Dean Zimmerman

Taking Pascal's Wager

Apologetics

“Rota's well-crafted book is built around a purified form of Pascal's wager—one that emphasizes that taking a 'gamble' on God need not be motivated by selfishness. But it is much more than an excellent defense of the wager. Almost all the topics occupying center stage in contemporary philosophy of religion come in for serious attention, so that the book would work well as the core text of a survey course. Fortunately, it is not written like a textbook—far from it. Rota's style is winsome and personal. Taking Pascal's Wager is really an invitation to think carefully about whether the Christian story might be true and, if so, what one ought to do about it—an invitation that could be taken up with profit by anyone sincerely interested in whether God exists. Rota manages the incredibly difficult trick of explaining, in a way that the educated reader or the philosophical beginner can understand, the relevance of technical philosophical concepts to questions of great existential import. And he never loses sight of the personal and moral dimensions involved in accepting or rejecting a religious path. It is one of the very few books I will be both using in my classes and giving to my friends.”