6.3 Reasons for Belief Despite the Absence of Proof: Non-evidentialist Arguments

Have any of the arguments for the existence of God absolutely proved the existence of a supernatural, eternal, perfect being? Is there any harm in believing God exists without evidence? Might there not be benefits to believing in God anyway? Is there any good to come from choosing to not think about whether or not we believe in such a God? Is there a risk in putting off a decision on this question? Is it possible to be neutral on the question of belief when the stakes seem to be so high?

Most would argue that there are too many counterarguments to each of the proofs. Some, like the great 19th-century theologian Cardinal John Henry Newman, would argue that taken separately each argument has its weaknesses but taken collectively they form a pretty compelling case for a God.

Other theologically inclined philosophers begin by acknowledging that no proof is adequate yet argue that that does not mean one should disbelieve in God. Instead, they make arguments for the importance of believing in God despite absolute proof. These non-evidentialist philosophers focus not on divine existence but on the importance of the choice for or against belief.

Non-evidentialism begins with the following assumptions:

1. There is not enough evidence to be certain of such a divine being, though there is equally not enough evidence enough to disprove its existence.
2. The choice to believe or disbelieve in such a being is not optional but is mandatory for us. To avoid the question (agnosticism) is already to choose against believing.
3. When faced with vital choices for which there are no certain outcomes, it is reasonable to appeal to our subjective emotions and experiences to come to a decision.

In this section, we look at two non-evidentialist arguments, Blaise Pascal’s “wager,” and William James’ “will to believe.”

Blaise Pascal

Early in life, Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) pursued interests in physics and mathematics. His theory of conic sections and probability theory are well known; nevertheless, … as a result of a harrowing accident, Pascal turned his attention to religion and religious philosophy in the latter part of his life. It seems he was driving a four-in-hand when the two leader horses leaped over the parapet of Neuilly bridge. Pascal’s life was saved when the traces broke; he took the accident as a sign to abandon his experimental life and turn to God. For the remainder of his life, he carried a piece of parchment describing this incident next to his heart. …

Pascal’s Pensées reveals a skepticism with respect to natural theology. Pascal pointed out that the most important things in life cannot be known with certainty; even so, we must make choices. His deep mysticism and religious commitment are reflective of Christian existentialism, and Pascal’s devotional writing is often compared to Søren Kierkegaard’s. The Pensées remained fragmented devotional pieces until definitively edited and organized [later]. (Archie and Archie, Ch. 16)

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Excerpts from Pascal’s Penses

We know that there is an infinite and are ignorant of its nature. As we know it to be false that numbers are finite, it is, therefore, true that there is an infinity in number. But we do not know what it is. It is false that it is even, it is false that it is odd; for the addition of a unit can make no change in its nature. Yet it is a number, and every number is odd or even (this is certainly true of every finite number. So, we may well know that there is a God without knowing what He is. Is there not one substantial truth, seeing that there are so many things that are not the truth itself?

We know the existence and nature of the finite because we also are finite and have extension. We know the existence of the infinite and are ignorant of its nature because it has extension like us, but not limits like us. But we know neither the existence nor the nature of God because He has neither extension nor limits.

But by faith we know His existence; in glory, we shall know His nature. Now, I have already shown that we may well know the existence of a thing, without knowing its nature.

Let us now speak according to natural lights (i.e., according to reason). If there is a God, He is infinitely incomprehensible, since, having neither parts nor limits, He has no affinity to us. We are then incapable of knowing either what He is or if He is. This being so, who will dare to undertake the decision of the question? Not we, who have no affinity to Him.

Who then will blame Christians for not being able to give a reason for their belief since they profess a religion for which they cannot give a reason? They declare, in expounding it to the world, that it is a foolishness; and then you complain that they do not prove it! If they proved it, they would not keep their words; it is in lacking proofs, that they are not lacking in sense. “Yes, but although this excuses those who offer it as such and take away from them the blame of putting it forward without reason, it does not excuse those who receive it.” Let us then examine this point, and say, “God is, or He is not” But to which side shall we incline? Reason can decide nothing here. There is an infinite chaos that separates us. A game is being played at the extremity of this infinite distance where heads or tails will turn up. What will you wager? According to reason, you can do neither the one thing nor the other; according to reason, you can defend neither of the propositions.

