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The Problems With Believing At Will Summary

915 Words4 Pages

Yiyang Liu
Introduction to Philosophy
Brian
The Problems with Believing at Will Pascal has written about how believing in God has practical benefits based on the risk versus reward of believing in God. However, his arguments are based on the idea that it is inherently possible to believe an idea solely based on personal choice. I believe that it is impossible to believe at will and that everything you believe in was because of your past experiences or because of influence of other people. Because of this, the practical reasons of religious beliefs are undermined by the lack of real choice in that matter. Everything that we believe in are a result of our experiences: everything from what parents have told us to what was taught in school. For example, you believe that there is gravity because when you let go of an object, it drops to the ground. You were also taught in school that gravity …show more content…

It is impossible to choose what we believe in solely based on our will. Because of that, Pascal’s argument for the benefits of believing in God does not help whether or not we are able to believe in God. Pascal’s wager, in summary, explains that it is better to believe in God and lose nothing if God did not exist, then to not believe in God and suffer for an eternity if God did exist. Let’s say that there was a man that did not believe in God. After reading about Pascal’s arguments, he agreed that it would be less risky to believe in the existence of God rather than not. So he decided to start believing in God. In that case, did this person truly change his beliefs in God? Without searching for evidence for the existence of God, did he suddenly have real conviction for the belief of God? He may try to convince himself that God is real, but true belief will not be based on any practical benefits. It does not matter whether or not there are benefits to a belief if we cannot consciously change our beliefs based on the

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