A lot of Christians like Pascal's Wager, whether or not they know it. It sounds so ... reasonable. Here's the idea (in case you haven't heard it). I may not be able to prove the existence of God and the truth of Christianity, but a wise person should live as though it is true because if it is true you have everything to gain by agreeing and everything to lose by disagreeing and if it is not true ... you've lost nothing by agreeing. Ah, that seems so reasonable. How could anyone disagree? Of course, that doesn't tend to move anyone to agree ... and I happen to disagree myself. I have two basic problems with Pascal's Wager.
Since it is my position that a Christian should derive his or her reality from Scripture, I'll first give the biblical reason that I disagree, and then I'll offer the logical problem. You see, I'm not the first to disagree with Pascal. The first person to clearly disagree with Pascal is Paul. Okay, okay, Paul precedes Pascal, but it is still Paul's words that pull me up short of Pascal. In Paul's first epistle to the church at Corinth, he engages in a little logical exercise. The question: Is there such a thing as the resurrection of the dead? Premise: No. Going from there, Paul demonstrates that if there is no such thing as resurrection, then Christ wasn't raised, and if Christ wasn't raised, then "your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins" (1 Cor 15:17). Here's Paul's conclusion: "If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied" (1 Cor 15:19). That, dear readers, is in direct contradiction to Pascal's thinking, who figures "If you hope in Christ in this life only, you've lost nothing." So the Bible disagrees with Pascal's Wager.
There is another problem, however. The premise of Pascal's Wager is that the listener is sitting there deciding whether or not to agree with God. Given a sufficient argument (like this wager), the listener can decide to agree with God. The motivation behind this recommended agreement is "What have I got to lose?" Does that seem like ... faith? You see, the requirement isn't "agree with God", but to believe and repent. Agreeing with God is simply mental acquiescence, not faith. In fact, it doesn't arise out of repentance (need), but out of pragmatism (desire). "Yeah, yeah, I guess that makes sense. Fine, I'll go along with it." There is no call for "Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner!" Thus, even the person who agrees to go along with Pascal doesn't arrive at genuine faith, but simple pragmatism. And nowhere in Scripture do we find that we can be saved by pragmatism.
The whole thing sounds reasonable on the surface. I have to say that I can't go along with it, however, because it violates Scripture and it violates the basic demands of Christianity. It relies on logic -- something of which Christianity is not devoid, but not the basic premise -- rather than an act of God, the fundamental requirement of salvation. If you like Pascal's Wager, feel free to keep it. I won't be using it.
10 comments:
Happy New Year, Stan!
There may be another way of looking at this.
Here's Paul's conclusion: "If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied" (1 Cor 15:19). That, dear readers, is in direct contradiction to Pascal's thinking, who figures "If you hope in Christ in this life only, you've lost nothing." So the Bible disagrees with Pascal's Wager.
Pascal's Wager - my understanding of it - is not limited to this life only. In fact, if believing meant eternal life, it would be the same wager Jesus made. Maybe I didn't understand you.
I've only seen Pascal's Wager used with atheists and their slippery siblings, the agnostics. It only brings the person to consider what he is doing in believing in nothing or, worse, in self. It doesn't directly guide someone to a saving faith in Jesus Christ.
Jesus didn't want people to follow him on a wager. In John 9, he heals the man of the blindness he had from birth. When asked by his disciples if the blindness was because of the parent's sinning, he said no. So the man lived blind for 15-20 years (we only know he was "of age") for no other reason than to glorify God.
It's a good Scripture reading for the prosperity gospel folks. Sometimes that blindness doesn't go away, as in Fanny Crosby's case. Along the way she glorified God by composing over 8,000 hymns.
Pascal's Wager has its place in debate, but not in the heart.
Jim: "Pascal's Wager has its place in debate, but not in the heart."
I suppose that's my primary point. If it gets the person to question their own position, it may have value in moving someone along, but it doesn't make a changed heart -- necessary for salvation.
I have recently read a LONG web page by a former missionary who is now a nonbeliever.
