The argument of whether the existence of God is true or not, is an issue that will never be resolved. Throughout the course of history, its’ brought a great amount of division between families, friends, government, nation, and society itself. The questions remain “Does God exist?” and the answers to the question still remain undiscovered. Many philosophers, have theories and ideas on whether God does/doesn’t exist. And if God does exist, how does an individuals’ actions have eternal reward or consequence?
During the 17th-century, the renowned French religious philosopher, Blaise Pascal, who was also a theologian and a mathematician. His fame rests upon the development of probability theory and his philosophical contributions throughout his works. Through his work of Pensées (meaning “Thought”), it contains a collection of philosophical fragments, theories, and essays where he explored the limitations of the human reason and faith. Within the work, it holds his well-known argument of the existence of God, Pascal’s wager.
In the Philosophical work of Pensées, Pascal explores the philosophy otherwise known as “Christian Apologetics” that refers to defending the Christina belief by using reason not faith. Pascal asks the question of the existence of God through a wager. That one should place the wager as it is not optional. Therefore, it is a gain or loss bet we have place upon ourselves. Unlike previous philosophers before Pascal, they were skeptical about the efficacy of human reasoning by the demonstration of the existence of God. He emphasized on the conception of sin through human wretchedness because the mind was corrupted from the inherited sin of Adam and Eve. Pascal’s main goal was that even under the assumption that God existence is improbable, it takes a wager to believe in the existence of God. In his wager, it demonstrates how individuals’ have absolutely nothing to lose but gain everything when they put their faith into God’s hands. But most philosophers and theologians criticize that Pascal’s wager is one of the weakest arguments in proving God’s existence.
Pascal said that we must decide whether to believe if God does or doesn’t exist. Since he believes that reason cannot be the sole proof of God’s existence, one must look the possibilities rewards and consequences. For instance, the one has two options: believing in God or choosing not to believe in God. Within these two choices there’s possible gains and losses:
1. If the individual believes in God and that there’s a God, then the outcome is eternity in heaven.
2. If the individual doesn’t believe in God and God does exist, then the outcome is eternal damnation.
3. If the individual believes in God and God doesn’t exist, then the individual has wasted their time with the religious rituals and religious practices.
4. If the individual doesn’t believe in God and God doesn’t exist, then the individual hasn’t wasted its time with religious rituals and religious practices.
In conclusion, regardless if God existed, theists (individuals’ who believe in the existence of God) have it far better than atheists (individuals’ who don’t believe in the existence of God). Therefore, the belief of God is rational belief. Even if one thinks that the existence of God is extremely dubious, although it is expected the efficacy of believing is much higher than the efficacy of not believing. Since the mere existence of God is highly dubious, there’s still the fact if one theist and God existence, but the inconsiderable cost of one theist and there’s no existence of God. Although, it makes sense why Pascal wagers on the existence of God, even if the very existence of God is dubious. Pascal’s wager argument demonstrates the logical and sensible reason for theism, as long as one acknowledges God’s existence is slightly probable.
After the publication of Pensées, there has been numerous criticism, but the most common is referred to as “The Many Gods Objection”. The Many Gods Objections argument is all about if one uses Pascal’s wager and decides to believe in God, how would one know which religion to join due to the numerous existences of religions. The problem with the wager is that it is construction for theism, but not to the religions that have many Gods. Pascal only wrote it in the defense of Christianity. Although the wager itself defenses itself is logically possible due to only having two options with four outcomes.
Furthermore, Pascal’s Wager is a pragmatic argument because no one believes in the mere existence of God, but Pascal is omitting such obscure god has his cost/benefits analysis. In addition, some critics may say that the wager itself is an embarrassment to Christianity because it distinguishes the selfish acts of the individual, but the argument itself narrows the how Christianity really is. If one choses to believe and practice what God says, then they are rewarded with eternal life and if the individual choses to avoid God’s guidance then they receive eternal damnation.