3 - Pascal’s Wager and the Ethics for Inquiry about God

Summary

In chapter 3, Paul Moser examines how Pascal’s Wager relates to a number of contemporary issues in the philosophy of religion. In particular, he explores the place of divine hiddenness in Pascal’s theology as well as how various norms for theological inquiry can generate concerns about that theology and its Jansenist framework. He develops a critique of the doctrine of Election as found in Jansenist theology, and how that doctrine carries over to the Wager. Moser recommends an alternative to the Jansenist God, emphasizing the moral necessity of postulating a God who makes salvation possible for all. Moser then considers the tensions between this theological alternative and the implied divine hiddenness of God in Pascal’s Wager. He argues that while divine hiddenness can tend towards fideism, and in turn allow for the more severe Jansenist theology , our moral concepts nonetheless ought to steer us away from Jansenism and towards a theology which preserves at least the possibility of universal salvation.