Blaise Pascal's wager

November 2008

The case for atheism seems to be riding high these days, with the books of several authors on the New York Times’ bestsellers list. Virtually all atheists now are evolutionists, since Darwin’s theory gives atheists a way to explain the obvious order of the universe with no “Orderer” or God. They have found the watch and have convinced themselves that there is no watchmaker. One of their members even admitted that evolution is “the engine of atheism.” Sir Julian Huxley is quoted as saying that he could not have been an atheist before 1859 (the year of the appearance of Darwin’s Origin of Species).

Three hundred and fifty years ago there lived in France a brilliant young man by the name of Blaise Pascal (1623-1662). He was a mathematician, scientist, apologist for Catholicism and a powerful writer in the French language. His most famous work is his Pensées, which has been reprinted many times and translated into all the modern languages.

In his adult years Pascal converted to Jansenism and wrote apologetic works defending Christianity and the existence of God. He was familiar with the “ Five Ways” of St. Thomas Aquinas (S.Th. I, q 2, a 3). Being a creative genius and an original mathematician, he was fascinated with probabilities and the odds involved in betting on horses or the outcomes of particular events. He published works on wagers, probabilities and even the roulette wheel.

When Pascal was about thirty years old he went through a spiritual conversion and began to take his religion very seriously. He thought a lot about the existence of God and how to prove it. So he added to the Five Ways of St. Thomas his own “proof” in the form of a wager based on the odds of whether or not God exists.

Pascal’s famous wager goes like this, and I ask each of my readers to carefully reflect on it: God either exists or he does not exist, so I must of necessity lay odds for or against him, since I have free choice and in such an important matter I cannot remain neutral. If I wager for God, and God exists—then I have an infinite gain. However, if God does not exist, then there is no loss.

If I wager against God, and God exists—then I will suffer an infinite loss. However, if God does not exist, then there is neither loss nor gain.

In the second case, namely, the wager against God, I find myself in a situation wherein I am exposed to the loss of everything. Self-interest and human shrewdness, therefore, counsel me to make the wager that insures my winning everything or, at worst, losing nothing. It is to my advantage, therefore, to wager for God’s existence and to live accordingly.

The proofs for God’s existence of St. Thomas are metaphysical and proceed from observed facts to the cause of those facts, which must be an infinite being who is his own existence. Pascal’s proof is based on probabilities, not on any observed facts like motion or cause and effect. But for persons who want to win, especially to win an eternal reward, there is a definite attraction in Pascal’s Wager.

Kenneth Baker, S.J., Editor