The Will To Believe: James Defends Freely Embraced Faith

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when it is the person’s only opportunity to do so. It is trivial when what the person has decided on will not have a great effect on the person if there were or were not any losses from the decision. It is trivial when it does not matter whether something is decided now or later or if the decision is changed afterward. James defines a genuine option as a forced living momentous option.
James begins by pointing out that we cannot will something to life. We cannot will something into existence or fact. Here, he differentiates between intellect and emotions in our beliefs. James uses Pascal’s wager as an example. He explains that Pascal’s wager urges us that if we go to masses, take holy water, or act as if we believe in Christianity, we may come to believe in it or that faith will eventually come to us. He plainly disagrees with Pascal because as he said before, we cannot, just by willing ourselves to believe in God, have faith. True belief and true faith will never come that way. ...

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faith in someone else’s faith. Our passional nature ­ our emotions, makes us want to believe. To believe that there is a truth tha ffb t is out there and that we may find it by having faith. However, because of our belief in someone else’s belief we may not know more about an idea just as anybody who believes or does not believe in it. James infers that our emotional nature does influence our faith. Pascal uses intellectual logic to make us believe, but it is not only logic or our intellectual nature that affects our religion and ideology.
James’ main argument is that we may believe with our passional nature only when our intellectual nature cannot decide (when there is no sufficient ...

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