Do not then reprove for error those who have made a choice; for you know nothing about it. “No, but I blame them for having made, not this choice, but a choice; for again both he who chooses heads and he who chooses tails are equally at fault, they are both in the wrong. The true course is not to wager at all.”

—Yes; but you must wager. It is not optional. You are embarked. Which will you choose then? Let us see. Since you must choose, let us see which interests you least. You have two things to lose, the true and the good; and two things to stake, your reason and your will, your knowledge and your happiness; and your nature has two things to shun, error and misery. Your reason is no more shocked in choosing one rather than the other, since you must of necessity choose. This is one point settled. But your happiness? Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is.

Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager them without hesitation that He is. “That is very fine. Yes, I must wager; but I may perhaps wager too much.”—Let us see. Since there is an equal risk of gain and of loss, if you had only to gain two lives, instead of one, you might still wager. But if there were three lives to gain, you would have to play (since you are under the necessity of playing), and you would be imprudent, when you are forced to play, not to chance your life to gain three at a game where there is an equal risk of loss and gain. But there is an eternity of life and happiness. And this being so, if there were an infinity of chances, of which one only would be for you, you would still be right in wagering one to win two, and you would act stupidly, being obliged to play, by refusing to stake one life against three at a game in which out of an infinity of chances there is one for you, if there were an infinity of an infinitely happy life to gain.

But there is here an infinity of an infinitely happy life to gain, a chance of gain against a finite number of chances of loss, and what you stake is finite. It is all divided; wherever the infinite is and there is not an infinity of chances of loss against that of gain, there is no time to hesitate, you must give all. And thus, when one is forced to play, he must renounce reason to preserve his life, rather than risk it for infinite gain, as likely to happen as the loss of nothingness.

For it is no use to say it is uncertain if we will gain, and it is certain that we risk, and that the infinite distance between the certainty of what is staked and the uncertainty of what will be gained, equals the finite good which is certainly staked against the uncertain infinite. It is not so, as every player stakes a certainty to gain an uncertainty, and yet he stakes a finite certainty to gain a finite uncertainty, without transgressing against reason. There is not an infinite distance between the certainty staked and the uncertainty of the gain; that is untrue. In truth, there is an infinity between the certainty of gain and the certainty of loss. But the uncertainty of the gain is proportioned to the certainty of the stake according to the proportion of the chances of gain and loss.

Hence it comes that, if there are as many risks on one side as on the other, the course is to play even; and then the certainty of the stake is equal to the uncertainty of the gain, so far is it from the fact that there is an infinite distance between them. And so, our proposition is of infinite force, when there is the finite to stake in a game where there are equal risks of gain and of loss, and the infinite to gain. This is demonstrable; and if men are capable of any truths, this is one. “I confess it, I admit it. But still is there no means of seeing the faces of the cards?”—Yes, Scripture and the rest, &c.— “Yes, but I have my hands tied and my mouth closed; I am forced to wager and am not free. I am not released and am so made that I cannot believe. What then would you have me do?”

True. But at least learn your inability to believe, since reason brings you to this, and you cannot believe. Endeavor then to convince yourself, not by increase of proofs of God, but by the abatement of your passions. You would like to attain faith, and do not know the way; you would like to cure yourself of unbelief and ask the remedy for it. Learn of those who have been bound like you, and who now stake all their possessions. These are people who know the way which you would follow, and who are cured of an ill of which you would be cured. Follow the way by which they began; by acting as if they believe, taking the holy water, having masses said, &c. Even this will naturally make you believe and deaden your acuteness. — “But this is what I am afraid of”—And why? What have you to lose?

