Sierra Davis John Walchak PHI 2010 (01M) November 10, 2014 One cannot prove that God exists with reason alone. As all attempts to prove why God must exist seem to fail, even if God cannot be proven, can belief in God be justified? There are three philosophers who attempted to answer this question. The first was Blaise Pascal, who argued in favor of belief in God as explained in “Pascal’s Wager,” an argument that justified it to his mind until his death in 1662. The second Philosopher was W. K. Clifford, who argued against forming any beliefs without sufficient evidence and encouraged agnosticism if evidence cannot be found. The third Philosopher was William James, who in his essay "The Will to Believe" defends belief in God against …show more content…
W. K. Clifford was a critic of this way of thinking, claiming "it is wrong always, everywhere, and for any one, to believe anything on insufficient evidence (Lawhead 345)." In “The ethics of Belief” Clifford gives an example of a ship owners believing that a ship was sea worthy without inspecting it, in which the ship sinks. In the example, the ship owner had no right to believe that the ship would make it without inspecting it. So it is shown that there is an ethical issue with Pascal’s reasoning and people should really remain agnostic until they have evidence to prove a belief. William James, however, thought that agnosticism for the sake of avoiding error is …show more content…
If it is true that one will lose something of momentous good by not believing in God, then it is foolish to assume it shouldn’t be accepted without evidence. “A rule of thinking which would absolutely prevent me from acknowledging certain kinds of truth if those kinds of truth were really there, would be an irrational rule (Lawhead 347).” Furthermore, in the case of belief in God, and other options that are real, forced and momentous and where the issue cannot be settled by appeal to objective reasons and evidence, then we may legitimately believe what we think is pragmatically possible. James believed that it is legitimate to believe in whatever you want, as long as evidence cannot otherwise explain