In chapter eight, Faith, Risk, and Rationality: The Prudential Incentives to Christian Faith, Groothius defines Prudence as that which concerns personal benefit and detriment in matters of belief concerning Christianity. Therefore, Groothius argues, Christian apologetics should commend Christianity on a prudential basis. Groothius uses some of the insights from Blaise Pascal’s famous and much debated wager argument.
Succinctly put, Pascal’s wager argument states that if Christianity is true, there is “an infinity of an infinitely happy life to be won” (Pensee 418/233, p. 151), in other words, heaven. When someone receives these temporal and eternal benefits, he or she also escapes the pains of hell. Jesus also challenge his potential disciples to “count the cost” of following him in Luke 9:23-25.
Jesus was not afraid to marshal the resources of prudence, although he did not limit his argumentation to such warnings. The wager argument made the atheist Antony Flew think: “If there is a chance at all that we are in danger of unending misery, then knowledge which might show us how this is to be avoided must become overwhelmingly important” (God and Philosophy, p. 34).
Prudential Considerations and Activities
If Christianity is true, the prudential benefits for believing (eternal life) far exceed those offered by believing in atheism or any other worldview (finite pleasure). The prudential detriments of not believing if Christianity is true (loss of eternal life; gaining hell) also far outweigh the detriments of not believing atheism or another worldview if the non-Christian view is true (loss of some finite pleasures).
Prudential Concerns and Other Religions
Groothius convincingly shows the prudential benefits in Christianity far outweigh those in Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism.
Emotion, Reason, and Religious Belief
Pascal realized the many hindrances to unbelievers coming to faith in Christ and famously urged the one considering Christian faith for prudential reason to act in religious ways in the hope that faith might emerge. This was not brainwashing but a kind of testing. Pascal’s recommendation of religious practices does not advise brainwashing but rather a vulnerability to persuasion through various religious practices that may serve to temper the passions and thus open one to certain claims not otherwise convincing and to experiences not otherwise possible.
Is It True Faith?
To act as if one believes means to engage in activities thought to build or strengthen faith. This could include involvement with religious services, the reading of Scripture and devotional materials, prayer, etc.
Prudence, Truth, and Apologetics
This could be called a “devotional experiment.” As Pascal observed, these activities (along with rational reflection) may help one truly discern the state of one’s own soul before God and the glories of the Christian revelation itself.