Pascal’s Wager is one of the most famous thought experiments in history. Conjured by the 17th century polymath Blaise Pascal, on the surface it provides a neat solution to all the troubling questions about God that were springing up as the period known as the Enlightenment led to a revolution in European thought.
Pascal in fact got there early, although perhaps not enough for him as the thought experiment was published posthumously in his Pensées in 1670. However the origin of the conundrum can be traced back to ancient Greece, with a pre-Socratic philosopher named Protagoras first outlining its basic idea.
But it was Pascal who stated the problem in its most enduring form. And, in doing so, he also sowed the seeds of its own destruction.
Pascal’s problem came about because of the increasing doubt as to the existence of God which the humanist movement had sparked in Europe a century earlier. As society developed an increasingly sophisticated understanding of the world around them, more and more natural wonders could be explained through science.
This alarmed church leaders and philosophers alike, as it left very little room for God in the natural world. The two main pillars of theosophic argument: the creation of man and of the natural world, would remain inviolate for another two centuries, but doubts were creeping in.
Pascal’s solution was simple, but also more than a little trite. God, he reasoned, was infinite and therefore infinitely complex, and therefore beyond our understanding. It was enough for us to say “God is” (as He said himself in the Bible) and leave it at that.
The problem was therefore reduced to whether we should accept this state of affairs. Pascal’s solution was to look at the puzzle from a risk-reward perspective.
If God exists and you do not believe in him, then you are sacrificing your eternal afterlife by living your life outside of His grace. However, if the opposite was true and God did not exist but you believed in Him, then the sacrifice was comparatively small. Better to believe.
Very clever, eh? The problem with this, as has been pointed out by a number of philosophers and theologians since, is that it relies on you being able to hoodwink God. For it to work He needs to think you believe in Him whole heartedly, when your position is actually a calculated one with your self-gain at its heart.
This “argument from inauthentic belief” renders Pascal’s Wager unworkable, and therefore unusable. The flaw is wholly present in the argument itself: if God is infinite, then He is going to notice your toadying attempts to ingratiate yourself with him.
Perhaps the best solution is to live a good life, and let everything else lie.
Top Image: Pascal thought he was really clever, but his “wager” can be easily skewered. Source: Unknown Author / Public Domain.
By Joseph Green