Theoretical vs

Pascal concedes that a belief in God's existence cannot be supported by argument or evidence, but maintains that religious belief is rationally required nonetheless.

The argument tacitly exploits the distinction between theoretical rationality and practical rationality. (These are our terms, not Pascal's.) Theoretical rationality is (roughly) a matter of evidential and argumentative support. Your belief in God is rational in the theoretical sense just in case the balance of evidence and argument supports the truth of the proposition that God exists. Your belief in God is practically rational, on the other hand, if it is in your interest for you to hold it.

To illustrate this contrast, consider the following sort of case. The evidence suggests that X does not love you. X ignores you at parties; X won't return your calls, etc. And yet you are so desperately in love with X that you would not be able to function if you came to believe that your love was unreciprocated. You would not be able to get out of bed or get to work. Your life would deteriorate in every meaningful respect. Now ask: is it rational for you to believe that X loves you? In one sense, the answer is clearly "no": all the evidence is against it. But in another sense, the answer is clearly "yes". You may care very much about theoretical rationality, believing only what can be supported by argument. But you may well care more about being able to get through the day. And if you do, it may well be practically rational for you to believe that X loves you. This belief, more than any other, serves your interests in the circumstances.

The example shows that theoretical rationality and practical rationality can clash, and this raises a question. When the two sorts of rationality conflict, what is it most rational to do? All things considered, should you believe that X loves you or not? When we are told that the belief is theoretically irrational but practically rational, we are given no answer to this seemingly more fundamental question. Indeed, we seem to have been told that the question is simply ambiguous, and so need not have a single answer. If the "should" that figures in the question is the "should" of theoretical rationality, then you should not believe; if it is the "should" of practical rationality, then you should. It would be interesting to know if there were a third, more general sense of the word "should" that permits an unambiguous formulation of the question, and if so, what its answer should be.

We are not going to pursue this interesting theoretical question. We note the distinction because it permits us to state Pascal's conclusion in non-paradoxical terms. The conclusion of the argument is that while belief in God may not be required by the norms or requirements of theoretical rationality, it is required by the norms of practical rationality. The case is not one of a straightforward clash: the norms of theoretical rationality are (as it were) silent about God's existence on Pascal's view. If we attend only to reason and argument, it is conceivable that God exists, but also conceivable that he does not. Pascal's approach is to invoke practical rationality in order to break the tie. It would be interesting to know whether Pascal explicitly entertains the possibility that theoretical reason and practical reason might clash on this matter, and if so, whether he maintains that we should -- all things considered -- adhere to the requirements of practiccal rationality in this case.

Reference:

1.http://www.princeton.edu/~grosen/puc/pucourse/phi203/Pascal.html

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