A conversation with Pascal’s ghost

“Pascal, why did you wager that it is better to believe in God than not to believe!”

 His response was statistically simple:

 “I had everything to gain and nothing to lose,” he responded. 

“But isn‟t that cowardice?” I retorted. “Here is Dawkins‟ book—from a scientist, and aren‟t you, a famous mathematician, giving in to the God delusion? Isn‟t Dawkins heroic to fight this theistic game—to fight this addictive religious gambling on God‟s existence?”

Pascal was slow to respond. And then, slowly, he said: “Look at how much energy Dawkins expends. Theists don‟t work as hard: in their game they have the „God hypothesis‟ on their side; it‟s much easier to gamble when God is in your corner.”

My response was passionate: “But who can really tell that God is in his corner? As an atheist, Dawkins is fighting this vacuous God-presumption. He is as opposed to this sort of gambling as he would be to any other addictive gambling!”

“Well,” Pascal responded, an incipient smile on his lips and a subtle crescendo in his voice, “Dawkins is as much in this game as I was, but he is too hard-headed to recognize that he cannot win! You see, I am still here, unashamedly, to talk to you; I wagered correctly, not because I can now tell you that there is a God, but because I was saved from the fate meted out to Giordano Bruno, who was incinerated, and Galileo who was forced to recant! And earlier, Socrates‟ fate was determined by a religio-political junta which found power a more convincing tool than dialogical philosophy. Sooner or later Dawkins too will be silenced. He is going to lose—in fact, the more he writes and argues, the more significance and credibility he bestows on the theist‟s position.”

“But how can that be?” I responded. “Dawkins has science on his side! He asks for evidence and is not taken in by arguments from the side of Faith. How can anyone in the modern worldnot be an atheist?”

“I don‟t think you understand,” Pascal responded. “This is not a game made and played in the sacred domain of heaven; this is a secular game! Theists are condemned to the same secular world we are all in, and in that world all that counts is power; so if you can make the claim that your religious Faith accounts for a true cosmogony, it is hard to win against you. By comparison, Dawkins‟ evolutionism, as he must admit, is mere hypothesis: Moses heard God speak. Darwin only gave us doxa!—how does that empower anyone?”

“But isn‟t that sense of “Faith”—for example Faith in the veracity of Biblical Genesis—a violation of the secular use of the same term? How,” I asked, “does that use of Faith affect the theist‟s game? The literal theist seems to be using a recognizable secular language to talk about something alien to the secular world.”

“That‟s the point,” Pascal replied, “theists can slip into and out of this secular world at will! They win by playing with a stacked deck. All thinking is propositionally rooted in the secular world, and all such thinking is rooted in the possibility—indeed, the necessity—of doubt. It is contingent, and for that reason Dawkins keeps insisting on the presentation of evidence. Thus even if Dawkins argues that theistic propositions are non-demonstrable, that they lack evidence, that they are false, he is still acknowledging their meaningfulness. And if, finally and out of frustration, he argues that they are meaningless, as T. R. Miles does, then only silence can be his last resort—which will make theists happy. His opponents are not simply semantic ghosts. I could see that, so I made a wager that I could not lose—it was a safe bet!”

“But what do you mean when you say theists are playing with a stacked deck? That indicates an entrapment,” I argued.

Pascal gave this some consideration, and then revealed what seemed like two related traps: “This is the first trap,” he said: “When theists connect their monotheistic God to such concepts  as “causation‟, “design‟, and “existence‟, they are obviously using terms which are grounded in a secular context. Thus when arguments for God based on these concepts are challenged, theists make the first move in the direction of what I will call a  cosmological inversion—that is, their God becomes infinitely distant and, hence, cannot be captured through ordinary propositions; theists then claim that they are only  speaking metaphorically or analogically. They will insist that propositions simply cannot give God His true measure. The more we try to make sense of God, the more God moves out of sight.”

“But didn‟t Plato indicate that when it comes to such things as “Absolute forms‟, our knowledge cannot be propositional; that “non-propositional knowledge‟ is  possible and is  not contaminated by contingency and doubt? And was not Parmenides successful in his attempt to concretize God‟s thinking by negating the sense experience which most mortal humans  depend on?  Shouldn‟t an atheist be able to construct an ontological highway to a God who seems infinitely remote—if that God exists in the first place?”

Well,” Pascal retorted, “the Greeks you mention did not have a full-blown monotheism tocontend with. In fact, they tried to avoid a cosmological inversion by keeping their gods within range. Their gods were almost too human for comfort. That‟s the virtue and plight of polytheism. They did not require the esoteric bridge of Faith.”

“And the second trap?” I listened closely, since I planned to convey Pascal‟s thoughts to Dawkins.

 Here Pascal expressed a real concern for Dawkins: “When Dawkins and all otherdisbelievers are finally worn down and silenced, literal theists will bring God back into view through a renewed polytheism of angels and holy spirits, through “excarnations‟ which expand exponentially the domain of the profane—all in an attempt to achieve power, to control and restrict the secular life of humans. The ancient “amendment by noose‟  becomes an institutionalized model in the hands of those clerics and clergy who claim the power to read God‟s intentions: And now God is back in the secular world! The cosmological inversion circles God back into view and is now complete.”Faith‟ and “belief‟ serve this inversion process: When inconvenient, God is withdrawn mysteriously and Faith becomes hopelessly “petitionary‟; when convenient, God‟s iconic  presence becomes overwhelming, but Faith remains hopelessly “petitionary‟ (Miles, 86). Humans must live with unanswered prayers. And so I made a wager. Perhaps I gained nothing. But at least I had the peace of mind which Dawkins and others do not have. My wager  allowed me to live in  peace and to work in the secular world. This ghost to whom you speak is not an immortal being. My wager is my immortality, since it continues to live in the minds of others. And so, in the end, God has served me after all.”

Theism, atheism, agnosticism—all produce unending conflict. The entire dispute is the result of a series of category confusions or mistakes.

The Cosmological Inversion: Sacred and Secular Constructs of “Faith” and “Belief”John Roemischer, State University of New York, Plattsburgh, Adjunct Lecturer, Retired.

Source: Forum On Public Policy