But to show you that this leads you there, it is this which will lessen the passions, which are your stumbling blocks. The heart has its reasons which reason does not know. We feel it in a thousand things. I say that the heart naturally loves the Universal Being, and also itself naturally, according as it gives itself to them; and it hardens itself against one or the other at its will. You have rejected the one and kept the other. Is it by reason that you love yourself? It is the heart that experiences God, and not the reason. This, then, is faith; God felt by the heart, not by reason. (Archie and Archie, Ch..16)

Pascal’s wager is not strictly an argument for God’s existence. Rather, as … Pascal … presents it, the argument attempts to show that one should believe in God even if there is no evidence for or against God’s existence. Specifically, Pascal thinks that it is in one’s own best interest to believe in God’s existence in the absence of any evidence for or against God’s existence.

If there are no good reasons for believing or disbelieving in God’s existence, Pascal holds that there are four possibilities:

• Option (a): God exists, and one believes that God exists
• Option (b): God exists, and one believes that God does not exist
• Option (c): God does not exist, and one believes that God exists
• Option (d): God does not exist, and one believes that God does not exist

Pascal argues that each possibility will have a particular outcome or payoff. Further, on the assumption that there is no evidence available to decide whether or not God exists, Pascal thinks we should choose the option which has the best payoff. Since we cannot choose whether or not God actually exists, our only choice is whether or not we believe that God exists.

We are in the game, as it were, and we must place our bets.

Under possibilities (c) and (d) God does not exist, so any losses or benefits will be limited. In other words, if one believes that God exists when God does not exist (possibility c), then one might forgo some temporary pleasures or may gain temporary benefits from living one’s life in a different way. Further, Pascal holds that benefits or losses associated with not believing in God’s existence when God doesn’t exist (possibility d) will also be limited.

However, Pascal thinks the outcomes for possibilities (a) and (b) are more striking. In fact, he thinks that if God exists and we choose to believe that God exists, then our gain will be unlimited. Further, if God exists and we choose to believe that God does not exist, Pascal says our loss will be unlimited. Since unlimited gains and losses will always outweigh limited gains and losses, we should choose to believe that God exists even if there is no evidence that would demonstrate God’s existence or non-existence. If Pascal’s wager is a correct assessment of our options, then it turns out that not believing in God is irrational in terms of our self-interest.

There are different types of objections to Pascal’s wager. Some of the argument’s opponents think that making a decision to believe in God on the basis of self-interest is somehow morally problematic. However, whether or not that type of objection can be spelled out in a persuasive manner is another question, given that people blamelessly act in their own self-interest all the time (for example, eating and sleeping are acts of self-interest). Further, there is no reason to think that believing on the basis of Pascal’s wager would harm anyone else’s interests. Further, [James Jordan, in his Pascal’s Wager: Pragmatic Arguments and Belief in God. (Oxford, 2006)] writes that the “benefits invoked” by the argument “need not be self-centered prudential benefits only.” He adds that these benefits “may involve the good of other persons, and even the common good of a large number of people.” He concludes that prudential arguments, like Pascal’s wager, “cannot be easily dismissed as morally suspect, selfish appeals to base considerations.” In short, this objection to Pascal’s wager is not very convincing.

A more important objection raises the question of whether the options and outcomes described by Pascal above are the only possibilities. Perhaps some other view of God is correct. For example, why should we think that God rewards belief without evidence? Perhaps there is a deviant God who perversely punishes belief and rewards unbelief. This objection is sometimes referred to as the many-Gods objection. Stephen Davis puts the objection this way:

“Indeed, there are scores of other Gods or gods that are actually worshiped in the religions of the world, and there is no guarantee that they will dispense rewards and punishments in the way that Pascal says that the Christian God will do.”

If this objection is correct, then the issue is not merely one of deciding between whether or not God exists, but of deciding which type of God exists.

