Belief, uncertainty, and commitment › Can someone choose to believe?

The interlocutor raises an objection that Pascal takes seriously: what if the person cannot believe? Recognizing a possible advantage does not let someone directly choose a conviction. A person who would benefit from believing that a difficult task is easy cannot necessarily make the task seem easy by deciding to believe it.

Pascal turns toward practice. In fragment 233 he suggests following the conduct of people who have moved toward belief, including participation in religious observances. The recommendation concerns changes in life through which the obstacle to belief might be altered. It is more indirect than an instruction to assent immediately.

That recommendation raises a further question about intellectual honesty. Entering a practice in order to understand it can be a form of inquiry. Entering it in order to suppress unwelcome evidence would be different. Pascal's advice needs to be assessed partly by which of these attitudes it encourages. The fact that a practice might influence conviction does not establish that the resulting conviction would be true.

The distinction also limits what the Wager can claim. At most, its practical reasoning can provide a motive to investigate or begin a course of life. In Pascal's religious account, saving faith still involves something that calculation cannot furnish by itself. Treating an initial prudential motive as a complete description of mature faith would flatten the relation between the Wager and the surrounding fragments.