Pascal's Wager

July 2021

In this essay, I will recount Blaise Pascal’s pragmatic approach to whether one should believe in God through his Wager argument. His position is that no evidence can prove God’s existence. Thus, adopting a pragmatically rational approach, in the form of a bet, can be a practical approach in weighing what is at stake when believing or disbelieving in a Christian God. I will then argue that the Wager argument supports the rationality of theistic belief and not a Christian belief and that any unbelief is rationally impermissible. I will do this by unpacking the central Wager argument, uncovering some of the objections, and explaining how the argument successfully overcomes the restrictions of an a priori deductive proof of God’s existence.

Before I dive into the crux of the argument, I will first unpack a necessary presupposition the argument assumes. Namely, the differentiation between having reason to suppose a specific position is valid and the act of instigating belief in that position. The position itself may fall short of any evidential support; however, holding a belief in that statement may yet still be a rational thing. Thus, if one identifies a form of benefit through holding a certain belief, then holding that God exists seems to be a rational stance.

As a mathematician, Pascal held that one should measure the expected prudential benefits of something when considering to believe in that something. Thus, when discussing belief in God, one should evaluate the costs and benefits of believing in God versus not believing in God. Ultimately, this analysis will lead one to make the prudent decision to subscribe to the Christian faith and believe in God. As we see the argument roughly as follows:

If I believe in God and God exists, then I will go to heaven (infinitely good). But, if I do not believe in God and God exists, then I might go to hell (infinitely bad). However, if God does not exist, then the expected value of believing or not believing in God would be finite. Thus, I should believe in God.

The argument’s objective is to highlight that even if the chance of God existing is minuscule, as long as it is higher than zero, the expected value of believing is infinite. Computing the principal values with the premise that choosing the highest expected value is rational ultimately yields the Wager.

As we can see, Pascal’s rational argument rests on the quantification of the expected value. However, there are apparent flaws in the argument, which reign objections that I will address. The first objection is that there are other religions besides Christianity. Thus, there is more than one God. Devoting oneself to a specific God of one religion comes at the opportunity costs of losing the infinite rewards of another God. For instance, if we add Islam alongside Christianity as two separate religions to ‘the belief chart,’ the expected values of both will get distorted. This distortion is what many call the “many-gods” objection, which suggests that the Wager does not give reason to believe in one religion over the other since the expected value of all religions is equalized. This poses a risk to the Wager since Pascal’s proposed argument was influenced by the Christian presence of the 17th century, which was intended for Christian apologetics to debunk atheists and agnostics.

It is impossible to know for certain which God Pascal was advocating for despite his heavy Christian influence. Nevertheless, through a close inspection of some of his texts, we may have reason to believe him advocating for a theist God and not a Christian God. For instance, in Pensées and Other Writings, Pascal states, “let us now speak according to natural lights,” followed by an infinite article in the sentence, “if there is a God, he is infinitely beyond our comprehension” (Pensées, p. 153). These two sentences suggest that he intended the Wager to argue for the rationality of theistic belief and not solely a Christian one. That is a belief in a God who dispenses salvation (infinite reward) to believers and damnation (infinite loss) to unbelievers. Nevertheless, assuming the above assumption is incorrect, and Pascal was indeed advocating for the belief in a Christian God, the same logic he adopted can be used to advocate for other theistic religions which posit such a God (i.e., Judaism or Islam). Thus, from this angle, this argument seems implausible to be a basis solely for Christianity.

Another valid objection against the validity of the Wager is that one cannot simply choose to believe or disbelieve in a given belief. Pascal's claim that "believing in God is better…" negates this objection and insinuates that one can choose a belief (Pensées, p. 155). Thus, if one can choose a belief, then the belief is not limited to a Christian belief. This proposition of having control over one's belief is an idea called "Doxastic Voluntarism." It suggests that one can choose a given belief simply because it is pragmatically rational to do so. Philosophers debate this idea and distinguish between two kinds of voluntary control: direct voluntary control and indirect voluntary control. For instance, an example of direct voluntary control would be "the ability to control thoughts of eating ice cream." While an example of indirect voluntary control would be "to control whether I will cook a tasty ice cream with no prior experience." The issue with doxastic voluntarism is that when considering examples such as "paying someone to convince themselves that the sky is purple" or "convincing oneself to believe in the Christian faith," it seems to present the impossibility of such tasks. However, I am not arguing that Pascal is a Doxastic Voluntarist as he does not claim that belief is under our direct control as belief as such does not imply action. Nevertheless, he does seem to suggest that belief is instigated indirectly.

Instigating beliefs by engaging in certain practices may not warrant Pascal as a doxastic voluntarist in a traditional sense. However, it does warrant him as a doxastic voluntarist in a looser sense which may raise concerns. For instance, possessing a belief based on insufficient evidence may lead one to refrain from inquiring into the validity of their beliefs. An additional concern is that if one cannot prove God’s existence, one may have difficulty convincing oneself to believe in God solely by acting. Nevertheless, if we take the Wager as a commitment to God rather than a belief, we avoid violating evidentialism, which would take issue with accepting a non-guaranteed rational belief. Thus, to indirectly believe in God seems to entail adopting ‘action’ (i.e., prayer or communal gatherings) as a measure, leading to habituation, leading to devotion to God. In other words, to believe in God is to commit to God, which involves more than merely believing that God exists. Therefore, reframing Pascal’s claim from ‘believing’ to ‘acting’ or ‘committing’ to God seems to present a plausible solution. Nevertheless, this solution comes at the expense of solely rationalizing a Chrisitan God to rationalizing a theist God.

Despite the few shortcomings of the Wager, its prudential agenda proves a lot more successful than the probative philosophical agenda for God's existence. Since no one is absolutely certain about the existence of God, Pascal's appeal to the prudential knowledge gained by reason successfully overcomes the skeptics. Thus, when faced with the question of the existence of God, holding a theistic position yields the wage as reason cannot determine the answer, yet prudence can.