Pascal’s Wager is frequently misunderstood as an argument for the existence of God. In fact, Pascal believed it was impossible to argue that God either exists or does not exist. His wager is essentially a bet we can make on the existence of God: the stake is our happiness, and the prize is eternal life. The focus should be on whether this bet is a good one to make and what making this bet reveals about the human condition.
Who Was Blaise Pascal?
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) was a man of many talents. A child prodigy, he went on to become an accomplished philosopher, physicist, inventor, and writer. Today, he is probably most well-known for his infamous “wager,” but he is also credited as one of the first inventors of the calculator and is considered a pioneer in science.
Pascal was also a deeply religious thinker, a Catholic and, in particular, a Jansenist. Put simply, Jansenists were a Catholic sect that believed in the total depravity of human beings; that is, it is impossible for a person to be virtuous enough to merit salvation without God’s intervention.
Accordingly, for Jansenists, there is nothing a person can do to deserve a place in heaven—God had already chosen those who would join him in heaven and those who would not. Those graced by God will be good and worthy (whether they like it or not), and those not graced by God will never be saved. Finally, for Jansenists, it follows from their beliefs that Jesus did not die on the cross to redeem all humankind but only those chosen by God. Politically and theologically, Jansenists were most opposed to Jesuits, whom they considered concerned with finding justifications for sinning with a good conscience (‘casuistry’).
During his lifetime, one of Pascal’s most well-known publications on the subject was his Provincial Letters (1656-7). These were a series of fictional letters covering the dispute between the Jansenists and the Jesuits. Pascal’s writing, often humorous and witty, was extremely popular and became the model for satirical essays, especially in France. The work influenced such intellectuals as Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Molière. Despite—or perhaps because of—the popularity of the letters, both the King of France and the Catholic Church ordered the texts to be banned and burned.
The Mystery of God
Pascal believed that God could not be known by humans because he has hidden himself from human knowledge. For him, God is a totally mysterious being beyond human understanding, and no kind of reasoning will ever demystify God. Accordingly, we must accept the fact that we are estranged from God and in total darkness concerning his existence. If Pascal is correct, then there can be no proof of God’s existence, and without his intervention, he is unknowable.
This is not far removed from standard Christian beliefs about God. The Christian conception of God is as an “unknown god.” Put simply, this means that, unlike other gods, we do not “know” what God looks like, where he lives, what his likes and dislikes are, who his friends are, where he was born, and so forth. Compare this to the Greek god Apollo. He has a name, his father is Zeus, and his mother is Leto. He has a sister, Artemis. We know what he looks like: Apollo is beautiful, with long hair, but he doesn’t have a beard. He enjoys archery and music; he invented stringed music.
When St. Paul was traveling and preaching the gospel, one of his biggest obstacles was getting people to understand the God he was talking about. “Unknown gods” were a thing in the ancient world, but the idea that one of these entirely mysterious entities could be the only and one true god was almost impossible to conceive. Of course, in Christianity, there is Jesus Christ. He is both man and God. But rather than making God more “knowable” for non-believers, the divinity of Christ only makes the subject more confusing to someone first hearing about Christianity.
The key idea here is that for Pascal, God is one of the mysterious “unknowables” of life.
Pascal’s Pensées
Pascal’s Wager appears in his Pensées, which was published in 1670, eight years after Pascal’s death. The English translation of the title is “Thoughts,” and the work consists of text fragments, notes, jottings, and musings. It is believed that Pascal was working on a text he planned to call Apology for the Christian Religion, but he died before completing the task. The “thoughts” we have in the Pensées are notes for this work.
Christian apologetics is a branch of theology that focuses on defending Christianity. The term derives from the Greek apologia, which referred to a verbal defence or response to an accusation. One of the most famous examples from the Greeks is The Apology of Socrates by Plato. In this text, we read Socrates’ defence of himself against allegations of corrupting the youth of Athens. He is certainly not apologizing in the sense of saying he is sorry. It is unclear where this modern understanding of the word comes from. Some believe it is an invention by Shakespeare, who used the word “apology” to mean confessing an error in his play, Richard III.
