(We’re finishing up a series on Pascal’s Wager. Click here to start at the beginning.)
Can you believe?
I’ll leave you this week with one final thought regarding Pascal’s Wager. Even if none of what I’ve said up until now is right, how, exactly, do you place your bet?
Pascal said we don’t get to pass—we all have to play. But as I understand religion, you don’t get in by your actions alone. You have to believe. But how?
If I told you that you could breathe under water or that you could fly, would you believe it? Could you make yourself believe it? If I put a gun to your head and said I’d pull the trigger unless you believed that you could fly, would you suddenly believe? Of course not!
I suppose I could get you to say you believed. I could get you to flap your arms and hop around a little bit. I could even get you to say you were actually flying, though you’d be hard pressed to prove it.
What would happen if someone else came by and challenged your claim? With the gun still at your head, I suppose you might make up a story about how you were “flying” in the spiritual realms. You might even get a little snippy and cry that no one could prove that you weren’t “flying” spiritually. But that still wouldn’t be “believing.”
Do as I say…
Pascal was an agnostic. One of the key propositions in his wager is that there is absolutely no evidence at all for the existence of God. No one knows anything about it and we’re all making our bets completely blind. He writes, “According to reason, you can do neither the one thing nor the other; according to reason, you can defend neither of the propositions.” Pascal didn’t think there was any way to know if there was a god. Interestingly, you never hear this point from people who use the argument to defend their faith. Yet he proposed that we should wager that God is. How do we do that?
Just ain’t no way
We could go through the motions, say the prayers, attend the meetings and render the offerings. But like a sycophant sucking up to a powerful boss, it would all be just an act. And as much as we hate such self-serving insincerity and groveling, can we suppose that an all-knowing god would like it better? Surely, any god worth the title would be able to see through the charade. He would have to know that you were just trying to cover your ass.
So, if we can’t believe when threatened by a gun that we can see, how could we believe when threatened by a hell that we can’t see? Without evidence there is nothing that could change our mind and form even the beginning of what might plausibly be called a belief.
Bottom line—there is no way to change your bet. If you don’t believe, you have no choice but to let it ride. Even if Pascal’s advice were sound—which it isn’t—his point is moot because there is no way to heed it.
Nothing fails like success
It’s really hard to see why Pascal’s Wager and its many variants are so popular. They seem to be first argument thrown out when a believer encounters a non-believer.
Let’s recap—Pascal’s wager fails because…
Many gods have been proposed, and the logic of the wager is the same for any god that offers an eternity of bliss. (Or, in the case of my challenger, any god that offers an eternity of torment.) So, if you bet on one god and win, you necessarily wager against the next god and lose. Oh, so sad. The carny takes your money.
Placing your bet is not cost free. If the atheist is right and this is your one and only life, then betting incorrectly costs you everything, not nothing.
Finally, it’s all much ado about nothing. Regardless of Pascal’s advice, there is no way you can force yourself to believe anyway. If God wanted us to believe, he’d give us reasons. He wouldn’t leave us hanging as Pascal insists.