The Will to Believe: James Defends Freely Embraced Faith In The Will to Believe, James defends freely embraced faith. He defends it because many people, who have been taught to be "logical", refuses to understand how he can have faith in religion. He starts by defining some essential concepts. He defines a hypothesis as anything that may be presented to our belief. An option is making the choice between two hypotheses. An option may be live or dead. How living an option is depends on each individual and on how much the person is willing to act on it. A living option is when the hypotheses make sense and pertains to the indi