Pascal’s planned work would have been a defence of Christian belief. For many Christians, they believe that apologetics is a duty. They cite Biblical passages such as 1 Peter 3:15-16, “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone that asks you to give a reason for the hope that you have.”
The “Wager” appears in the 233rd entry of the third section of Pascal’s Pensées. Before looking at this entry in detail, it is worth remembering that, for Pascal, there can be no proof for God’s existence. We sometimes see Pascal’s Wager criticised as a poor argument for the existence of God, but that is not what it is intended to be.
Pascal’s Wager: The Foolishness of Reason
Pascal says that we know that there is a God without knowing what he is. God is infinite, and we can only understand the finite. Pascal gives the example of numbers. When we count numbers, we just keep on going; they never end.
In other words, there is an infinity of numbers. This we know, but what else do we know about it? Is infinity odd or even? How can it be that if I add one more number or take one away, there is still an infinite number? Pascal is not trying to say anything clever about numbers, he is merely attempting to show that while we can talk about infinite and finite things, we really do not comprehend the infinite. He goes on to say that if there is a God, he is infinitely incomprehensible.
To support his claim that God is incomprehensible, he cites 1 Corinthians 1:21, “For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believed.”
If God is infinitely incomprehensible, we can make no sense of his existence. Accordingly, we cannot use reason to discover anything about him. This includes whether or not he even exists. Pascal writes: “God is, or He is not. But to which side shall we incline? Reason can decide nothing here.”
Imagine gambling on the toss of a coin, heads or tails. The outcome is entirely random, and there is no correct strategy for predicting it. Someone who claimed to choose one side or the other based on reasoning would simply be foolish. Pascal uses this example to discuss the folly of trying to use reason to determine whether God exists.
Pascal’s Wager is Betting on Happiness
You do not have to gamble on the toss of a coin but, for Pascal, you must come to a decision on God’s existence. Gambling on God, like all bets, involves staking something in order to win something. So what are the stakes and what is the prize according to Pascal?
The stakes are your reason and your happiness. The prize—what you win, if successful—is eternal life. Stakes can, of course, be lost when you gamble. Pascal says that if you choose to gamble on God, then you run no risk of sacrificing your reason. Since there is no way of using reason to discover the existence or not of God, you do not have to spend any time on attempting to do so. That is, you can just as easily opt for saying there is a God as saying there is not.
Put simply, you do not have to give up your reason in order to say God exists; reason does not come into it. Accordingly, you have nothing to lose here.
Regarding happiness, we can say that, given the chance, we would be happier with more life rather than less. Pascal says, quite reasonably, that if we were offered the prize of winning two or three times our stake in a fifty-fifty bet, it would be prudent to take the bet. He goes on to say that if we bet on God and win, then we will not get two or three more lives but eternal life. This is because if God is real and we believe in God, then we stand to win eternal life.
The argument here is that we have our lives to gamble with. That is, spending life as a Christian over life as an atheist. If we win, we win eternal life on an even bet. If we lose, we lived a life that valued love, honesty, and kindness for our fellow man.
Other Bets On Happiness
We have seen that Pascal’s wager is not an attempt to prove the existence of God. Indeed, Pascal does not believe it is possible to prove whether God exists, because God is a mystery beyond our comprehension. His argument is simply that we are better off gambling that God exists. It may seem an odd idea; however, there are other significant things in our lives, the existence of which we simply “wager” on for our own happiness!
Consider love. Suppose you were asked whether significant people in your life actually loved you, and to show how you know this to be true. How could you prove that your mother, husband, child, etc., loves you? You could cite all the things they do for you, but this would only show that they do do these things, not the reason why. It is possible that a parent does not feel love but wishes they did, and so they do all the things a loving parent would do to hide their terrible secret. There would be no way for their child to know the truth. In this case, would it not be better for the child’s happiness for them to “wager” on the belief their parent loves them? Shouldn’t everyone make this bet?
It is not just love that we choose to wager our happiness and lives on, but also things like the existence of human dignity as well as moral rights and wrongs. A nihilist would even claim that the idea that life is valuable is a wager we bet our lives upon. If we reject Pascal’s wager on the topic of God, how do we justify accepting the wager on all these other aspects of life?
