The Will to

Believe: A Critique

BY:NOCHOLAS EVERITT
 Questions to be considered:

o How does Jame’s o Does James’s

defense of belief approach the
differ from problems that
Paschal’s? beset Paschal’s
Wager?

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Differences between
Jame’s Argument and
Paschalian Argument
 First Difference: Paschalian Argument (The
Wager)
⬗ Even there is some good evidence that
God does not exist, the Wager is still
applicable to the belief in God’s
existence.
⬗ So, the Paschalian maintains that even if
it is epistemically irrational to believe in
God, it can simultaneously be
consequentially rational to believe.

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 First Difference: James’s
Argument

⬗ Only the belief that is

unresolvable.

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 First Difference: Conclusion
⬗ This means that the potential target audience
for the Jamesian argument is to that extent
much smaller than for the Wager:
⬗ the Wager applies equally to those who deny
this.
⬗ But the Jamesian argument applies only to
those who think that the choice whether to
accept the belief is living, forced and
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Second Difference: Paschalian Argument (The
Wager)

⬗ The Wager assumes that you will reap

the benefits of believing (and the
penalties of disbelieving) only if God
exists; for it is only in the afterlife (if
there is one) that the payoffs of the
Wager are forthcoming.
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 Second Difference: Jamesian
Argument

⬗ James, by contrast locates the benefits and

losses in the here-and-now.
⬗ Even if there is no God and so your belief is
false, you will benefit now from holding the
belief: it will help make your life better.

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 Second Difference: Jamesian
Argument

⬗ The atheist and the agnostic are

losing out now through not believing.

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 Second Difference: Conclusion

⬗ James makes no assumption

about any benefits accruing in
an afterlife to believers.

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 Third Difference: Paschalian Argument (The
Wager)

⬗ The Paschalian… has to make

some very implausible
assumptions about the nature of
God and his likely response to
belief and disbelief among his
creature.
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 Third Difference: Jamesian
Argument

⬗ James, on the other hand, makes no explicit

assumptions about the nature of God, and
all his argument all requires are some
commonplaces of traditional theism, such
as that God cares for us, responds to our
needs, helps us in times of difficulty, and so
on.
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 Third Difference: Jamesian
Argument

⬗ And his argument does not require

that these commonplaces be true,
but only that they be believed, for
the benefits come from the belief,
whether or not it is true.

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 Second Difference: Conclusion

⬗ James makes no assumption

about any benefits accruing in
an afterlife to believers.

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 The Arguments of
Nicholas Everitt on
the Differences
between the
Paschalian and
Jamesian
Arguments
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 First Argument: Analysis
⬗ First, and perhaps least importantly, we can
question whether the existence of God is really
intellectually unresolvable.
⬗ It would be a reasonable empirical assumption
that the great majority of people who have
seriously considered the issue of God’s existence
have thought that the evidence did favour either
belief or disbelief.
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 First Argument: Analysis
⬗ To say this is not by itself, of course, to
say that they think that they think that
the evidence is overwhelming, or it
justifies certainty, but only that it
justifies belief.

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 Second Argument: Analysis
⬗ Suppose, however, that James is right in his
assumption that the existence of God is
intellectually unresolvable.
⬗ A second objection then arises, about
Jame’s assumption that a person’s
passional nature is involved in deciding how
to respond to open propositions.
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 Second Argument: Analysis
⬗ James is caught in a strange lack of
consistency here.

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 Second Argument: Analysis
⬗ In respect of intellectually resolvable
propositions, he accepts that our passional
nature has no legitimate role to play: the
requirement to believe propositions for
which there is overall good evidence, and to
disbelieve those for which the evidence is
poor, he accepts is a requirement for reason.
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 Second Argument: Analysis
⬗ But if that is so, why is the requirement to
suspend judgment in all those cases where
the evidence is lacking or evenly balanced
not also a requirement of reason?

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 Third Argument: Analysis
⬗ The third problem focuses on James’s
negative rule concerning how our passional
nature should guide us.

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 Third Argument: Analysis
⬗ He tells us that we should not accept a rule
which would prevent us from accepting as
true any propositions which in fact are true,
i.e., even when we have no evidence that
they are true.
⬗ But on the face of it, the rule he rejects
sounds an excellent negative rule to
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accept!
 Third Argument: Analysis
⬗ If there are any propositions which are in
principle unresolvable, they are
propositions, for or against which we cannot
get good evidence; and in that case, it
sounds eminently reasonable to withhold
both assent and dissent…

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 Third Argument: Analysis
⬗ But the most that his argument requires him
to reject is a rule which would prevent him
from accepting propositions in relation to
which he has no evidence, where the
acceptance of the propositions would
bring him some benefits.

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