Notes on The Free Will Defense and Pascal's Wager

The Free Will Defense and Natural Evils

Re-evaluating the Free Will Defense

  • Initial Conception: The free will defense posits that God cannot remove suffering without infringing upon human free will. However, this raises questions regarding natural evils, which seem unrelated to human choices.

  • Original Argument's Limit: The initial conceptualization suggested that God might not be able to simply remove the "worst things" caused by free will, but would instead have to remove all human abilities and capacity for suffering, contrasting with our intuition about free will.

  • The "Worst" Effect: When considering taking away suffering, the remaining suffering, even if minor, would seem like the "worst" thing because there is nothing worse to compare it to.

Addressing Natural Evils

  • The Problem of Natural Evils: It seems God could eliminate natural evils (e.g., cancer, birth defects, natural disasters) without damaging human free will, as these are not directly caused by human choices.

  • Exacerbation by Human Action: Many seemingly natural evils are, in fact, significantly worsened by human activities and choices:

    • Climate Change: Human-induced climate changes exacerbate weather-related suffering.

    • Infrastructure and Location: Choices about where to live, building types, and government infrastructure (e.g., FEMA funding) influence the impact of natural phenomena like earthquakes and floods. Our choices have the potential to lessen or worsen suffering from these events.

  • Theological Resolution (Garden of Eden): Some theological perspectives suggest that all evils, including natural ones, ultimately stem from a primal human choice to turn against God (e.g., the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden). If one accepts this literal interpretation, it can resolve the problem of natural evils.

Supplemental Defenses for Natural Evils

These defenses aim to supplement the free will defense by indirectly linking natural evils to free will or a greater divine purpose.

1. Volatile Systems as a Prerequisite for Life

  • Scientific Observation: Modern scientific understanding suggests that life, particularly as observed on Earth, requires a volatile system (a geologically active planet).

  • Characteristics of Volatile Systems: These systems involve:

    • Plate tectonics

    • Volcanic activity

    • Release of heat

    • Constant movement and activity

  • Life's Dependence: Life is very likely to arise on such a planet, while older, geologically inactive planets are less likely to support life. Volatile systems, while necessary for life, are inherently dangerous (e.g., volcanoes, earthquakes, extreme weather).

  • God's Intervention and Natural Order: While theists typically believe God can intervene (miracles, e.g., raising the dead\text{raising the dead}), consistent, regular intervention to prevent all natural suffering would fundamentally disrupt the natural order.

  • Impact on Rational Deliberation: Such disruption would impair our ability to reason about the world and develop scientific understanding. The principle of sufficient reason and the sense of cause-and-effect become meaningless if God constantly alters outcomes.

    • Example (Meteorology): A budding meteorologist observes patterns and predicts rain, but if God intervenes to stop the rain (to prevent suffering), the meteorologist's rational deduction appears wrong, hindering scientific progress and understanding of natural laws. God's intervention, while preventing immediate suffering, undermines the very order necessary for rational thought.

  • The Problem of Selective Miracles: If God can intervene, why does he not intervene more often or save everyone? Theists struggle to explain why God might save only a few people in a disaster (e.g., 22 survivors of a plane crash) but not others. Such selective intervention suggests a lack of care for the majority, or it implies that God would have to intervene on a massive scale (a "cascade of needing more and more miracles") to truly eliminate suffering, which would itself be problematic by disrupting natural laws.

2. Natural Danger for Informed Free Will

  • Necessary Information for Choice: This defense argues that dangerous elements in nature provide necessary information that allows us to fully exercise our free will in an informed way. True free choice requires understanding options and their consequences.

    • Example (Poisonous Berries): The existence of tasty-looking but deadly poisonous berries or mushrooms in nature (e.g., Amanita phalloides\text{Amanita phalloides}) is not an oversight. It teaches us about potential harm.

  • Significance of Moral Choices: The awareness that one can cause harm (e.g., poisoning someone), due to the existence of dangers in nature, adds greater significance to the moral choice not to harm. This awareness highlights the 'goodness' of choosing not to act harmfully.

  • Ecosystemic Balance: Some argue that dangerous creatures or elements are necessary components of a complex, well-oiled ecosystem, which in turn supports human life. For example, poison berries or frogs might play a vital role in the food web or species regulation, contributing to the overall stability and functionality of the natural world.

