Pascal’s Wager Expounded

By David Michael Cray

The enemy knows you can’t argue against your doubts without the knowledge God has for you.

None of the enemy’s arguments disprove Pascal’s Wager’s argument for faith.

1. The Bible isn’t true and you never follow Jesus Christ.

2. The Bible isn’t true and you do follow Jesus Christ.

3. The Bible is true and you never follow Jesus Christ.

4. The Bible is true and you do follow Jesus Christ.

Here is my explanation of what Pascal’s Wager means for you and me:

1. If The Bible isn’t true and you never believe and follow Jesus Christ, then you gain nothing. There may be a few more sinners not persecuting you for following Jesus (which you could be protected from anyway if God chooses). But basically, you would have friends who were living in sin who would probably have conflicts with you regularly because of their sin. They would not know better than to be that way, but they would inevitably cause conflict because of their ignorance and sinful desires. Many of those types of people don’t want anyone to have freedom of thought or their own opinion (unless it is their own opinion). They tend to not have agape (selfless) love in them as it takes God’s Holy Spirit to enter into your heart to have this type of love.

   According to statistical history, you still would die eventually and get nothing as this choice presumes that there is no afterlife. This is rather presumptuous. Death may happen either way. You would be able to keep sinning while alive, but that would get old and boring as sin typically requires an increase in the sin. It is the same as with illegal drug addiction, where over time it takes more to achieve the same result. Eventually, it just stops working very well at all. That is why all the stories at anonymous groups like Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, Over-eaters Anonymous, etc. are so predictable and mostly sound almost the same. They are great stories as reminders of how common the problem really is. Addictions and sinful behavior create the same results.

   The gain from the pleasure of sin is typically removed by the problems of the conflicts involved in that lifestyle. These problems include relationship issues, fights, persecution, health problems, poverty, and a lack of fellowship with believers or with God.

   End result=Some loss, No gain.

2. If The Bible isn’t true and you do follow Jesus (imaginary or otherwise) and follow the Bible’s teachings, then the sinners mentioned above will not like you because you challenge their ability to sin freely. But those people didn’t really respect or love you enough to let you have your opinion anyway. There was little hope that they would truly like you anyway because of their sinful views. They like their sin more than they like people. So sin would always come before you. There is no risk of hellfire and the lake of fire this way if eternal damnation is real and the Bible was true. You would still die in this case, but if this is the case then that would happen anyway. But, you get what you were gonna get anyway, no less.

   However, because you will be trying to avoid sin, people that are loving will like you more and respect you. This may help in any theoretical alternative afterlives if there were an afterlife. Them loving you will certainly help here in this part of life also. Relationships will be better and you would have fewer conflicts. Statistically, you would live a longer and healthier life being religious.

   End Result=No loss, likely some gain.

3. If the Bible is true and you never follow Jesus Christ: This is the worst-case scenario. In this case, since all have fallen short of the glory of God according to the Bible you would be punished for your sin. The punishment for your sins would be that you would go to hell and would be sentenced to stay there forever. Hell is to be cast into the lake of fire. Ouch! The best-case of this scenario is that after who knows how long in hell and the lake of fire (maybe 1000 years) you are allowed to not be hardened to your choice. Presumably, you would then be able to become a new creation by following Jesus Christ. This presumes that free will is unchanging even after death. Also, that God not hardening you then would mean that hell would soften your heart to accepting Jesus. Fire may be compelling, but that is a lot to presume only to do the same thing in the end anyway because you still would have to accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and receive His Holy Spirit into your heart.

   End result: You still die. Only now death is potentially permanent and spiritual while existing at the same time. You would feel unbelievable amounts of pain for a very long time in the long run. In the short run, you gain very little except to have continued doing sinful things that might have felt good temporarily before you died. However, these sins caused major problems statistically in history for the people who did them.You might never be repaid for your troubles. You would generally piss people off that are loving people and they won’t like you or trust you. They might even persecute you although they are not typically known to persecute as much as sinners do. All the problems of choice number one would happen and then eternal damnation. Ouch!

   “If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.” Rush (the progressive rock band)

   Choosing not to choose is choosing number 1 or number 3.

   End result of Number 3 or not choosing=Great loss either way to you, no gain.

