Pascal's Wager

Abstract This paper offers a critique and revision of Pascal's Wager.1 The critique discusses several objections commonly raised against the Wager. The revision offers an argument not for adopting belief in God's existence but rather for adopting a theistic religious creed. To adopt a religious creed is to make a cognitively sophisticated presumption that God exists, for the purpose of following some way of life that aims to attain a certain kind of good relationship with God. That good relationship with God is conceived as finite but qualitatively superior to any other possible good. The expected value principle is applied to the decision problem about whether to adopt a theistic religious creed. The argument is made that it is rational to adopt a theistic religious creed, even in the face of cognitive doubt about whether God exists.