Defenders of Pascal’s wager are not without responses to this type of objection. Regarding the notion of a perverse deity that punishes belief and rewards unbelief, Jeff Jordan says the following:

Such a hypothesis being “cooked up” is not … a “genuine option.” That is to say, these cooked-up “religious” hypotheses are so bizarre that one is justified in assigning them, if not a zero probability, a probability assignment so small as to warrant only neglect. This procedure is illustrated by the simple case of coin tossing. When one tosses a coin considered fair, it is possible that it lands on its edge, remains suspended midair, or disappears, or any number of bizarre but possible events might occur. Yet, because there is no reason to believe that these events are plausible, one quite properly neglects their possibility and considers the partition of “heads” and “tails” jointly to exhaust the possibilities. (Jordan)

Jordan thinks that the notion of the perverse deity considered above should be treated with similar neglect. …. (Lee, in Branson, Introduction to Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion, Chapter 3: Non-standard Arguments for God’s Existence)

William James

Another non-evidentialist, William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was an American philosopher, historian, and psychologist, and the first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States. James is considered to be a leading thinker of the late 19th century, one of the most influential philosophers of the United States, and the “Father of American psychology.”

Along with Charles Sanders Peirce (pronounced “purse”), James established the philosophical school known as pragmatism and is also cited as one of the founders of functional psychology. A Review of General Psychology analysis, published in 2002, ranked James as the 14th most eminent psychologist of the 20th century. A survey published in American Psychologist in 1991 ranked James’s reputation in second place, after Wilhelm Wundt, who is widely regarded as the founder of experimental psychology. James also developed the philosophical perspective known as radical empiricism. James’s work has influenced philosophers and academics such as Émile Durkheim, W. E. B. Du Bois, Edmund Husserl, Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Hilary Putnam, Richard Rorty, and Marilynne Robinson.

James’ lecture, “The Will to Believe,” first published in 1896, defends, in certain cases, the adoption of a belief without prior evidence of its truth. In particular, James is concerned in this lecture about defending the rationality of religious faith even lacking sufficient evidence of religious truth. James states in his introduction: “I have brought with me tonight … an essay in justification of faith, a defense of our right to adopt a believing attitude in religious matters, in spite of the fact that our merely logical intellect may not have been coerced. ‘The Will to Believe,’ accordingly, is the title of my paper.”

James’ central argument in “The Will to Believe” hinges on the idea that access to the evidence for whether or not certain beliefs are true depends crucially upon first adopting those beliefs without evidence. As an example, James argues that it can be rational to have unsupported faith in one’s own ability to accomplish tasks that require confidence. Importantly, James points out that this is the case even for pursuing scientific inquiry. James then argues that like belief in one’s own ability to accomplish a difficult task, religious faith can also be rational even if one at the time lacks evidence for the truth of one’s religious belief.

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Excerpts from William James: On the Will to Believe

Let us give the name of hypothesis to anything that may be proposed to our belief; and just as the electricians speak of live and dead wires, let us speak of any hypothesis as either live or dead. A live hypothesis is one that appeals as a real possibility to him to whom it is proposed. If I ask you to believe in the “Mahdi,” the notion makes no electric connection with your nature, —it refuses to scintillate with any credibility at all. As a hypothesis, it is completely dead. To an Arab, however (even if he be not one of the Mahdi’s followers), the hypothesis is among the mind’s possibilities: it is alive. This shows that deadness and liveness in a hypothesis are not intrinsic properties, but relations to the individual thinker. They are measured by his willingness to act. The maximum of liveness in a hypothesis means willingness to act irrevocably. Practically, that means belief; but there is some believing tendency wherever there is willingness to act at all.

Next, let us call the decision between two hypotheses an option. Options may be of several kinds. They may be—1, living or dead; 2, forced or avoidable; 3, momentous or trivial; and for our purposes, we may call an option a genuine option when it is of the forced, living, and momentous kind.

