4 - Pascal and His Wager in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries

Summary

In chapter 4, Adam Buben explores Pascal’s influence on several eighteenth and nineteenth century philosophers, especially Immanuel Kant, Søren Kierkegaard, and Friedrich Nietzsche. Although Kant does not discuss Pascal beyond just a few passing comments, there are a number of conceptual affinities between the Wager and Kant’s “Moral Argument” for belief in God and an afterlife. After a brief exploration of these, Buben turns to Kierkegaard’s reading of Pascal. He examines in particular Kierkegaard’s reservations about Pascal’s apologetics, and whether or not the latter’s conception of faith involves merely a “suspension” of reason or a more radical “dying to” it. Buben then turns to Nietzsche’s various comments on Pascal amidst his infamous critique of Christianity, focusing in particular on the connections drawn between Pascal and Schopenhauer, their shared “pessimistic gloom” as well as their greatness as “higher, rarer men.” Lastly, Buben considers to what extent we may extrapolate from Nietzsche’s views on Pascal to what Nietzsche would have thought about Kierkegaard.