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The Christian Wager

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

R. G. Swinburne
R. G. Swinburne
Affiliation:
Lecturer in Philosophy, University of Hull
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Extract

On what grounds will the rational man become a Christian? It is often assumed by many, especially non-Christians, that he will become a Christian if and only if he judges that the evidence available to him shows that it is more likely than not that the Christian theological system is true, that, in mathematical terms, on the evidence available to him, the probability of its truth is greater than half. It is the purpose of this paper to investigate whether or not this is a necessary and sufficient condition for the rational man to adopt Christianity.

Type
Research Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 4 , Issue 2 , April 1969 , pp. 217 - 228
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1969

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References

page 217 note 2 Price, H. H., ‘Belief “In” and Belief “That”,’ Religious Studies, 1965, Vol. 1, pp. 5–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 218 note 1 B. Pascal, Pensées. No. 233.

page 218 note 2 Ibid., be. cit.

page 218 note 3 Ibid., No. 195.

page 219 note 1 B. Pascal, Penseés, No. 233.

page 219 note 2 This point has been well made by (e.g.) Anthony Flew. See his God and Philosophy (London, 1966),Google Scholar 9.9 et seq.

page 222 note 1 Hume, David, A Treatise of Human Nature, Appendix, p. 624 in the edition edited by Selby-Bigge, L. A. (Oxford, 1888).Google Scholar

page 222 note 2 See Price, H. H., ‘Belief and Will,’ Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume, 1954, 28, pp. 1–26,CrossRefGoogle Scholar who develops this point at length.

page 222 note 3 Ibid., No. 233.