1. A living option is one in which both hypotheses are live ones. If I say to you: “Be a theosophist or be a Mohammedan,” it is probably a dead option because for you neither hypothesis is likely to be alive. But if I say: “Be an agnostic or be a Christian,” it is otherwise: trained as you are, each hypothesis makes some appeal, however small, to your belief.
2. Next, if I say to you: “Choose between going out with your umbrella or without it,” I do not offer you a genuine option, for it is not forced. You can easily avoid it by not going out at all. Similarly, if I say, “Either love me or hate me,” “Either call my theory true or call it false,” your option is avoidable. You may remain indifferent to me, neither loving nor hating, and you may decline to offer any judgment as to my theory. But if I say, “Either accept this truth or go without it,” I put on you a forced option, for there is no standing place outside of the alternative. Every dilemma based on a complete logical disjunction, with no possibility of not choosing, is an option of this forced kind.

Finally, if I were Dr. Nansen and proposed to you to join my North Pole expedition, your option would be momentous; for this would probably be your only similar opportunity, and your choice now would either exclude you from the North Pole sort of immortality altogether or put at least the chance of it into your hands. He who refuses to embrace a unique opportunity loses the prize as surely as if he tried and failed. Per contra, the option is trivial when the opportunity is not unique, when the stake is insignificant, or when the decision is reversible if it later prove unwise. Such trivial options abound in the scientific life. A chemist finds an hypothesis live enough to spend a year in its verification: he believes in it to that extent. But if his experiments prove inconclusive either way, he is quit for his loss of time, no vital harm being done. 1 It will facilitate our discussion if we keep all these distinctions well in mind.

The next matter to consider is the actual psychology of human opinion. … Does it not seem preposterous on the very face of it to talk of our opinions being modifiable at will? Can our will either help or hinder our intellect in its perceptions of truth? Can we, by just willing it, believe that Abraham Lincoln’s existence is a myth, and that the portraits of him in McClure’s Magazine are all of someone else? Can we, by any effort of our will, or by any strength of wish that it were true, believe ourselves well and about when we are roaring with rheumatism in bed, or feel certain that the sum of the two one-dollar bills in our pocket must be a hundred dollars? … It is only our already dead hypotheses that our willing nature is unable to bring to life again. …

Believe truth! Shun error! —these, we see, are two materially different laws; and by choosing between them we may end by coloring differently our whole intellectual life. We may regard the chase for truth as paramount, and the avoidance of error as secondary; or we may, on the other hand, treat the avoidance of error as more imperative, and let truth take its chance. Clifford, in the instructive passage which I have quoted, exhorts us to the latter course. Believe nothing, he tells us, keep your mind in suspense forever, rather than by closing it on insufficient evidence incur the awful risk of believing lies. You, on the other hand, may think that the risk of being in error is a very small matter when compared with the blessings of real knowledge, and be ready to be duped many times in your investigation rather than postpone indefinitely the chance of guessing true.

I myself find it impossible to go with Clifford. We must remember that these feelings of our duty about either truth or error are in any case only expressions of our passional life. Biologically considered, our minds are as ready to grind out falsehood as veracity, and he who says, “Better go without belief forever than believe a lie!” merely shows his own preponderant private horror of becoming a dupe. He may be critical of many of his desires and fears, but this fear he slavishly obeys. He cannot imagine anyone questioning its binding force. For my own part, I have also a horror of being duped; but I can believe that worse things than being duped may happen to a man in this world: so, Clifford’s exhortation has to my ears a thoroughly fantastic sound. It is like a general informing his soldiers that it is better to keep out of battle forever than to risk a single wound. Not so are victories either over enemies or over nature gained. Our errors are surely not such awfully solemn things. In a world where we are so certain to incur them in spite of all our caution, a certain lightness of heart seems healthier than this excessive nervousness on their behalf. At any rate, it seems the fittest thing for the empiricist philosopher….

