Similarities Between Pascal And Descartes

During the premodern period in Europe, it was largely accepted that the Catholic Church had ultimate authority. At that time, there was no real division between church and state. Instead, all matters were heavily intertwined. However, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Nicolaus Copernicus, Galileo Galilei, Francis Bacon, and Rene Descartes questioned the authority of the church and lead many people to consider that the church might not be the only authoritative figure to rely on. These men presented ideas that characterized a shift in authority that also is known as the shift from the premodern period to modernity.

If you grant this argument as valid, and are consequentially moved to choose to believe in God through reason, you are now meet with the obstacle of convincing yourself to believe. Pascal says that in this case you should not try to convince yourself by trying to further prove God’s existence, but instead you should observe those who have

He showed this to the reader through the use of Christian symbolism and Shakespearean allusions to show that it is not worth sacrificing the truth for a “happy utopian society”. Both happiness and truth are such important parts of a person’s life, and neither one can just be eliminated for the greater good of the other. A utopian society is perfect in every way, shape, and form, so one can not just eliminate such a big part of any community. Ignorance of such a big part of life, such as truth, is dangerous to one's self. Huxley’s final message to the reader is in order to reach that perfect society, people must learn to solve their problems without simply sweeping them under the rug.

Belief is not Decision Pascal’s Wager, the argument that an individual who believes in God’s existence is entitled to infinite gains. There are three objections against Pascal article, including “the wrong motivation”, “too many options” and “Belief not a decision”. Among these three reasonable objections, I believe that the strongest one is “Belief not a decision”, because everything needs a reason as people are born as rational creatures. Otherwise, people believe in the existence of God because they trust that God could bring benefits to them. For me, although the objection is reasonable, I still think the Pascal’s response is stronger.

According to a philosopher, Pascal Wenger, one 's belief about God existing is based on self-interest. He argues that it is in our interest to believe that God exists and hence from his point of view it is rational for us human beings to do so. Furthermore, he adds that if we believe in God 's existence and he truly exists then, we are bound to receive a reward in heaven but if he doesn 't exist we won 't have lost a thing. Finally, he concludes those who do not believe in God 's existence; then he exists they are bound to receive an endless penalty in heaven. Also, other arguments about the existence of God include the ontological perspective which tries to argue from the point of abstract reasoning.

Saint Anselm came up with the ontological argument that only a fool would believe that God does not exist. An ontological argument is hand in hand with a Platonic a priori where there is a strong attempt made to prove that God exists by the concept of his existence. Saint Anselm’s argument is that even someone thick minded, or has a low IQ can state that there is a God, and for this to be possible, God must exist. He backs his argument up by comparing what is imagined up in the mind and what is in reality. Reality is existence, and imagining something up is nonexistent.

It is God who gave us the ability to believe and not to believe and not church 's decision to make for us. He goes on to say "the impious presumption of legislature and ruler, civil as well as ecclesiastical" are fallible to assume "dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions" and compelling men to contribute money for the religion to which they do not believe in, calling it "sinful and tyrannical" (106). Jefferson states that no one should be obliged to attend church or support it with his taxes. It is our natural rights of mankind to be able to profess our own matters of religion. Jefferson proclaims in his bill the establishment for freedom of conscience and the separation of the church

For “… great is your reward in heaven…” (Matthew 5:12). Anything that we accumulate on Earth will not withstand the greatness for what God has instore because his reward is eternal. Our desire for greatness could be what keeps us from it all

Furthermore, the mind is believed to have been given to us by God in order to reach the truth; even Abdu’l-Baha, the successor of the Baha’i faith, states that “God has given us rational minds for this purpose, to penetrate all things, to find truth. If one renounce reason, what remains? The sacred texts? How can we understand God’s commands and to what use can we put them without the balance of reason?” Explaining that it would not be possible for them to gain access to everything without the usage of reason and that we would not be able to properly use God’s teachings without reason.

This method is supportive of Descartes’s will to emphasis on doubt and question anything that can be doubted. Thus, he demonstrates the presence of God through a chain of consequences ‘Causal proof’. Because of the law of conservation of matter, the cause must equal the effect, if we have an idea of God than this idea is the effect and God is the cause (Gaarder, 2003). Therefore, the idea we have of God is an innate idea that we did not produce ourselves. Accordingly, he expresses that as a result of his innate thoughts of God, it only makes sense that it be God who "is the reason for this thought".

1. The medieval world view was a God-centered world view, one which largely emphasized faith over reason. As the transitional figure between the classical and medieval periods, Augustine “repudiated the distinguishing feature of classical humanism: the autonomy of reason.” More so, he labelled faith as the source of knowledge and argued for the primacy of faith. For this reason, much of the medieval world view was centered on Christian mysticism, specifically, the complete acceptance of God and the Scriptures.

The difficult of evil exists undoubtedly the leading problem to trust in the being of God. The dispute from cruel or problem of evil is the dispute that an omnipotent, omniscient, and flawlessly moral God would not let someone or definite types of evil or grief to happen. Only individuals who have faith that there exists a Deity who is both all-powerful and wholly good are bothered by the problem of evil. The issue of evil grips all five of the subsequent propositions are: First, God is entirely moral; He wishes the supreme on behalf of everybody in the universe, Second, God is all-powerful; it means that He can do what is logically impossible, God can do all He wants, Third, Evil subsists; “Evil” signifies whichever deficiency in the world,

He believes that moral purposes were generated by human society, for human society, over generations passed, to ease human life thus there is no rational intelligence behind it. 1.b. John Lennox’s take on “has science buried God?” John Lennox is a firm believer of the Christian religion. Even though Lennox is a believer of the Christian faith, he is also a scientist who firmly believes that the conviction of a creator not only is under no circumstances arguable, but it is of essential importance when one looks at the creation of the universe and the existence of human kind.

In this essay I will be writing about Blaise Pascal, a mathematician and French philosopher whose work became very popular due to his "Wager". Pascal's argument in his essay "The Wager" states that any rational human should believe in God. He states that regardless of whether or not God exists, the option of believing yields the greatest benefit and the least loss out of all the possibilities. In believing in God, one can receive infinite gain which is heaven, if God exist, and would only have finite losses if God does not exist. However, he shares that if one was to bet against god, if one wins or loses, the individual would either gain an insignificant finite if God does not exist, or lose everything if God does exist which would lead to going to Hell.

In response to atheists, Blaise Pascal offers a mathematical argument for why everyone should believe in God. He first argues that God is infinite and beyond human comprehension, and humans are thus “incapable of knowing either what He is or if He is. ”1 Because of this, we are simply forced to gamble on God’s existence or nonexistence. In this gamble, if we believe in God and He exists, we will be infinitely rewarded with eternal life for our faithfulness. If we believe in God but He does not exist, then we will have wasted our time following “heavenly laws” and worshiping a false god.