Why Ask?

I'm not a big fan of Pascal's wager. You know. The argument goes something like, "You ought to believe in God because if you're wrong about it you lose little but if you're wrong in disbelieving in God you could go to hell" or something like it. Some people love it; others hate it. I'm not a big fan of it because it seems as if it goes against Paul's statement. "If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied" (1 Cor 15:19). Seems like Paul disagreed with Pascal.

To be fair, scholars aren't at all sure about Pascal's wager. Much of what he wrote was fragmented. This particular one was written on four sides of a sheet of paper -- some in the middle, some in the margins, some upside down. What went where? What did he actually intend? It's difficult to be certain. He seems to argue that "Reason cannot prove the existence of God, so you should just believe." But Pascal himself offered lots of reasons for the existence of God and wrote, "The way of God ... is to instill religion into our minds with reasoned arguments, and into our hearts with grace" (Pensées, 172, 185). So it's difficult to be sure what he intended with this particular argument.

Thus, while I'm not a fan, I think that there is a place for it. It isn't a good reason to believe there is a God, but it is a good reason to ask the question. And that is the good reason for the wager. It can't be offered as an argument to believe, but it is certainly a strong argument to ask the question. Given the immensity of the question at hand -- "Is there a God?" and all its ramifications -- over against the import of "If there is no God," I would think it would be abundantly clear that this would be a good reason to examine the question. If we're talking about "Who is better -- Batman or Superman?", the ramifications are pointless, so the question is of little value. If we're talking about "Do my car's brakes work or not?" that question has some serious ramifications and is certainly worth examining. The existence of God is a bigger question with larger ramifications -- both ways. I would think it would be worth serious consideration rather than a cursory rejection offered by so many today. It is, in fact, one of the biggest puzzles I continue to consider: How can so many who actually have some information on this still remain outside the faith, outside even considering the facts, giving no thought to the potentially eternal ramifications of their position? I don't get it.