Who says, “You probably feel that when religious faith expre…

Written by Anonymous on July 9, 2026 in Uncategorized with no comments.

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Whо sаys, "Yоu prоbаbly feel thаt when religious faith expresses itself thus, in the language of the gaming table, it is put to its last trumps.  Surely Pascal's own personal belief in masses and holy water had far other springs; and this celebrated page of his is but an argument for others, a last desperate snatch at a weapon against the hardness of the unbelieving heart.  We feel that a faith in masses and holy water adopted willfully after such a mechanical calculation would lack the inner soul of faith's reality; and if we were ourselves in the place of the Deity, we should probably take particular pleasure in cutting off believers of this patter from their infinite reward. It is evident that unless there be some preexisting tendency to believe in masses and holy water, the option offered to the will by Pascal is not a living option. Certainly no Turk ever took to masses and holy water on its account and even to us Protestants these means of salvation see such foregone impossibilities that Pascal's logic, invoked for them specifically, leaves us unmoved."

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