Hoyeong Lee (South Korea)

In the 6steps of Elliot Cohen's Logic-Based Therapy (LBT), the fifth step is "find an Uplifting Philosophy that promotes the Guiding Virtue". I will introduce "Pascal's wager" as a clinical case that can be used as a philosophical antidote at this stage. The Christian counselee was suffering from mental problems with the doctrine of 'limited salvation' that is, "non-Christian going to hell" because of the death of her husband, who was a non-Christian. For those who suffer from this problem, Catholic theology claims to be overcome by "purgatory" doctrine, while Moltmann theology claims to be overcome by universal salvation. However, the counselee did not accept purgatory doctrine and universal salvation theory because of differences in beliefs. In this regard, I thought it was appropriate to apply the "Pascal's wager" of Pensées is a way not only to keep the counselee's beliefs but also to reduce mental pain. I just helped her by applying Pascal's wager, a kind of decision theory. I changed this wager argument into dividing it into a case of maintaining and giving up religious beliefs, respectively. Accordingly, I led her to explore the highest likelihood that her husband's hope for salvation would be fulfilled. Since the four options made up in this wager argument were structured through her acceptable religious presuppositions, she also readily accepted this argument. This is useful because Pascal's wager can be used to induce an intuitive response to the counselee without having to explain complicated and difficult doctrines. Indeed, the counselee was able to gain comfort from Pascal's wager argument.