The Wager

“Choose you this day whom ye will serve.” — Joshua 24:15 (KJV)

Pascal’s most famous argument uses the mathematics of chance he helped invent. It has become known as Pascal’s wager.

He imagines talking to someone who says, “I can’t tell whether God exists. Reason can’t decide. So I won’t choose at all.” Pascal replies:

“Yes; but you must wager. It is not optional. You are embarked.”

“Embarked” means you are already on the boat. You are already alive, already living one way or another. Not deciding is itself a decision, because you are living as though God does not matter.

So Pascal says, let’s think about it like a bet. If you bet that God exists and you are right, you gain everything: eternal life and happiness. If you bet that God exists and you are wrong, what have you lost? Some pleasures, maybe. Then he says:

“Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is.”

His opponent replies, in effect: “Fine, but I can’t just make myself believe.” Pascal agrees. The wager can’t make you believe. Its job is to show you that the question matters enormously and that seeking God is worth it. Then he gives practical advice: look at people who have come to faith and follow the way they began, by acting as if they believed. In Pascal’s Catholic church, that meant things like taking holy water and having Masses said. For you it might mean praying, reading the Bible, going to church, and spending time with people who follow Jesus.

Then he says what you would actually lose by living for God:

“You will be faithful, honest, humble, grateful, generous, a sincere friend, truthful.”

You would not have certain “poisonous pleasures”, like glory and luxury. But Pascal promises that every step you take on this road, you will see more of what you have gained and how little you gave up.

Some people think the wager is a cold, selfish argument: believe in God just in case. But remember who Pascal was. He had met God in fire. The wager is not where faith ends. It is a wake-up call for people who are drifting, to get them to start seeking. And Pascal is honest that the stakes are real. Elsewhere he says he would be far more afraid of being mistaken and then finding that the Christian religion was true, than of believing it and not being mistaken.

One thing to do this week: if you have been drifting, “not deciding” about God, make a decision to seek him seriously for one month. Start this week: pray every day, even if it is only “God, if you’re there, show me”, and read one chapter of Mark’s Gospel each day.