosophically sound.

Pascal claims according to his beliefs that diligent following of some cults practices will make at least some people believers.

There is no philosophical proof that this will work with everyone, at any time. There is no philosophical guidance in which cults practices to follow. Pascal may have a preference, but no philosophical argument to prefer any which one. Maybe it works with any. Maybe it works with atheism or satanism. Maybe one can become a fanatical racist and fascist that way. It is a form of self-guided brainwashing.

The "heart" experiencing something at the end of all that effort is not a philosophical proof of that something being genuine rather than delusional. Pascal has an opinion on it, but that's all it is.

Pascal wrote in the 17th century, before naturalism kicked off for real, before science had revealed old earth, the big bang, genetics, abiogenesis, bacteria, viruses, psychology and so on. For the people of his time and geographical location, his audience, there was no convenient way to get any scientific education, no way to join very different cults and religions rather than Christianity.

So this describes a historical situation that has not aged well into modernity. Philosophy as a tool to seek truth via reason does not rely "on the heart" and passions for this, because following that way many people came to various different results, which cannot all be true, and hence this is not a method to tell truth from delusion.

Even if Pascal was well known and studied a lot, this did not generally start a historical period of religious fervour with all people starting praying like crazy to get the "god-experience" in their hearts. Quite the opposite, naturalism became big and further drive people away from faith.

Trying to make other people drop rationality and engage in mindless repetitions of prayers of some cult hoping to experience some emotional turmoil attributed to a specific supernatural entity would not be morally acceptable by today's standards, and it's not philosophy. Several cults active today use similar brainwashing techniques to pick up gullible members. And true enough, it works for some victims. They do later claim to feel the truth of whichever superstition the given cult tries to sell. But philosophy is the antidote for that kind of cultist brainwashing.

The philosophic achievement of Pascal was not to reveal the true path to God. His achievement was to admit that faith in gods is not justified by rational examination of evidence, but at best by some childish gamble that would require one to believe in all religions and cults and follow all their practices to satisfy all potential gods, just in case. It rather instilled in all doubters the feeling that maybe all the other people in church were also not actual believers, but just pretenders.

Answer 7

This is a rare case in which the argument can be settled by simply consulting a dictionary.

From Webster's unabridged:

Sophistry n. See: Pascal's Wager