Practical Solution for Choosing Between Christianity and Skepticism

DAY 318 CHALLENGE “I am unable to decide between Christianity and skepticism, and it doesn’t help to review the evidence. My dilemma seems insoluble.” DEFENSE In his Pensées, the French philosopher Blaise Pascal proposed a practical solution that became known as Pascal’s Wager. He proposed that, if evidential reasoning cannot settle the question for a particular person, then practical reasoning may (see Day 336). Pascal’s Wager can be put different ways (in fact, Pascal himself put it more than one way), but here we will follow his main presentation of it. He compared the decision of ...