A Wager on Truth

So yesterday I was reading some of the work of Blaise Pascal, a French Mathematician and thinker from around the time of his more famous contemporary Rene Decartes. He is most famous for what has become know as Pascal's Wager which I think brings a unique perspective to the question of truth. Pascal believe that empirical (scientific) knowledge alone was not sufficient to finding truth. At some point faith would have to take over if we truly wanted to find what is really real. He called faith a great wager which we have to take. We can wager that God is either real or not real. If we choose to wager on his existence and we are correct then we have much to look forward to in heaven, and if we are wrong then the only loss is of earthly desires which are not important anyway. However, he argued, if we choose to believe God is not real and we are right, there is no consequence good or bad. However, if we are wrong, the consequence is incredibly great. Therefore, Pascal argues, while we cannot prove God is real, the safe bet (wager) is to believe in him whole-heartedly.

I enjoyed reading his arguments, it is good to hear someone acknowledge that we have no hard evidence of God's existence. For me it is difficult to take a "leap of faith," like so many evangelistic Christians encourage us to do, when there is so little to sway me to do so. I like Pascal's reasoning, it gives me a good reason, other than blind faith, to believe. While I lived in Las Vegas for over a year, I never played a single game of poker, blackjack, roulette, or craps. Why? Because the odds of winning aren't so good and if you do lose, you lose a lot. I'm a penny slot man. If you win, you can have a really good return, if you lose, at least you lost something that isn't worth all that much.