Necessary Roughness

A More Tenuous Pascal’s Wager
June 1st, 2006 at 3:36 pm

“I would rather live my life as if there is a God, and die to find out there isn’t, than live my life as if there isn’t, and die to find out there is.”

So says a particular chain-letter e-mail. This looks a lot like Pascal’s Wager. Wikipedia gives a nice examination of the logic and the Flaw behind it. The Wager blows up logically whenever one considers multiple religions.

Theologically the Wager blows up in other ways: one can still believe in “God” and meet a negative end: deny Christ’s atonement, for example. The statement above is even more dicey than Pascal’s original wager, whether one ought simply believe in the Christian God. How one lives one’s life as a Christian does not cause salvation but is an effect of it, the outwardly signs of which can be mimicked by those who don’t believe in the Trinity.

The Wikipedia entry says that Pascal wrote his wager for “happy agnostics.” Everyone, not just the agnostics, is better off when the full content of the Gospel is preached.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 1st, 2006 at 3:36 pm and is filed under religion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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One Response to “A More Tenuous Pascal’s Wager”

1. Kletos Sumboulos Says:
   June 1st, 2006 at 4:22 pm

   How about this modification of Pascal’s Wager:
   If I’m a Christian and the Muslims are right, I still get to go to a form of heaven as a Person of the Book. If I’m a Christian and the Hindus are right, I get another chance. If I’m a Christian and the Mormans are right, I get to go to heaven, but I don’t get all the cool stuff (like planets over which to rule). Christianity (historically understood) is a very exclusive religion. Only Christians get to go to heaven. Given the above, it seems that it would be a safe bet to be a Christian. But what kind? This line of thinking could lead one to the most exclusive and fundamentalist forms of Christianity (narrow is the gate after all). You could argue that God will forgive you for being more strict on yourself than he requires, but not the reverse. So then, get to cutting off your hands and plucking out your eyes. Fundamentalism demands a high price, but they give back control to the believer - if I’m morally pure, I will please God. Christian orthodoxy is absolutely the most exclusive of all - only Christ is worthy - the rest of us ride on his coat-tails.