The Great Wager

Strangely enough, the class that I'm not doing so hot in is the one I'm learning quite a bit from. Welcome to another discussion of philosophy the topic this time is Blaise Pascal. Pascal created the calculator, wrote the Pensees (and other books), and pioneered what is known today as computer logic. Without his contributions to the theory of mechanical logic, we would not have computers as we know them today. I'm no computer expert so I won't be treating his mathematics (phew) but his famous argument for the existence of God and the necessity of following Him.

The Great Wager! I really like this proof because it doesn't stop at God's existence but also proves that it is the Christian God and not some other *deity*. While the Pensees themselves are rather disorganized it's pretty easy to explain the logic to the Great Wager, which I'm thankful for. So here we go.

What's with life? What's with nature? What's with man? They are each of them self-contradictory, both affirming and denying God in the same breath with more or less of equal measure. Man is both noble and depraved, having his heart inclined to God but spurning Him with the intellect because nature both acclaims and obscures the very existence of its Creator. Man hopes in God but cannot seem to affirm Him mentally. Pascal calls this evidence a chaotic dilemma and man himself to be a "great chimera" (# 471) of the heart and the head.

Because both man and nature seem to affirm and deny God equally and constantly man himself is left with a terrible dilemma which forces him to choose, this is the Great Wager. If God does not exist and man not follow Him, then what benefit is that to man? He has no hope in life nor in death and lives his life resigned to the inevitability of nothingness. If God does exist and man not follow Him, then he gains but a short time to do his own will while living and loses eternity to the flames and the exquisite pains of separation in Hades. Therefore, if God does indeed exist then the infinite gain of eternal life with an infinite Being is, of course, of incomprehensibly more value than whatever amount of finite years you give in following Him. The possible gain makes the loss as dust on the scales, there is no comparison. Pascal loves this and he belabors his point just a little to draw out this distinction, what are the years you have lost if God does not exist since eternity is nothingness in that case and again what are those same years if God does exist since eternity is ever increasing bliss!

Now, a lot of people would at this point have a few objections. Namely, "I don't seem to have a choice in the matter!" or, "Well, sure fine but that still doesn't mean it's the Christian God specifically." Pascal pretty much rips these to pieces, to my delight. As for choice, why would you choose the desert over the oasis? The frozen tundra to the tropical paradise? As for not the Christian God, Pascal provides a short defense of the faith over others. 1. Christianity addresses both God's perfection and man's falleness and reconciles them together (no other religion offers this). 2. Christianity has fulfilled prophecy and evidence to back up it's claims to your heart. 3. Other religions have essential falsities in them (polytheism with the nature of piety and other monotheisms with fatalism).

To sum up, Pascal's Great Wager is pretty effective if the non-believer has not researched ways to combat it specifically (because it does have some weak points). The only thing I don't like about it is that it will cause a fight or flight response in the hearer, they'll see they don't have a choice and stay to duke it out (and lose) or choose to remain neutral (choose themselves over God). Such is the nature of inescapable dilemmas.

Care for a wager?

Dt