Cumulative Use of Defenses

  • Combined Approaches: Theodicies (arguments addressing the problem of evil) are often used in a cumulative fashion, combining multiple defenses (e.g., the virtue defense with the free will defense) rather than relying on a single, isolated argument.

  • Purpose of Theodicies: Theodicies do not aim to prove God's existence or that specific theological claims (e.g., good character is desired by God) are true. Instead, they aim to demonstrate that, from a theist's complete worldview, belief in God is logically coherent and not fundamentally illogical.

  • Convincing Non-Theists: These arguments are generally not expected to convince non-theists of God's existence but rather to show the internal consistency of a theistic framework.

Pascal's Wager

Context and Presuppositions

  • Difficulty of Proof: Blaise Pascal, a prolific scientist and rational thinker, acknowledged that it is difficult to conclusively prove or disprove God's existence through argumentation alone.

  • The Inescapable Decision: Pascal argues that we are all compelled to make a "gamble" concerning God's existence because: "We all must gamble."

    • This is not about casino gambling but making a fundamental life decision.

    • The choice is binary: either you believe in God or you do not believe in God.

    • Agnostics Included: The "not believe" category includes agnostics, as they do not actively believe in God, even if they remain undecided.

  • Conditions of Uncertainty: Given that we cannot know with certainty whether God exists, we must make the most rational choice.

  • Rational Choice Principle: The most rational choice is the one with the "best risk-reward ratio" (an early concept akin to game theory).

The Wager Itself

Pascal's Wager presents a decision matrix based on two choices (believe or not believe) and two states of the world (God exists or God does not exist). The outcomes are simplified as follows:

  1. If you Believe in God AND God exists:

    • Outcome: Infinite happiness (heaven). This is the best-case scenario. Finite disadvantages or advantages experienced during life are insignificant compared to an infinite reward. The concept of infinity (∞\infty) is crucial here.

  2. If you Believe in God AND God DOES NOT exist:

    • Outcome: Not that bad. You have lived a life with certain pros and cons (e.g., may have avoided some finite worldly pleasures), but in the end, nothing significant happens. This is the worst-case scenario for the believer, but it is a finite outcome.

  3. If you DO NOT Believe in God AND God DOES NOT exist:

    • Outcome: On par with the believer's worst case. You have lived a life with different pros and cons (e.g., perhaps indulged in more worldly pleasures). This is the best-case scenario for the non-believer, but it is also a finite outcome.

  4. If you DO NOT Believe in God AND God exists:

    • Outcome: Disastrous. According to Pascal's theological assumption, you face infinite suffering (hell). This is the worst-case scenario for the non-believer.

Conclusion of the Wager

  • Simplistic Math: The rational choice is to believe. Even if the probability of God existing is extremely small, the potential for infinite reward (heaven) outweighs any finite costs or the potential for finite pleasure in a life without belief. Conversely, the potential for infinite suffering (hell) makes non-belief an irrational choice.

Critiques and Considerations of Pascal's Wager

  • Probability of God's Existence: Critics argue that if the likelihood of God's existence is considered extremely low, it might not be worth gambling one's single life on something so improbable.

  • The Importance of Infinity: Pascal's argument heavily relies on the mathematical weight of infinity. Any finite probability multiplied by an infinite value still results in an infinite value, thus making belief the dominant strategy.

  • God's Reaction to "Strategic" Belief: Would a God who sends non-believers to hell accept a belief motivated purely by self-interest and a calculation of risk/reward, rather than genuine faith or love? This raises questions about whether such a God would be "happy" with insincere belief.

  • Specificity of God/Religion: Pascal's wager often assumes a specific, monotheistic God (e.g., Christian theology with heaven and hell). What about other religions, other gods, or different theological systems? If there are multiple gods or religious paths, the wager becomes infinitely more complex: which God to pragmatically believe in? (∞×number of religions\infty \times \text{number of religions})

  • Ability to Choose Belief: Can one truly will oneself to believe? Belief might not be a conscious choice or action but rather a state of conviction that is not directly controllable, similar to how one cannot simply choose to believe that a fictional character is real.