Pascal’s Wager: God or Damnation

On our way to Aunt Florence’s funeral, Bernie and I discussed what we were going to say for the Prayer’s of the Faithful — our job at the Mass. I jokingly suggested the following petition: “that Florence doesn’t have to spend too much time suffering in Purgatory, we pray to the Lord.” Bernie laughed: “well, you joke; but just suppose you’re wrong and there is a Purgatory — and a Heaven and a Hell. The laugh will be on you.”

Well, thought I, in my next morning’s run, 1) I am wrong; because anything I hold that is useful for me today won’t necessarily work for others or even me tomorrow. My way of seeing the universe without physical places named “hell,” “heaven,” “purgatory,” and “limbo” is just that: my way of seeing. 2) There is a purgatory. Even in my way of seeing, it can be a useful symbol for the purifying aspect of fully accepting death and life. And in this sense, I am sure Florence had her purgatory and enjoyed heaven.

Then as I ran through Burlingame, thinking of Bernie’s comment, the reflection of Pascal’s wager popped up: you better believe, just in case. Blaise Pascal in his Penséesargued to the belief in God and all that flows from this belief (including Church, sacraments, morality, reward and punishment in the afterlife) not from the four extrinsic causes (Thomas) or from the experience of being (Anselm). Nor from an emotional experience of being grasped by the Spirit (Paul and the great Protestants). Nor does he argue from a critique of moral reason or conscience (Kant, Newman), though that’s closer.

He argues as a capitalist and game-theorist — looking at risk and return. Life’s wager is this: God either exists or He doesn’t. If He doesn’t and you die believing He does, it won’t make much of a difference; you just wasted a few good times. If He does, however, and you die refusing to believe in Him, you’ve had it. In Hell for all eternity. The pragmatic thing to do, the way to hedge your bets, avoid needless risk, is to go ahead and believe. We bet-ter go along with the authority of the Bible and the Church and the Spirit.

It is like being nice to your rich uncle even though he is obnoxious. You might be named in his will. Or like keeping close to the speed limit. A cop just might be around the corner.

Now I am not sure this is Pascal’s argument; but if it is, it’s pretty crass, though very religious. What kind of a God does he have in mind here — either stupid (pretend and you will fool Him) or vindictive (you better guess right or else) or dishonest (act as though you believe even if you don’t). And we are just dice in a crapshoot, tossed around by Other hands. The argument presumes, as many religions do, a pretty poor image of humanity; we act purely to gain reward and to avoid punishment, if not in this life, certainty in the next.

I won’t take that wager.

But there is a sense in which the Wager really works for me. It comes from the understanding that we have a charge or destiny in creating our own circumstances and shaping our world. It also comes from the distinction I have been insisting on all through these reflections between faithas an act of engagement and beliefas the content of an assent.

Looking at our present circumstance and world, there is just as much evidence for meaninglessness as there is for meaningfulness. For entropy and the dissolution of the universe as for syntropy and the gathering of community. For freedom as for compulsion. For love as for fear and hate. There is as much evidence for the City of God as there is for the No-city of Satan.

What tips the scale is our faith itself. Not the assent to certain propositions, but engagement with others in the world. If we maintain our passion for meaning in life despite the absurdity of death, it becomes so. If we lose or reject the passion for life and accept absurdity, it becomes so. We choose personally and collectively whether our lives, our world, and our community have meaning or not — by choosing to engage or not in each other and in our world.

So we take the wager. And we win. If we together really throw ourselves into the game. If we pool our resources and bet big, we win really big.

Or do we?

That’s the wager. The one I choose to accept. Perhaps this is what Pascal was getting at.