What is Pascal's Wager?
Full Question
A
book I'm reading made a reference to "Pascal's Wager" but without any
explanation. I gather it has something to do with proving the existence
of God. What light can you shed on this?
Answer
"Pascal's
Wager," so-called because it was devised by the brilliant Catholic
philosopher Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), is an apologetics method in the
form of a wager aimed at getting atheists and agnostics to consider the
possibility that God exists and that there is a heaven and hell. The
beauty of Pascal's Wager is that it is an appeal to the chief god
worshipped by atheists: their reason. Fr. Joseph H. Cavanaugh, C.F.C.,
explains in his apologetics handbook, Evidence for Our Faith,
Pascal addresses his argument to the typical man of
the world who regards making money and amusing himself, not as a means
to the end, but the real purpose of existence. Even if he refuses to
consider his ultimate destiny, Pascal maintains such a man cannot avoid
wagering about it. In practice, he must stake everything on one of two
propositions, either (A) that there is a purpose in life (God made us
for life with him); or (B) that there is not. Man cannot refuse to wager
for by doing so he implies that there is no purpose in life.
Under one guise or another, human selfishness is
always urging man to stake everything on B. Pascal tries to show that it
is far more reasonable - even from the viewpoint of self-interest - to
stake all on A. If you bet everything on B and A is the truth, you lose
an eternal good. But if you stake all on A and B is the truth, you lose
only a few temporal pleasures.
Pascal describes the thoughts of the typical man in
these word:, "I know not whence I came or whither I go. I only know that
on quitting this world, I shall fall forever either into nothingness or
into the hands of an angry God [Heb 10:31] . . . And yet I conclude
that I should pass all the days of my life without bothering to inquire
into what must happen to me. Perhaps I might find some solution to my
doubts, but I do not want to take the trouble. . . I intend to go
forward without looking ahead and without fear toward this great event,
facing death carelessly, still uncertain as to the eternity of my future
state" (Pensees III, 194). . . . In other words, Pascal thinks it is
not merely a moral tragedy but an intellectual blunder to wager on B,
that is, to refuse to recognize a purpose in life. He feels sure the
typical man would soon have faith if he renounces pleasure. At least he
should search for the truth. "According to the doctrine of chance, you
should search earnestly for the truth, for if you die without
worshipping the True Cause, you are lost. 'But,' you say, 'if God had
wished me to worship him, he would have left me Signs of his will.'
Indeed, God has done so (Rom 1:18-21; 2:14- 16); but you ignore them. "
Answered by: Catholic Answers Staff
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