In today’s highlight of relatively obscure webcomics, we’re highlighting Existential Comics, possibly one of the nerdiest comics around. It’s a once a week exploration of concepts of philosophy, often with an explanation. Here Corey is contrasting Pascal’s wager (arguably the beginning of decision theory) with Augustine.
Here’s the explanation under this comic:
“Pascal’s Wager” is the idea that you should rationally believe in God even if you don’t (how??). Because apparently God punishes those who don’t believe in him, and rewards those who do. And presumably you also have to live a certain kind of life, even if you don’t believe in God too.
Augustine had his own sort of “wager”, although it was never phrased that way, where he basically believed in God the whole time, but lived a sinful life until he God older, and repented. He even had the great phrase “Lord, make me good, but not yet”. Risky, because if you die halfway through you are tormented for all eternity for stealing pears or whatever. But then again God is all knowing so maybe he knows you are going to and you still get credit for that, so all you really have to do us genuinely intend to repent. Hard to say.
Alt-text: “‘Lord, make me good, but not yet’ is one of the funniest lines in the history of theology. Augustine was such a baller.”
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Comics I Don't Understand 
Also involved here is the concept of “mathematical expectation” of the worth of a bet, an idea in probability theory which Pascal was starting to define around this time. It’s the product of the value you would win times the probability of winning (a number between zero and one).
The problem with how he used it in the Wager argument is that there was not yet any solid mathematical way of dealing with infinities, so when he said the value of an afterlife of eternal bliss was infinite, and the product with even a very low probability of the gospel promises being true was still infinite and thus incomparably better than the (substantial but finite) costs of leading yourself to be a believer and lead a moral life, that calculation was not well-founded
But…Pascal did think his wager was reasonable, while Augustine certainly didn’t endorse the one here. “Late have I loved Thee” was a lament, not advice. And if a comic wants to nerd out on philosophy, it shouldn’t present a philosopher’s example of bad philosophy as his actual view, says I.
But…Pascal endorsed his wager, while Augustine was using “but not yet” as an example of his own weakness. “Late have I loved Thee” was a lament, not advice. And if a comic wants to nerd out on philosophy, it should get it right, says I.
While I am certainly far from an expert on such things, the comic and explanation does not appear to me to represent what I’ve generally understood to be the arguments that Pascal and Augustine are intending to make.
Pascal’s Wager is but one part of his apologetic arguments, and alone appears to be intended to simply argue against the idea that logic can be used to disprove the existence of God. Augustine’s “but not yet” prayer is generally viewed as a rhetorical device, a criticism of attitudes he held as young man struggling in his faith and behavior and/or attitudes that he observed in others.
Of course, a multifaceted discussion of the interpretations of the works of Pascal and Augustine isn’t likely to be funny material for a comic…
“Late have I loved Thee” was a lament, not advice.
But that’s where the humor comes from, in taking the idea to it’s logical conclusions, whether or not it was actually endorsed by Augustine — he sort of has to claim he was lamenting his previous actions in order to make his conversion seem genuine anyway. But what if you just took it as rational advice, it seems a great wheeze: do what you like, repent at the last minute, all the benefits, none of the down side. And if you are going to be disingenuous anyway (Pascal certainly is), then isn’t being disingenuous Augustine’s way the better way to go?
It’s the ideas raised that are being discussed, not necessarily whether the espousers of said ideas necessarily endorsed them (Schrödinger made up the example with the cat to try and show how ridiculous the whole thing was, not to endorse it with a tangible example); and by purposely perverting the traditional view of who Augustine was, you get a much more memorable discussion of the ideas — it’s funny to think of him being a kind of utilitarianist.
“an idea in probability theory which Pascal was starting to define around this time” (Mitch4)
It is remarkable to me that Pascal is developing these basic concepts of probability as late as the 17th century. (The Bernoullis are yet another century later, and Bayes is 19th century).
I read Herbert Weisberg’s book, “Willful Ignorance: The Mismeasure of Uncertainty” some years ago. The key insight leading to the development of probability theory was the idea that you could pretend dissimilar events were similar enough, i.e. be willfully ignorant of the differences between those events, and therefore pool them together.
This was easiest to see in dice throws, for example (and much of the development of probability theory revolves around gambling examples) — harder to see when humans are involved, and potentially leading to failures of inference. For example, epidemiological studies showing that coffee is harmful, which were contaminated by the fact that smokers drink more coffee.
You can oversimplify the process of statistical inference by saying that it is knowing what events can be regarded as equivalent enough and pooled together, and what events aren’t equivalent enough and need to be separated.
acdendinger is correct, but to provide additional context to Pascal’s Wager, it was not the only or even main aspect of Pascal’s apologetic argument. The Wager was primarily intended to argue against the those placing their belief that God does not exist by way of logical argument by using a logical argument that considers the possibility. It’s a starting point in arguing for the existence of God, not a closing argument.
Granted, this context does not likely make for a funny comic…
Either way, my problem with Pascal’s argument has to do with what Mitch raises about dealing with infinities: I can come up with an infinite number (well, maybe I can’t, but there can exist an infinite number) of belief systems — all mutually exclusive — where you have to believe in that system to get the rewards, so how can you claim picking one of an infinite number of belief systems is a rational choice? Why Christianity and not Islam? Why Protestantism and not Catholicism? Why Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879 and not Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?
A great article by the author of the joke I stole in my post, Emo Philips:
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2005/sep/29/comedy.religion
(the wailing wall joke made me laugh out loud…)
“Schrödinger made up the example with the cat to try and show how ridiculous the whole thing was, not to endorse it with a tangible example” (Lark)
Ironic that this is how that distinguished physicist has achieved cultural immortality.
If I remember correctly, in my copy of Augustine’s “Confessions” the line is “Lord, grant me chastity, but not yet.” Big difference.
Also in the Confessions he confesses to stealing the pears. It was when he was a youngster, and he and his friends concocted this elaborate plot to sneak into the garden at night. Looking back on it, he can’t understand why he ever did it, because his family was well enough off that he could have just bought all the pears he wanted, and he didn’t even want pears all that badly. He draws some conclusions from this but he overlooks the obvious: hatching elaborate but pointless plots of dubious legality is just something kids do.
There was a book, “The Gospel According to Peanuts”, that analyzed the theological content. It had the strip where Shermy figures that anybody as generous as Santa is too generous to deny toys to naughty kids, and Charlie Brown senses he’s wrong but doesn’t know how to refute it. Also a series of strips where Charlie Brown bemoans the gang being good because they want toys. When called out for the same thing, his defense is “At least I feel guilty about it!”
For more theological fun, see “Bedazzled” — the original, with Peter Cook and Dudley Moore.
I’m still wondering who changed “make me good, but not yet” to “make me chaste, but not yet.”
Everybody who wants to be good wants to be good NOW.
Everybody who wants to be chaste wants to be chaste sometime soon but not just yet. There’s still a chance to get lucky tonight.