Blaise Pascal was a French mathematician, physicist, philosopher and Catholic theologian, who lived from 1623-1662. He is famous for what became known as Pascal’s wager- the basic idea being that in a blind bet over one’s afterlife, it would be more reasonable to believe in God than not, since believing in God has an eternal payoff if true, and nothing lost if wrong, whereas not believing in God has nothing as a consequence if true, and hell if wrong.  

This is often posited as a cynical bet. Which, even assuming Christianity as true, the cynicism on which such a wager were made would certainly not save one’s soul. That would require true belief.  

But the story of Blaise Pascal is pretty interesting, and actually reading his Pensées (Thoughts) gives a much broader scope to the argument than the cheap cynical version often trotted out.  

Pascal was a mathematical prodigy. He was the son of a government official and through his own genius, as well as the connections afforded through his family, he became familiar with the leading thinkers of his day. He was well-acquainted with the atheism of his philosophical circles and had a period of worldliness himself. But he experienced an intense conversion moment. If I recall correctly, he also experienced a genuine miracle. It was (I believe) a niece who had an incurable disease. After prayer, the girl was healed, and the disease being gone was noted by the top physicians in France.  

So he was a believer on one hand, but also well acquainted with the arguments against God, some of which he acknowledged he had no answer for. It is in this mindset that his wager is best considered.  

I’ll quote from his Pensées below, but his position is one I can personally relate to. I believe in God. Not just a God… but the God of the Bible…. Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit.  

I too have plenty of things that I can’t explain. I’ve heard the arguments against and while I can provide answers, I acknowledge that they don’t amount to any kind of proof.  

But I also have my own experiences of, and with, God as a person that I feel I know. I have prayed, and received answers to prayer. I have asked, and I’ve received. I’ve sought, and I’ve been given light. And I’ve asked for personal connection, and have felt it at a deep, deep level.  

If someone were to question me about those experiences- how SURE am I that those are genuine responses of God, and not a self-caused psychological response? I can’t offer any proof. I acknowledge I may have been wrong. But it feels more wrong to me to ignore them. I asked God for these evidences, and when provided, would it be right for me to try to explain them away as possibly not from God?  

I don’t think so. But I also grant these aren’t proofs and I can’t be certain that they weren’t just coincidences or self-manufactured either.  

Could I be wrong about God? Sure, it’s possible. But it also feels wrong to deny the evidences I asked for, and came, came from God.    

So given what I’ve experienced, I’ve chosen to believe. Not JUST chosen, since I’m not sure one can just choose to believe or not, it’s something you do based on the evidence you’ve been given.  

But I get Pascal. He saw both sides, and given what he had been given, he argues it makes more rational sense to believe.  

Now the argument itself doesn’t necessarily require evidences, but I’m convinced those play a part in the argument anyway.  

These quotes are from Pensées, sec 3, Of the Necessity of the Wager.

(I am typing out quotes that I underlined in my copy. It’s possible that I’ve missed important details that individual readers may have needed to make more sense of the argument. In that case, my apologies)

We do not require great education of the mind to understand… death. There is nothing more real than this, nothing more terrible. How can it happen that the following argument occurs to a reasonable man?  

“As I know not whence I come, so I know not whither I go. I know only that, in leaving this world, I fall for ever either into annihilation or into the hands of an angry God, without knowing to which of these two states I shall forever be assigned. From all this I conclude that I ought to spend all the days of my life without caring to inquire into what must happen to me.”  

In truth, it is the glory of religion to have for enemies, men so unreasonable. Nothing is so important to man as his own state, nothing so formidable to him as eternity; and thus, it is not natural that there should be men indifferent to the loss of their existence, and to the perils of everlasting suffering.

Let them recognize that there are two kinds of people one can call reasonable; those who serve God with all their heart because they know Him, and those who seek Him with all their heart because they do not know Him. As for those who live without seeking Him, they judge themselves so little worthy of their own care, that they are not worthy of the care of others; and it needs all the charity of the religion which they despise, not to despise them even to the point of leaving them to their folly.

It is not to be doubted that the duration of this life is but a moment; that the state of death is eternal, whatever may be its nature. Therefore, we condemn those who live without thought of the ultimate end of life.  

Nature presents nothing to me which is not a matter of doubt. Seeing too much to deny [God] and too little to be sure, I am in a state to be pitied. We may well know there is a God, without knowing what He is. If there is a God, He is infinitely incomprehensible. Who will blame Christians then for not being able to give a reason for their belief? They declare, in expounding it to the world, that it is a foolishness, and then you complain that they do not prove it. It is lacking in proofs, but they aren’t lacking in sense.

Let us then examine the point and say, “God is, or He is not.” To which should we incline? Reason can decide nothing here. What will you wager? According to reason, you can defend neither the one thing nor the other; according to reason, you defend neither of the propositions. Do not the reprove for error those who have made a choice; for you know nothing about it. “No, but I blame them for having made… a choice.” But you must wager. It is not optional. You are embarked. Which shall I choose then? Let us see. Since you must choose, let us wee which interests you least. 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; and your nature has two things to shun, error and misery.  

Your reason is no more shocked in choosing one rather than the other, since you must of necessity choose. This is one point settled. But your happiness? Weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. If you gain, you gain all, and if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager then without hesitation that He is.  

There is an eternity of life and happiness. There is an infinity of an infinitely happy life to gain, a chance to gain against a finite number of chances of loss, and what you stake is finite. Thus, when one is forced to play, he must renounce reason to preserve his life, rather than risk it for infinite gain, as likely to happen as the loss of nothingness.

For it is no use to say it is uncertain if we will gain, and it is certain that we risk, and the infinite distance between the certainty of what is staked and the uncertainty of what will be gained, equals the finite good which is certainly staked against the uncertain infinite.