Would You Take Pascal’s Wager?
Blaise Pascal was a 17th Century (1623-1662) French philosopher, mathematician and theologian who, among much else, is known for a wager that he used to illustrate his view of why it is rational to believe in the existence of God.
Unfortunately, Pascal passed away before his book in which he laid out the wager — “Pensees” — was published.
Screenshot from amazon.com.
Here’s how it works: If God exists, the reward for His followers is eternal, or infinite, life and happiness. If He does not exist but I believe He does and live accordingly, then I will suffer certain finite penalties — social exclusion, lost job opportunities, loss of freedom — in this life, but those are temporary and finite, plus I still have most of the rewards of a temporal life. Either way I come out ahead, either infinite gain or finite gain.
If He exists but I don’t believe it, then I suffer eternal loss and suffering in Hell. That infinite suffering far outweighs whatever finite value I gained by living my temporal life according to my own desires. If God does not exist, then whether I believe or not, whatever gain I have is finite.
Therefore, if there is even a remote chance that God does in fact exist, then the rational choice is to believe that He exists and gain the infinite reward. If He doesn’t exist but I believe He does, all I’ve lost is finite. But if He exists and I don’t believe He does, then my loss is infinite.
Thoroughly confused? It can be and, according to minister and theologian John Piper, it is also misleading. Here’s why:
“Because it gives the impression that saving faith in God is a choice we make without seeing God as true and compellingly beautiful. The Wager says, You do not know if God is really there. God himself is not a reality to you. He is a possibility. When you look at nature, or at the gospel story of Christ crucified and risen, you do not see a divine glory that is convincing and beautiful to you. But the Wager says, You must choose. And it says, Choose him. But when you do, the choice you make is not owing to a sight of glory that convinces and enthralls.
“According to the Scriptures, that kind of choice is not saving faith. It is a purely natural thing, not a supernatural thing. We are drawn to something we do not know, assuming an extension of the happiness we have here. But saving faith is not like that. It is rooted in the sight and foretaste of happiness in supernatural things — God himself. According to the Scriptures, living faith is created in the dead soul by the miracle of new birth. “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God” (1 John 5:1). That’s how the faith happens.”
Piper has much more to say on Pascal’s Wager, which you can quickly read here.