Saturday, February 13, 2010

Pascal's Wager

Since this coming Wed is the 1st day of Lent, I just signed on to see if I could order a good book or 2 to read during this time. Like I've mentioned before, it seems like I waste so much time doing worthless things like staring at the television or my computer screen. Sometimes I sign on to check my e-mail and then before I know it, an hour has gone by, and I really have accomplished nothing! I want to devote a lot of the next several weeks to really trying to use my time more wisely! So I want to make sure I have some books laying around. There is a book by Peter Kreeft that I've been wanting to get called "Fundamentals of the Faith." I went to his website to look for it and saw that he had written something on Pascal's Wager, which I had read online some months ago. Blaise Pascal was a French Philosopher back in the 1600's. His "Wager" is an argument that is for the atheist, and is based on the truth that a choice has to be made before death either for God or against Him... It's like placing a wager for some, because reason has not yet carried them over to faith. Ultimately it comes down to stepping out in faith because the risk is too great to stay where you are. It is the only logical choice for happiness here and in eternity. Pascal said, "Let us assess the two cases: if you win, you win everything: if you lose, you lose nothing. Do not hesitate then: wager that he does exist." I really enjoyed reading what I have read so far of him, so I clicked to see what Peter Kreeft had to say about this, and it was REALLY good! If anyone wants to read this please click here. Peter Kreeft is a professor of Philosophy at Boston College, and is really brilliant. I want to get some more of his books in the future. Anyway, I thought it was funny that out of over 50 books on his site, this writing that I was drawn to on Pascal's Wager was taken from the exact book, "Fundamentals of the Faith," that I was looking to buy! I didn't know until I got to the end, and I saw the excerpt was taken from that very book. I think I will buy this book. HA HA!

1 comment:

Jerome said...

"Let us assess the two cases: if you win, you win everything: if you lose, you lose nothing."

I don't see how that could be put into more simple terms. It's a shame that some people can't even understand something as simple as that.

Pascal had it goin' on.