So, proceeding, we see, first, that religion offers itself as a momentous option. We are supposed to gain, even now, by our belief, and to lose by our non-belief, a certain vital good. Secondly, religion is a forced option, so far as that good goes. We cannot escape the issue by remaining skeptical and waiting for more light, because, although we do avoid error in that way if religion be untrue, we lose the good, if it be true, just as certainly as if we positively chose to disbelieve. It is as if a man should hesitate indefinitely to ask a certain woman to marry him because he was not perfectly sure that she would prove an angel after he brought her home. Would he not cut himself off from that particular angel-possibility as decisively as if he went and married someone else? Skepticism, then, is not avoidance of option; it is option of a certain particular kind of risk. Better risk loss of truth than chance of error, —that is your faith-vetoer’s exact position. He is actively playing his stake as much as the believer is; he is backing the field against the religious hypothesis, just as the believer is backing the religious hypothesis against the field. To preach skepticism to us as a duty until ‘sufficient evidence’ for religion be found, is tantamount therefore to telling us, when in presence of the religious hypothesis, that to yield to our fear of its being error is wiser and better than to yield to our hope that it may be true. …

All this is on the supposition that it really may be prophetic and right, and that, even to us who are discussing the matter, religion is a live hypothesis which may be true. (James, The Will to Believe, Gutenberg)

Strengths and Weaknesses of Non-Evidentialism.

The majority of the decisions we make every day are made for purely personal and subjective reasons that have nothing to do with logic and reason yet are quite justifiable. There is no inherent difficulty in deciding to believe in something that satisfies a personal, felt need. Often when we have no proof of the future, we “trust our guts” to help us make important decisions. One obvious example is the choice of whether or not to marry. This is an important choice. Yet do we have evidence that the marriage will succeed? That we will be happier in a marriage than not? How much more important is the choice for or against belief in God, which has infinite consequences?

In many cases, avoiding making a decision can end up the same as choosing the negative. For example, if you have two job offers but you do not make a decision, then you will not have a job. By not deciding, you would be choosing the negative option by default. The non-evidentialists point out that especially when it comes to a decision for or against belief in God, we must choose, or we are choosing to be atheists simply by default.

On the other hand, couldn’t non-evidentialist arguments be used to make very dangerous choices? Can we be overly swayed by emotional appeals? Consider the infamous case of the Heaven’s Gate cult. This cult held that its followers could transform themselves into immortal extraterrestrial beings by rejecting their human nature, and they would ascend to heaven, referred to as the “Next Level” or “The Evolutionary Level Above Human”. In March of 1997, the entire group committed suicide.

Moreover, these arguments may convince one of the importance of belief in God but they do not indicate in any way which of the many “God options” one should follow.

The Atheist’s Wager, popularized by the philosopher Michael Martin and published in his 1990 book Atheism: A Philosophical Justification, is an atheistic response to Pascal’s Wager regarding the existence of God. One version of the Atheist’s Wager suggests that since a kind and loving god would reward good deeds – and that if no gods exist, good deeds will still leave a positive legacy – one should live a good life without religion.

Another argument against non-evidentialism might be called the argument from authenticity. Should the hopes of the non-evidentialists turn out to be correct, would a wise and just god welcome believers who come to him simply as an insurance policy against eternal suffering? How strong could such a belief be?

Works Cited

CrashCourse. Anti-Vaxxers, Conspiracy Theories, & Epistemic Responsibility: Crash Course Philosophy #14. YouTube, YouTube, 16 May 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYkhlXronNk&list=PL8dPuuaLjXtNgK6MZucdYldNkMybYIHKR&index=16&t=339s. Accessed 12 Apr. 2022.

CrashCourse. Indiana Jones & Pascal’s Wager: Crash Course Philosophy #15. Youtube, YouTube, 23 May 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S93jMOqF-oE&list=PL8dPuuaLjXtNgK6MZucdYldNkMybYIHKR&index=17&t=97s. Accessed 12 Apr. 2022.

Fagan, Adam. “Poker Ante.” Flickr, Chistes y Bromas.com, 11 Oct. 2010, https://www.flickr.com/photos/afagen/2268311938. Accessed 12 Apr. 2022.

James, William. The Will to Believe, Project Gutenberg, 8 May 2008, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/26659/26659-h/26659-h.htm.

James, William. “William James.” Flickr, London : Longmans, Green, and Co., 27 Aug. 2019, https://www.flickr.com/photos/mhlimages/48633441616/in/photostream/. Accessed 12 Apr. 2022.