Pascal’s Wager
In his Pensees or "Thoughts", the 17th. Century French
mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal pondered what he called his
"wager" regarding the existence of God and the fate of the soul. Suppose, he wrote, that God really does
exist and will hold us accountable for the way we live our life: in that case
we'd better behave or we'll surely end up the loser. On the other hand, suppose
such a belief is an illusion: still, when we die, what really will we have
lost? Perhaps an excuse to have lived however we pleased. But on the other hand, if we have lived
as if God exists and holds us accountable, we will have, if nothing else, at
least earned a reputation as a basically decent person.
Today, such a gamble is apt to be perceived as insincere, or as a very
shallow form of faith at most. Would God really reward us for simply
"playing it safe"? Might
we not say that what we have here is not faith at all, but at best a vague
hope, or at worst, venal self-promotion?
Others, however, have raised questions about Pascal's logical
consistency. What if, for example, God—if he exists—rewards
people not for their goodness, but for cleverness? After all, did not Pascal himself
famously say that "The God of the prophets is not the God of the
philosophers"?
Nevertheless, I think these critics are missing the real point, which
is not so much a question of proving the existence of God, but as Pascal says
it all depends on whether or not the human soul is immortal. If it isn't, then all talk of a
"wager" or gamble seems pointless. After all, did not the Hebrew
prophets-—who certainly believed in God but had no clear idea of an afterlife—wrestle continually with the problem of sinners sinning with seeming
impunity?
But what if we don't "have" an immortal soul, but rather have
only the potential of making ourselves immortal? Then suppose the condition of such an
advance is not simply our own will power but instead our conscious alignment
with that creative energy that lies at the heart of the evolution or future of
the Universe? In other words,
suppose that what we call "ethics" or "morality" is not
just a question of behavior (and its social consequences) but is instead the
very essence of what we have generally called "religion".
In that case, at least it seems to me, Pascal was essentially
right. Either we cooperate with
this great creative force--which we have hitherto called "God"—according to its rules, or else go off by ourselves to play our own
little game.
In the first case, our immortality is insured by becoming part of the
larger game of life. And the price
that we have to pay in order to play, is to, to a certain extent, risk
ourselves and the meaning of our own short life in the goal of achieving
something much greater. Either that, or the alternative is to relegate
ourselves to the sidelines of evolution.
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