Pascal's Wager

Pascal's Wager Pascal's "wager" is a fundamental philosophical argument defending belief in God. Through logical analysis based on a punishment-reward premise, Pascal shows that believing in God is preferable to not believing. The argument is called a "wager" because Pascal phrases it as a sort of bet: the individual has a better chance of being rewarded through belief than through denial. Therefore, Pascals' wager defends belief in God through reason and appeal to basic self-interest rather than through theological or mystical proofs.

Yet even though Pascal tries to divorce belief in God from blind faith, his argument rests heavily on Christian theology. Pascal's God is the Biblical God, the results of his wager similar to a heaven-hell duality as proposed by Christianity as well as other monotheistic religions. Through the wager, Pascal is trying to show readers that believing in God is a personal decision, and one that can be as mundane as any other personal decision.

Just as a person would gamble on a card game, he or she can also gamble on matters of theology. And, just as all gambles involve statistics and mathematical formulas of chance, so too does the gamble of belief. The philosopher basically tries to show that believing in God is a "good bet," that a person has nothing to lose by believing, and by saying that believing in God results in far more personal reward than not believing.

Moreover, Pascal basically assumes that belief in God brings one "an eternity of life and happiness," a premise that is fundamentally flawed and biased because it is itself impossible to prove. Although Pascal's theory is compelling and also cleverly worded, the wager has several rhetorical and logical flaws. For example, Pascal's wager promotes belief primarily in a Christian God and neglects the wide range of theologies or cosmologies that might present themselves to the potential believer. Pascal's vision is overtly monotheistic, and his worldview is essentially dualistic.

However, Pascal would not admit to the possibility of multiple Gods because the philosopher's stance was rooted in Christian apologetic literature. Pascal's wager also assumes that God behaves as He does in the Christian bible. Binaries such as good vs. evil, heaven vs. hell, God vs. Satan, are fundamental assumptions hidden in Pascal's wager. Thus, many criticisms of Pascal's wager are rooted in the argument's Christian bias and the false dilemmas it creates.

Pascal's focus on Christianity is, however, not accidental and in fact it might be safe to assume that the philosopher would not want to promote belief in any other God but the Christian God. Pascal's primary motivation in writing the argument was, after all, to foster belief in the God of his choice, the God of the Christian church. Nevertheless, the Christian bias does weaken the wager through basic logical fallacy. Ironically, to promote belief in a Christian God, Pascal avoids a direct discussion of Christian theology.

Doing so strengthens the appearance of logic and underscores the statistical evidence that Pascal uses to promote theism. However, the absence of any real appeal to mysticism or to matters of the heart ends up weakening the wager. Pascal neglects what could be powerful appeals to emotion, which are essential to most compelling arguments. Also, although Pascal avoids a direct discussion of Christian theology, the philosopher cannot help but insert phrases like "eternal life and happiness," which are written to stimulate an emotional response in the reader.

Betting on God brings "eternal life and happiness," according to Pascal, and therefore, no reasonable sane person would not believe in God. The underlying assumption here is that not believing in God might result in eternal hell and damnation, a condition that of course most people would want to avoid. Although Pascal provides these appeals to the reader's hopes and fears, the wager lacks emotional depth. Pascal's wager is more a coin toss than a horse race, for the philosopher proposes only two options: belief or disbelief.

Unlike a horse race, in which a number of different conditions and possibilities impact the outcome, a coin toss will always result in one of two possibilities. In Pascal's wager, the two possibilities are "for the Christian God" and "against the Christian God." Although Pascal presents a complex array of statistical and logical proofs for his argument, the wager really just boils down to a fifty-fifty bet. This criticism of Pascal's wager critiques the way the philosopher has oversimplified a complex issue.

What Pascal neglects to mention is the possible existence of multiple Gods, or of a God that does not resemble or behave like the Biblical God. Pascal also neglects to mention a multitude of trappings that go along with theism, such as dogma, lifestyle choices, morality, and a host of cultural issues concurrent with religious beliefs. For example, in order to be rewarded as Pascal suggests, the believer is also supposed to attend Church.

Therefore, belief in God is not always a simple matter of personal choice as Pascal suggests; it is not always an either/or coin toss, but rather a complex decision based on lifestyle choices, family, and moral matters. Furthermore, because Pascal does not even attempt to prove that God actually exists in the first place, the wager could prove to be a sham: for if it turns out that God does not exist, then there will certainly be no reward.

Pascal does not acknowledge that God might not exist at all, and that not believing in God might therefore be the more logical choice. Moreover, the cost-benefit analysis that Pascal presents is also overly simplistic. Belief in God only presumably results in "eternal life and happiness." There is no way to prove that this is true, and also, the only reason why Pascal holds out such a lofty reward is because his argument is rooted in Christianity.

What if belief in God results in moderate happiness, or a wave of ups and downs? What if, contrary to Pascal's belief, belief in God does not automatically result in an infinite return, but rather, a finite or limited one? Pascal's wager is therefore not complex enough to account for the myriad of possibilities.