Religion and Pragmatism
William James
Pragmatism: A Reminder
Truth is not an end in itself, but “only a preliminary means toward other vital
satisfactions.” What is true is useful and what is useful, true. If we are to regard them as true,
ideas have to be verified by experience.So where does this leave religion?
The Will to Believe: Intellectually justifying belief in God
The Problem
William Clifford argued (1877) that it’s always wrong to believe what you can’t prove
with sufficient evidence. But many say that we don’t have sufficient evidence to believe in
God.

God can’t be seen or touched.

Scientific theories don’t need God.
So belief in God is an unjustified superstition.
The Challenge: Is it possible to justify religious belief without proof for
the existence of God?
What can a pragmatist say to Clifford’s objections? William James starts with
hypotheses—potential beliefs. What do we make of them?
Hypothesis
A hypothesis is an educated guess, an idea that might explain things.

A piece of foam insulation fatally damaged Columbia’s left wing.

An asteroid crashing into the Yucatan killed off the dinosaurs.
Sometimes we need to choose an hypothesis even without enough evidence
Options for Hypothesis
 “Living or dead” – If you wouldn’t consider it, then it’s not a live option.

“Forced or avoidable” – Kennedy had to choose a course of action in the
Missile Crisis of 1962, but you don’t have to be for or against the Cubs.
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
“Momentous or trivial” – The Missile Crisis meant life or death for millions;
rooting for the Cubs means tears in your beer.
An example: A bridge game
You (playing “South”) lead a Queen with an Ace on the board (“Dummy hand”). If
“West” holds the King, you win. If he tops your Queen, you beat it with the Ace. If he lets
your Queen go, then she wins the trick.
He plays a 5.
Your Hypothesis
You need to squeeze out one more trick. Your hypothesis: “West” holds the King. If
your hypothesis is correct, you win an extra trick. But if East holds the King, he takes your
Queen. This hypothesis—a 50-50 chance—offers your only chance to win.
You play a low card from Dummy.
James’s Thesis
“Our passional nature must, and lawfully may, decide an option between
propositions, whenever it is a genuine option that cannot by its nature be
decided on intellectual grounds, for to say, under such circumstances, ‘do not
decide but leave the question open,’ is itself a passional decision, just like
deciding ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ and is attended with the same risk of losing the truth.”
Our Duty toward the Truth
Two principles – know truth and avoid error – are not identical. (256) Clifford chooses to
remain in error forever, rather than risk truth. But is it the worst thing to be duped?
Response to Clifford
“Clifford…tells us, keep your mind in suspense forever.”
“You, on the other hand, may think that the risk of being in error is a very
small matter when compared with the blessings of real knowledge.”
“Our errors are surely not such awfully solemn things.”
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In science…
“Wherever the option between losing truth and gaining it is not momentous,
we can throw the chance of gaining truth away, and at any rate save ourselves
from any chance of believing falsehood, by not making up our minds at all till
objective evidence has come.”
Unlike judges at law, scientists can afford to be patient.
Scientific Method
Science is methodologically nervous. “(Science) has fallen so deeply in love with the
method that one may even say she has ceased to care for truth by itself at all. It is only truth as
technically verified that interests her.” But the “truth of truths” may not be of this sort.
Pascal: “The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know.”
Where there is no forced option, then dispassionate science should be our ideal.
Questions that Cannot Wait
Moral questions – questions about what is good – cannot wait for sensible proof. “A
moral question is a question not of what sensibly exists, but of what is good, or what would be
good if it did exist.”
Questions about personal relationships often cannot wait. “Faint heart never won fair
lady.”
Creating the Fact
‘Do you like me?’ —It depends very much on how I act toward you. If I meet you
halfway—with open friendliness —you probably will.
“Where faith in a fact, based on need of the fact, can create the fact,” it would be insane logic to
call it the “lowest form of immorality” to believe.
As to Religion
“In truths dependant on our personal action, then, faith based on desire is certainly a
lawful, and possibly an indispensable thing.” Such is religion, but religions differ greatly and
religious questions are very broad. “What then do we now mean by the religious hypothesis?”
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What Religion Says
James holds that all religion boils down to two essential things:

First, the best things are the more eternal things.

Second, we are better off even now if we believe that first religious truth.
Assume the Hypothesis
If the religious hypothesis is true, certain logical consequences follow. First, religion is
a momentous option. By believing we gain a vital good. Second, it is a forced option. We have to
say yes or no. (Not to decide is a “no”.)If religion is untrue, we lose. But if it is true and we
don’t believe, we also lose.
So believing the religious hypothesis is rational.
Therefore: “If religion be true and the evidence for it still be insufficient, I do
not wish […] to forfeit my sole chance in life of getting upon the winning
side—that chance depending, of course, on my willingness to run the risk of
acting as if my passional need of taking the world religiously might be
prophetic and right.”
Further Reflections
Religion has a personal aspect. “The universe is no longer a mere It to us, but a Thou, if
we are religious; and any relation that may be possible from person to person might be
possible here.”
It is therefore reasonable to act as though there are gods whom we should treat with
good will.
To the Agnostics
“[A] code that would absolutely prevent me from acknowledging certain kinds
of truth if those kinds of truth were really there, would be an irrational code.”
“[W]e have the right to believe at our own risk any hypothesis that is live
enough to tempt our will.”
This is the kind of religion an empiricist can accept.
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