Pascal's Wager: Why you should bet on God

Blaise Pascal (1623 - 1662) was a brilliant man. He made significant contributions in Mathematics (Pascal's Triangle), in the Sciences (maintaining that there are Vacuums) and was an inventor (the hydraulic press and the syringe). However, it his contribution to the debate about whether one should believe in God is what shall be examined in this article. His idea is called 'Pascal's Wager', and it has been accepted, rejected, reborn many times over. It is something which just never goes away, for it so simple to understand. I hope to illustrate its main components, then offer some objections, and then I will deal with them.

Some preliminary comments are needed before we delve into the argument itself. The Wager is not designed to prove God's existence, or give any reason why God might exist. Rather, it tries to show why we should believe in the existence of God. Whilst it is a subtle distinction, it is of great significance to understanding the argument. It is trying to give us a reason why it is 'utility maximising' (improving our chances of attaining the best possible circumstances for our persons) to believe in God.

Pascal's argument centres around a wager over whether it is better to believe in God or not. It follows the principle of 'I have nothing to lose and everything to gain from such and such', which if it is successful, is a very powerful argument. Pascal argues the following:

(1) It is possible that the Christian God exists and it is possible that the Christian God does not exist.

(2) If one believes in the Christian God then if he exists then one receives an infinitely great reward and if he does not exist then one loses little or nothing.

(3) If one does not believe in the Christian God then if he exists then one receives an infinitely great punishment and if he does not exist then one gains little or nothing.

(4) It is better to either receive an infinitely great reward or lose little or nothing than it is to either receive an infinitely great punishment or gain little or nothing.

Therefore:

(5) It is better to believe in the Christian God than it is not to believe in the Christian God.

(6) If one course of action is better than another then it is rational to follow that course of action and 

irrational to follow the other.

Therefore:

(7) It is rational to believe in the Christian God and irrational not to believe in the Christian God.

We can illustrate this succinctly in the following diagram.

This at first glance looks quite convincing. You don't seem to lose anything from believing in God and being wrong, but you can gain everything if you are right, whilst if you don't believe, you gain nothing and can go to hell! This would be a powerful reason to believe if it is sound reasoning. However, many sceptics have offered reasons why we should not trust the wager.

Firstly, the wager seems to devalue and outright contradict religious sentiments. The essence of religion is perceived as the conviction that all profane, self-seeking ambitions are incompatible with the quest for piety and total commitment to love of God. Self-indulgent shams, which are attempts to fool God and are selfish are morally repugnant, and tears down the whole religious, and specifically Christian life. Noble ends are undermined by ignoble means after all.

Furthermore, just believing in God doesn't seem like it will get you into heaven. True religion is not just an assent to a set of propositions, but a full commitment of devotion, having one's heart and soul virtually consumed by a deep reverence and love of God. The wager seems to provide us only with a shallow, thin version of religious belief, which is not really worth considering.

Whilst these criticisms have no logical force, they have considerable psychological weight. But they seem to have misunderstood Pascal's intention. Firstly, the view that altruistic actions should have no motives which are beneficial to the self is simply not biblical, but actually a secular invention. Professor Barclay of Theology at Durham University has argued that St Paul (the foremost thinker in Christianity behind Jesus) believed that doing good actions and assenting to certain beliefs is not to be condoned due to self-reward. If someone can benefit by giving you help, that is not a bad thing, but good, for the diffusion of good from any situation increases, which is always something to aim for. In the same way, Pascal is arguing that belief in God is good, because not only do you benefit in the knowledge and love of God, but you avoid hell and gain heaven. It is almost an early form of utilitarianism, where the greatest good should be performed for the greatest number of people. It is only after the enlightenment does this belief arise that for it to be pious the action at hand should have no gains for the self. So to argue because it is selfish it is not worth following is to adopt a set of principles which are not within the Christian religion.

Moreover, Pascal's argument helps one to start the process of loving God. Hillel recognised that desirable behaviour is assumed to generate eventually desirable feelings. Being commanded to love a neighbour or God is too difficult by itself. I cannot choose to make myself love a man I hate. However, by practising the behaviour associated with a sentiment, it helps one develop that emotion too. This is the foundation of 'behaviour modification', a type of therapy which aims to induce feelings through repetition of actions. The relevance of this is that the wager demands a commitment to God through action: if I wager God exists, I must act in a way which God finds is good. So only acting in a way which I would like to be treated, will over time help me to love my fellow human. In the same way, dedicating your actions to respecting God and his commands will develop a love for him too. So the wager is the first step for salvation, and one must go past it to fulfill the wager, and develop true belief and trust in God.

Another, more powerful objection, is the idea that Pascal assumes a Christian worldview, and there is no reason to suppose that we shouldn't bet on Allah, Vishnu, Osiris, Thor, Zeus, Ra, Baal etc. In short, there are so many God's we could wager on, and as we don't know which one to wager on, it seems unreasonable to wager on any of them. The 'many-gods' argument maybe extended further in saying that there may even be a god who rewards those who deny his existence and punishes those who do believe in him, reversing the wager completely.

But does this objection work? Well the first thing to point out is that it has conceded that Pascal is right to assert the view that we should wager on some supernatural power. It accepts the general reasoning of the argument, it just wants a reason why it should wager on the Christian God, not some other one. We can do this by showing the plausibility of each God is not equal.

To start with, the theistic God is more plausible than other gods because we can use Ockham's Razor to discard them. Whereas the theistic God can be described by one predicate (perfect), whereas a God like Zeus is infinitely more complex to describe. For example, Zeus sometimes slept, but we have no idea how long he needed to sleep and how it effected him. He ate and drank, but whether he overate or how long he could go without food is another question we do not know the answer too. In short, the lesser gods are limited and complex to explain, the theistic God is unlimited and a simple hypothesis, it follows that theistic God's are more plausible to wager on than non-theistic God's.

Having narrowed it down to just theistic God's, we must now assess the specific evidence for each description of God's nature (Allah, Triune, Yahweh etc.) and assess the evidence for this. I am convinced that the Christian one is the most plausible given the historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. For a detailed argument of this, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHofTmolbi0 Furthermore, even if you find this uncompelling, the other theistic religions seem to boast even less evidence than Christianity (I don't have room to comment here, but if you want to raise anything please feel free), and as such a the Christian God is the most plausible. Thus, we have reasons why Pascal specifically tells us to wager on the Christian God rather than another one; the evidence suggests that it is the most plausible God to exist.

With these two major stumbling blocks dealt with, I think it is at least rational to think Pascal's Wager is a good reason to believe in God. Whilst there are other objections, they are not as powerful or well known. However, if you would like to raise them, please feel free, I just don't have enough time to analyse them all.

Thus, whilst the public perception of the wager is very negative, if you dig beneath the surface level objections, you find a highly sophisticated reason for devoting your life to God. Misunderstanding the argument is common, but I believe that if you understand the view Pascal tries to convey of this being a stepping stone, and take into account the relevant plausibility of certain concepts of God, it is clear that this is a persuasive construct, and betting on God in light of this argument is a good move. With the soundness of the argument clarified, I hope you wager on belief in God: you have nothing to lose, and everything to gain!

I want to thank you all for showing your continued support in reading my blog, especially those not from the UK. If people would like me to comment on any particular topics, please leave a comment as to what the subject matter is, and I will try to post an article on it.