Nathaniel Richardson PHIL 3121
Pascal Essay
Pascal argues that you should believe in God because if you live a virtuous life and God is real you will have an infinite life in heaven. But if you believe in God and he is not real the only thing you will lose is the pleasures of sin. He believes sin is innate in us as we are born into sin and that is what we ultimately would rather do than live virtuously. On the other if you don’t believe and he is real you will have an infinite life but just in hell. Also, if you don’t believe in God and he isn’t real the only thing that you would have to gain is a life of care free sinning, which is worth less than an infinite life in Heaven. On page 108 he says “But here there is an infinite life of infinite happiness to be won, one chance of winning against a finite number of chances of losing, and what you are staking in finite. All bets are off when there is an infinity and wherever there is not an infinite number of chances of losing against the chance of winning.” …show more content…
The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know. We know this in a thousand things.” Whereas Descartes in meditation 3 says that God exists because only an infinite, omnipotent being can endow him with the idea of God. In meditation 5 Descartes says since he perceives that the essence of God is a perfect being and existence is perfection therefore, God exists. The difference between Descartes and Pascal is that Pascal basically has faith and does not need to reason how God is real. Descartes tries to make sense of the existence of God by using Adequate reality, the belief that an idea must have as much formal reality as it has objective
Pascal Essay
Pascal argues that you should believe in God because if you live a virtuous life and God is real you will have an infinite life in heaven. But if you believe in God and he is not real the only thing you will lose is the pleasures of sin. He believes sin is innate in us as we are born into sin and that is what we ultimately would rather do than live virtuously. On the other if you don’t believe and he is real you will have an infinite life but just in hell. Also, if you don’t believe in God and he isn’t real the only thing that you would have to gain is a life of care free sinning, which is worth less than an infinite life in Heaven. On page 108 he says “But here there is an infinite life of infinite happiness to be won, one chance of winning against a finite number of chances of losing, and what you are staking in finite. All bets are off when there is an infinity and wherever there is not an infinite number of chances of losing against the chance of winning.” …show more content…
The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know. We know this in a thousand things.” Whereas Descartes in meditation 3 says that God exists because only an infinite, omnipotent being can endow him with the idea of God. In meditation 5 Descartes says since he perceives that the essence of God is a perfect being and existence is perfection therefore, God exists. The difference between Descartes and Pascal is that Pascal basically has faith and does not need to reason how God is real. Descartes tries to make sense of the existence of God by using Adequate reality, the belief that an idea must have as much formal reality as it has objective