The Will to Believe is a philosophical essay written by William James. In the book, James focused on the concepts of genuine choice and forced beliefs. His argument is that individuals have choices to believe; however, those choices are shaped around ‘facts and forced beliefs. He also argues on religious hypotheses and the concept of belief without reason.
The first problem James tackles is genuine options. He disagrees with Clifford on the idea of genuine options. He believes that there are certain things which we cannot wait for efficient evidence before we make a claim. Those things are the ones where religious faith is intellectually acceptable. He states that genuine belief is living, forced and momentous. A living belief will be
…show more content…
We are supposed to gain, even now, by our belief, and to lose by our non-belief” (James 136). According to James, science says things are, morality says things are better than other things, and religion says essentially two things. Firstly, “she says things that the best things are the more eternal things (…) the things in the universe that throw the last stone” (James 136). The second one states that we are better off if we believe her first affirmation to be true.
Furthermore, religion is momentous force because the answer to these religious force is all up to you, there is no intellectual ground to answer the questions. Therefore, James is saying, if you are a theist, there is nothing wrong in choosing to believe that there is a God, also, if you are atheist, there is nothing wrong in choosing to believe there is no God. This is because it takes as much faith to say there is no God as that there is a God. Therefore, according to James, we can believe or not believe based on our irrational passions alone.
In addition, James lays out the problem of choosing to believe. He argues that people are inherent believers by nature and that they do not choose to believe.
There are some flaws in James’ argument. Firstly, his claim that belief in God is live, forced and momentous and cannot be decided on intellectual means. The question of whether God is live has only to do with the individual. There are some theists that are so dogmatist that they would
With regard to James Sire, comprehension of someone’s worldview incorporates seven questions that must be addressed. The major question asks what prime reality is. This particular question simply asks what is real in the world. As an individual, I poses some faith in a god. The other question seeks to understand how people understand the surrounding nature. Dispute arise on this question. My faith stands that God created man and all what is on earth and heaven. Similarly, I also tend to hold some believe in the story of evolution and the probabilities of
In Kelly James Clark’s Article “Without Evidence or Argument”, Clark argues that belief in God, does not require the support of evidence or argument in order for it to be rational. Clark’s argument is against W.K. Clifford’s article “The Ethics of Belief”, in which Clifford claims that everything must be believed only on the basis of sufficient evidence (139). Throughout Kelly Clark’s article he states many things that support his conclusion of belief without evidence or argument, however, my paper will only discuss what Clark says on p.139 starting with the paragraph “The first problem with Clifford’s…” and the following paragraph, ending with the words “...to see why.”
In life, there is a constant battle ensuing over faith and reason. Those two things are constantly feeding off of each other in someone’s mind when making a decision. Over time in which some say is a great conversation about history this battle is changing. The Great Conversation of history spans over many eras where the questions of faith and reason are always things battling for a spot in our minds, but they shouldn’t be in battle because they are very much dependent on the other. Among the time periods from Ancient Greece, the Enlightenment, and the 19th century, writers such as Socrates, Kant, and Martin Luther King Jr have looked at the issue of faith and reason.
The information is not presented accurately in the essay. Elbow explains this situation in a way that presents the believing game to only his advantage. The scenario could be less biased if Elbow had presented more than just one example of how people experience the believing game in real life. The essay is lacking any other accounts other than the author himself.
1. For atheism to stand it is necessary that there be no God or gods.
Faith, defined as a strong belief in something which cannot be proven, has been argued over countless generations. Still, even without proof, individuals worldwide hold true to their faith each day. After studying faith and religion in texts written by scholars with varying backgrounds, it is easy to see faith is something which is widely disputed. Comparison of Sigmund Freud’s The Future of an Illusion and Paul Tillich’s Dynamics of Faith, fully displays the discrepancies in points of view on the function of faith, as well as the necessity of faith, in society; while the comparison of Viktor E. Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning and Karl Marx’s “on the Future of Religion,” demonstrate both similarities and differences
The convictions that humans accept are meaningless without the actions that instigate and perpetuate the belief. For
James(1897) argues that certain actions and convictions need pre-existing beliefs which do not require sufficient evidence. He uses Pascal’s Wager as an example – James (1897) argues Pascal’s Wager may force individuals in choosing to either believe in God or not, regardless of there being sufficient evidence to prove the existence of the former or latter. However, James (1897) argues that different propositions
In his lecture, “The Will to Believe,” William James addresses how one adopts a belief. There is a hypothesis and an option, where you choose between two live hypotheses. An option has the characteristics to be live or dead, forced or avoidable, and momentous or trivial. In his thesis, James argues how “our passional nature” must make our decisions about our beliefs when they cannot be certainly determined on “intellectual grounds,” however, this is not the case, we can always make the decision based on intellectual grounds. One can use Bayesian probability to gain some grasp of the situation and eventually to make a decision.
James taught at several universities including both Brown and Yale where he often had arguments and lengthy discussions with his students about religion. In his introductory comments, he clearly states that a lot of his freethinking students did not believe one should believe in religion if it cannot be rationally proven. This was contradictory to his thoughts and consequently wrote the paper in order to try sway his students view.
Since the 19th century, William Clifford and William James have been the foremost religious theorist and have attempted to answer significant creation and theological mysteries. However, Clifford and James have varying views on the belief debate, each formulating a rational argument of what the basis for belief should be. Clifford’s, Ethics of Belief and James’ The Will to Believe outline their respective arguments which are vastly similar and but have marked differences. Both articles will be examined for these similarities and difference and stated within this paper.
Finally, we can see how William James takes an objective point of view from a few quotes in his book “The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy”. One of these quotes was, “ That is why I call pessimism an essentially religious disease.”Now although this may seem to go against his view of allowing people to believe their own thoughts, it is actually the contrary. This is because pessimism is essentially the belief of seeing things negatively or viewing things in a negative light. But, I thin this leads to the point in which William James says that religion is personal. Along with this, he stated, “Be not afraid of life. Believe
This section provides us with two selections from the essays of William K. Clifford (1845-1879) and William James (1842-1910). Clifford's essay, The Ethics of Belief, is based on the concept of evidentialism. This concept 'holds that we should not accept any statement as true unless we have good evidence to support its truth'; (Voices of Wisdom, 346). James wrote his essay, The Will to Believe, as a response to Clifford's essay where he endorsed a philosophy called pragmatism.
The book of James has created disputations amongst its readers for years. Like almost all of the New Testament writings, contemporary readers have questions about it origin, composition, and content. Also like most New Testament writings, there are multiple hypotheses that have been presented to answer each of these enquiries. For example, many scholars have suggested that it is the least Christian amongst all of the New Testament writings due to the fact that it only references the name of Jesus twice. This a particular point that I feel needs to be addressed when trying to understand James, and it is a point I will answer further while also trying to present information regarding other possible questions an individual may have while reading
If God exists, he wants people to believe in Him through faith (If A, then B).