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Pascal's Wager

I recently listened to The Power of Space podcast that mentioned Pascal’s Wager. Blaise Pascal was a French mathematician from the 1600s. He was also a physicist, inventor, and religious philosopher.

The general idea, in my own words, is that you have to choose whether or not to believe in God. You can’t not choose, because not choosing is the same as choosing “no.” So there are two choices, believe or don’t believe, and within each choice you can be either right or wrong about whether God exists. That gives us four outcomes:

  1. Believe and be right
  2. Believe and be wrong
  3. Don’t believe and be right
  4. Don’t believe and be wrong

Options 2 and 3 have the smallest stakes. If you believe and you’re wrong, maybe you gave up some Sundays and holiday time, but believing in God doesn’t cost much time or money, unless you get sucked into a cult or something weird like that. If you don’t believe and you’re right, there isn’t much to gain besides bragging rights, and who are you bragging to once you’re dead and there’s no afterlife?

Options 1 and 4, on the other hand, have the biggest gain and the biggest loss. If you believe and you’re right, you gain eternal life. If you don’t believe and you’re wrong, you lose out on it (or worse). Because that payoff is so enormous, Pascal argued that even small odds of God existing make believing the smart bet.

I was raised Catholic and went to private Catholic school from preschool through 12th grade. I’ve been a self-labeled non-practicing Catholic since probably the middle of my junior year of high school, but this idea has me considering going back to a church of some sort. It’s not just because of Pascal’s Wager. It’s also because finding community is hard as an introverted parent in my mid-40s with two kids. Believing in God again feels like a small effort in exchange for community (and everlasting life, I suppose). I know belief isn’t something you can flip on like a switch, but Pascal’s answer was that you can start by showing up and let the rest follow.

My wife, Holly, has also been considering returning to church for similar reasons, so coming across this concept was well timed.

Disclaimer: I’m not writing this to convince readers to return to church or believe in God. It was just a very interesting thought experiment for someone who is usually anti-religion and fairly literal in his understanding of the world.