Finite and Infinite Games

“There are at least two kinds of games. Once could be called finite, the other, infinite. A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play.”


In spite of of its cult-status, Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility is probably a book you have never heard of. And, although on first glance, you may think this is just another one of those self-help books that seem to occupy the ever burgeoning self-help sections of bookshops these days, it is written by a serious academic with a slew of well-researched and finely argued monographs to his name.

Professor James P. Carse is a religion scholar who has taught the history and literature of religion for many years at New York University. He describes himself as a writer and artist, but more interestingly as someone who does not believe in any God, though still religious "in the sense that I am endlessly fascinated with the unknowability of what it means to be human, to exist at all."

Carse occupies a much more interesting area of religious discussion than those rather pedestrian arguments for atheism put forward in the last couple of years by Hitchens, Dawkins, et. al., where a belief (and that’s all it ever could be) for atheism is argued without ever tackling the sticky problem of belief. Whether we believe in God or believe that there is no God, without a questioning of the very notion of belief itself, we can end up (as I think Hitchens, Dawkins, and others have) merely as fundamentalist believers in atheism - i.e. atheism as (ultimately) dogmatic as any belief in a God.

Carse explores a much more interesting and fertile ground, that falling between belief and unbelief. In his book, The Religious Case Against Belief, Carse argues that believers will confidently offer up a list of their most valued and thought-out views. However, they do not just hold these positions, they declare them. As in the case of Hitchens, Dawkins, et. al., it is not enough that they hold these views, but it is also important that you also know them. Hitchens (who, by the way, I have always held a great respect for, and more so after just finishing his wonderfully written memoir, Hitch 22) presents his argument for atheism in a highly cogent and even entertaining way. But what almost always gets lost in this display, is that while convincing you of the rightness of his/their view(s), any contrary view is being situated as plainly false. This, according to Carse, is the problem with belief (even, say, a belief in atheism): all belief is perfectly matched with its opposite; and, because of this, all belief is not only belief in, but also always belief against. Therefore, belief must not only focus in on the contrary stance of others, it is dependent on it; which means that anytime the passion with which that opposing view is held fades so does the corresponding belief. As Carse asks: “How could the existence of God be denied except if someone supplies a God to be denied? To be an atheist you need just the right theist to face off against. Believing is an inherently self-contradictory act.”

The reason for the cult-status of Carse’s book,  Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility, is that it gives one an almost visceral understanding of what it might be to have a religious stance toward existence without any need for belief.

Recommended:

 www.jamescarse.com

 Carse, James P. The Religious Case Against Belief. (New York: Penguin, 2008).

Carse, James P. Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility (New York: Random House, 1986).