James A. Connor, Pascal's Wager

Pascal's life was dominated by the conflict of his interest in science and philosophy and his commitment to Jansenism, a radical form of Catholicism based on the teachings of St. Augustine.

John MacFarlane, "Relativism and Disagreement"

Contexualists (someone who thinks the content of a proposition is partly determined by the context of utterance) can account for the intuition that disagreements of taste are sometimes not genuine disagreements, but they can't account for the intuition that sometimes disagreements of taste are genuine disagreements. Relativists can account for both intuitions by taking disagreement to be when one party to the disagreement accepts a proposition and the other rejects it, and relative to the "circumstance of evaluation that is relevant to the assessment of the acceptance (rejection) [of the proposition] in its context" both parties can't be right. So, when there is genuine disagreement, both parties share the circumstance of evaluation relevant to the assessment of the proposition, and when disagreement is merely apparent, the parties don't share that circumstance of evaluation.

William Lycan and George Schlesinger, "You Bet Your Life: Pascal's Wager Defended"

Standard objections to Pascal's recommended wager fail; epistemic reasons (including simplicity) count in favor of belief in an Anselmian perfect God.

Blaise Pascal, Pensées, §233

We cannot know that God exists or does not exist, but it is better to believe that God exists than not to believe He exists.

René Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy

I am a thinking thing; God exists; the essence of material substance is extension; mind and body are distinct.