Pascal's Wager

According to Blaise Pascal, believing that God exists or does not exist is a wager one must make.  God is or He is not.  There is no option but to wager with your life to believe in God or not to believe.  Our body is meant to reason because we cannot fully comprehend the infinite because we are finite.  Therefore, we cannot fully comprehend God who is infinite.  Our nature leads us to reason, but God’s nature is something we cannot fully know.  We do know that the infinite exists but we cannot comprehend it because we have limits that the infinite does not have.  We know God is infinite because He has no affinity to us.  We do not know what He is or if He is.  Pascal says it is in lacking proof that Christians make sense.  Therefore we must choose: does God exist or does He not exist?

            The wager Pascal describes is best looked at in this format.

God exists                   God does not exist

Belief              infinite gain                 finite loss

Skeptic            infinite loss                  finite gain

If you choose to believe that God exists, you will infinitely gain.  If you choose to believe that God does not exist, then you finitely lose.  If you chose to be a skeptic, and God does exist you will infinitely lose.  If you chose to be the skeptic and God does not exist you finitely gain.  However you wager, there will be losses and gains.  But which gain or loss is greater to you?  Gaining infinity in Heaven and losing our finite lives on earth or losing infinity in Heaven and gaining more to our finite life?

            We either believe in the possibility of an infinite life, although we cannot be completely sure it exists, or we believe there is nothing more but our finite life on earth.  Pascal writes that “you have two things to lose, the true and the good; and two things to stake, your reason and your will, your knowledge and your happiness,” in regards to this wager.  There is the chance to gain infinitely if you chose so. 

            Believing in God means you can gain an infinite life; whereas if you wager towards not believing in God you will gain only finitely.  Pascal believes that believing that God does exists gives you two wins.  You will have something to live for on earth and some place to go after; therefore you receive two wins whether or not God really does even exist once we are dead.  However, if one chooses not to believe in God and He does exist you cannot gain anything and lose it all.  

             Pascal's wager is the option we must make in life: either we believe or we do not believe.

            We are already here so why not wager and pick the best option for the best life?  Why not believe in God if it can make your life fuller and possibly end in an infinite life?