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Pascal's Wager and the Many Gods Objection

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 October 2001

PAUL SAKA
PAUL SAKA
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Houston, Houston, TX 772004
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Abstract

Pascal's Wager is finding ever more defenders who aim to undermine the old Many Gods Objection. It is my thesis that they are mistaken. After describing the Wager and the objection, I report on Jeff Jordan's repeated attempt to limit legitimate religious hypotheses to those that are traditional. In separate sections I criticize Jordan, first coming from epistemology and second from anthropology. Then I describe George Schlesinger's repeated appeal to the ‘simplest’ religious hypothesis, and argue that it fails for similar reasons. Finally, I summarize and reject miscellaneous defences of Pascal by Robert Anderson, Bradley Armour-Garb, James Franklin, Joshua Golding, and Nicholas Rescher.

Type
Research Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 37 , Issue 3 , September 2001 , pp. 321 - 341
Copyright
© 2001 Cambridge University Press

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