Taking Pascal's wager: faith, evidence, and the abundant life

Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP Academic, an imprint of Intervarsity Press (2016)
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Abstract

In part one of this book I argue for the conditional claim that if Christianity has at least a 50% epistemic probability, then it is rational to commit to living a Christian life (and irrational not to). This claim is supported by a contemporary version of Pascal's wager. In part two, I then proceed to argue that Christianity does have at least a 50% epistemic probability, by advancing versions of the cosmological argument, the fine-tuning argument, and historical arguments for the plausibility of the resurrection (along with a few other relevant considerations). Assessments of the problem of evil and divine hiddenness are also given. Finally, in part three, I discuss the lives of three Christians from the 20th century (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Jean Vanier, and Immaculee Ilibagiza) in an effort to illustrate how a life of Christian commitment is not just reasonable, but worth desiring as well--satisfying both the head and the heart.

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Michael W. Rota
University of St. Thomas, Minnesota

Citations of this work

Faithfully Taking Pascal’s Wager.Elizabeth Jackson - 2023 - The Monist 106 (1):35–45.
Pascalian Expectations and Explorations.Alan Hajek & Elizabeth Jackson - forthcoming - In Roger Ariew & Yuval Avnur (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to Pascal. Wiley-Blackwell.
The rationality of faith and the benefits of religion.Brian Ballard - 2017 - International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 81 (1-2):213-227.

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