Notes on the Will
to Believe
VI. Volitional Arguments for Religious Belief: Arguments that depend
on the passions, not the intellect.
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William James: according to the pragmatic theory of meaning, a sentence
is meaningful only if believing it would make a practical difference in
one's life. The pragmatic theory of truth says that a belief is true
insofar as it helps us get into satisfactory relations with other parts
of our experience: truth is what works. So in contrast to Hume, Russell,
and Clifford (who say that we should limit belief to what we have evidence
for), James says that, practically speaking, we make judgments all the
time based on insufficient evidence, and we do not think that such judgments
are unjustified. Our passional nature commits us to making choices
where the options are genuine (forced, momentous, live) and where no intellectual grounds are sufficient to indicate what ought to be done.
Belief in the existence of God is something that the intellect cannot
decide. But because such a belief can make a major difference in
how one lives, a choice (or volition) must be made, one that because of
the situation would be a justified (i.e., meaningful) decision. The
belief in God's existence "works" (and thus is true) if it satisfies our
expectations and is consistent with other beliefs. The question about
whether there is a God, then, is not really the issue; what is more important
is whether one should believe there is. And that is what James is
interested in.