The Imperfectionists

Chapter 7Epilogue: All Strategies Are Wagers

Pascal's Wager

Sometime in the mid-1600s, the French philosopher Blaise Pascal was puzzling one of life's greatest conundrums: whether or not to believe in God. This wasn't idle speculation; it was existential. If God exists and Pascal didn't have faith, he would suffer the consequences of hell for eternity. He was in anguish. “If I saw no signs of a divinity,” Pascal recorded, “I would fix myself in denial. If I saw everywhere the marks of a Creator, I would repose peacefully in faith. But seeing too much to deny Him, and too little to assure me, I am in a pitiful state, and I would wish a hundred times that if a god sustains nature it would reveal Him without ambiguity.”¹

Pascal viewed this decision like a bet—a wager on whether or not there is a divine being—with terrible consequences if the bet went wrong. From his perspective, it is a decision we are all forced to make, and one for which there is fundamental uncertainty. Before our deaths we cannot prove the existence of God. Like it or not, we must face the uncertainty and make a choice. The payoffs, moreover, are asymmetric: If you believe in God, and God doesn't really exist, your costs are modest—the time you have spent in church, and perhaps the money you put in the collection plate. But if you do not believe in God, and a vengeful God does exist, your costs are infinite, eternal damnation. This philosophical problem, which has come to be known as Pascal's wager, can be ...