Most everyone knows Pascal’s Wager, drawn from a single paragraph in Pensces: belief in God is, in short, the safest bet. (“Read more on the Wager.) It’s interesting that people still apply it in earnest.
Most recently, I’ve heard Catholic philosopher Peter Kreeft use it in his 1995 Texas A&M Veritas Forum lecture.
One of the objections is the supposed inability to chose one’s beliefs. Pascal foresaw such an argument:
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 believed, taking the holy water, having masses said, etc… But to show you that this leads you there, it is this which will lessen the passions, which are your stumbling-blocks.
Action precedes faith. Praying, meditating, going to Mass, all lead to faith. Crazy as that might sound, Pascal might indeed have a point. Polish writer Czesław Miłosz made the same point in The Captive Mind:
The Catholic Church wisely recognized that faith is more a matter of collective suggestion than of individual conviction. Collective religious ceremonies induce a state of belief. Folding one’s hands in prayer, kneeling, singing hymns precede faith, for faith is a psycho-physical and not simply a psychological phenomenon.
Every Mass Catholics cite the Apostles’ Creed in one voice:
I believe in God the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and earth:
I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord; Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried; He descended into hell; on the third day He arose from the dead; He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit; the holy catholic church; the communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; and life everlasting. Amen.
“I believe; I hear my neighbor beside me state that he believes; I am aware that my neighbor in front of me believes – we all believe. We all support each other in these beliefs.” That’s what I hear behind the words.
In that believing environment, which must be at least similar to Pascal’s environment, willing yourself to believe seems not only possible, but almost inescapable. Even as a “staunch” non-believer, I feel sometimes that tug toward belief, that desire not simply to fit in for the sake of fitting in, but to have what the parishioners around me seem to have.
There are two kinds of views on religion, wrote William James in The Varieties of Religious Experience:
- Seek truth
- Avoid error
For those who seek truth, the choice is obvious – bet on God. I’ve always been more the type to avoid error.
I avoid error at all cost (though I still look for truth in unusual places).
I like how Milosz calls it “psychophysical.” The religious ritual in this way is much like the recitation of any mantra or the use of visualization techniques: the imaging suggests then reinforces belief, which in turn makes it so.
It drives me nuts that in my family (dare I generalize to the Polish people?) family tradition, cultural traditions, and religious traditions are so tightly intertwined as to be inextricable one from the next. The ceremony or the ritual is often more important than anything the words might actually mean.
Avoid error. I was the rare Pole who was 100% non religious. Kinga, where do you fit in?