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/ken_daniels/why.html#Pascal
About 80% of the way down the page he gives his take on Pascal’s wager. He says he abhors it because it is not an argument, but rather a threat used to compensate for lack of good arguments on behalf of faith.
By the way, his page has lots of material that could serve you as fodder for rebuttal, should you ever run dry on ideas for your blogs.
To be frank, I often question whether my belief is of true faith or a variation of this wager. As I look at all the arguments and evidence, I, at worst, lean toward belief if not run wildly at it. It's as if I simply can't believe. But, as it seems to have been suggested above, Pascal's wager is meant to be just another hook that reels in another to take a closer look, with the hope that by doing so, a real faith will develop. Just another arrow in the quiver, so to speak.
Hi Stan and others, this is my first time on the blog. Good discussion as well. I haven't given a tremendous amount of intellectual time to the "Wager" mainly because of the points you've already brought up. I would like to offer a couple comments of a little different flavor.
Pascal himself rubbed elbows with gamblers quite often. I've read the Pensees and some other historical info on the man and so a lot behind the wager probably comes from that background. As we know as pertains to scripture we must look at context, and so Pascal's motivation may have been to engage specifically gamblers. The wager itself is purely existential. It begins with the premise of if God happens to be real and plays on the men at the table who made it a practice to weigh out options for which would benefit them most. Of course Pascal believed God was real without question and the implications of believing on Jesus as their personal Savior would hold whether they ever chose to believe or not.
I guess my point is that although it doesn't address the deeper theological entailments of Christianity it would at least get those familiar with wagering to consider the real existential cost of their disbelief.
So, the wager may go more toward Paul's admonishment to be all things to all people rather than lead them down the "Roman's road".
I have never argued the wager in any debate or discussion with an atheist, agnostic or other and I may be off base. Just some ramblings on the topic. Hope if not accurate and helpful they were at least coherent.
Jeremy: "... the real existential cost of their disbelief."
You (and Jim, I think) seem to talk of the wager like a sort of slap in the face. It's not recommended, but it might be useful at times to get someone's attention.
I went to the place that Lee recommended and found the wager offered in a completely different approach. I read it as "What have you got to lose?" Daniels read it as "Repent or die!" (And Daniels sees the notion of eternal damnation as so abhorrent as to discard all religion.) I suppose that would be a different conversation.
Stan, I went back last night to the Pensees and Pascal's thoughts on persuasion. Here are his words, which are much more meaningful than mine (Taken from the Honor Levi translation of "The Art of Persuasion"):
"The art of persuasion is necessarily linked to the way in which men agree to what is suggested to them, and to the types of things we want them to believe...there are two ways by which opinions are received into the soul...understanding and will...From this it appears that, whatever it is one wants to persuade people of, we must take into consideration the person with whom we are concerned, of whom we know the mind and heart, the principles admitted, and the things loved; and then we must take note, in the matter concerned, of the relationship it has with admitted truths or of the objects of delight through the charms we attribute to them."
This is what I meant by a purely existential argument. However, Pascal does make a delineation with the eternality in another point:
"I am not speaking here of divine truths, which I would take care not to include under the art of persuasion, since they are infinitely superior to nature. Only God can put them into the soul, and in the way he things fit."
So, perhaps a slap in the face would be an accurate illustration, but i'll leave that to those more adept at the philosophical.
Jeremy: (quoting Pascal) "I am not speaking here of divine truths."
That helps.
Coming into the discussion a couple of years later is great Internet etiquette, I know...
I was reading 1 Corinthians 15 today and read verse 19 and immediately thought of Pacal and his wager. So I did some "googling" and came across your blog post.
I agree with both of your points. Pascal himself may not have meant it as a "divine truth," but over the years I've certainly seen the wager used as such. It's an easy way to challenge someone's thinking but has no actual argument attached to it. It's just a plea to avoid a possible outcome.
1 Corinthians 15 (in it's entirety) is sufficient, imo.
He intended, I suppose, for it to be a persuasive, not biblical argument.
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