4. If The Bible is true and you choose to follow it and accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior and confess this with your mouth: You would be justified by God and given His righteousness (the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ) and His authority. The Bible says, “Those that curse you will be cursed and those that bless you will be blessed.”Genesis 12:3. According to God’s word, when God’s Holy Spirit enters your heart, you become better and stronger at avoiding hurtful behaviors towards those you should love as you confess to the Lord or to the priestly people that are Christians. It still requires the choice to do the right thing and walking out your faith, but your wisdom and strength to do that if you choose grows. Christians would celebrate you being a part of their family and love you with the love of the Lord.

   “Those that curse you will be cursed and those that bless you will be blessed.”Genesis 12:3

   You would be given Jesus Christ’s authority over all the power of the enemy and could do “all things through Christ who strengthens you.”(Philippians 4:13). You might die physically, but this form of death is just passing from this world to the next infinitely better world, potentially increasing in beauty and pleasure, etc. This gain can be as much as God wishes to make His glory happen in your life. God sent His favorite person, who He loved more than anything, down to earth to die for our sins in a most excruciating death for you in His only begotten son Jesus Christ. Jesus chose to accept this death Himself and God is one with Him. God would go to any lengths of suffering to get you to go to Heaven.

   

   So what would an infinite God that loves you enough to sacrifice His son want to make Heaven like for you? Amazing! Wonderful! Greater than we can imagine! This is what He says it is like in the Bible!

   “What would an infinite God that loves you enough to sacrifice His son want to make Heaven like for you?”

   He says in His Bible that He is omnipotent and omniscient (all-powerful and all-knowing), all-loving, and perfectly discerning of truth. Therefore, He has the power to make Heaven wonderful and knows how. So, please for your sake think about this carefully, but don’t take too long to decide, because when you die the choice has been made for you. Then it is too late and the choice of number one or three is made by default. That would not be good for you. I guess you could choose other than number four. Determine which is best. Hmmm.?
   The heavens declare the glory of God (Psalm 19:1). The Bible says this, so we should find out how it is true. The risk of the other three choices are too great and if you choose number 4 then there is no risk in the end. The risks with this choice are only persecution from evil-hearted people, but they are evil-hearted. So evil-hearted people tend to do evil to people even if they are not their enemies. So that is not really an added risk. It is expected anyway or should be. Plus, God promises to make up for all of our suffering, 30, 60, or 100 fold times the equivalent pleasure of what we lost.

   Most importantly the End result in choosing number 4=Awesome gain!

   “The heavens declare the glory of God (Psalm 19:1). The Bible says this, so we should find out how it is true.”

   Another problem is that some people abandon reasoning to try a risky way saying they can’t rely on reasoning. We may not understand everything about God. But, the God of the Bible is knowable. He promises fellowship and communion with Him. His scriptures say that if we ask for wisdom, He gives it freely. (reference James 1:5) People have sometimes used their confusion as an excuse to not follow reasoning. However, you can not successfully determine strategies for anything without reasoning. Your enemies would likely defeat you quickly since sound choices may seem reasonable to them and would work to help them win. This is true as even the devil uses cleverness and reasoning to try to defeat people.

   The Bible says the devil, Lucifer, was full of wisdom. He chose to abandon it and let greed decide His actions, but he still takes advantage of the knowledge he has to cause problems for people. Even if it seems possible to win some other way to you, the chances of losing by ignoring sound judgment are pretty high.

   Doubters also claim that they don’t see faith helping those that claim to have it more than those that don’t believe. But, the Bible says it may seem that way. That on Earth, the rain falls on the just and the unjust. The real rewards are in Heaven not on Earth where they can be stolen, rot, or become corrupt and less valuable. Some visible changes happen to believers though. These are things like: fellowship with God through His church, strength to do good, wisdom on how to interpret the Bible so that you can follow a safer path, and even prosperity financially is often a result of faith. God’s guidance can help in these areas and other areas of your life. Plus when we stand on the promises of the Bible, that is when they produce the most results! It has been computed that there are over 30,000 promises in the Bible.

   “The real rewards are in Heaven not on Earth where they can be stolen, rot, or become corrupt and less valuable.”

   Since you were intelligent enough to seek this far in this post you must have either chosen to follow Jesus or are considering it. You are a seeker of truth! That is admirable. One bonus to Christians is that followers of Jesus Christ earn much bigger multiples of eternal rewards from God for: giving tithes and offerings of their time, money, and talents, for suffering in Christ’s name, and for spreading God’s word (the Great Commission). God promises to give 30, 60, 100 fold above and beyond an increasing Heaven with His eternal rewards. (reference Mark 4:20)

   It is of my opinion, that if the reward is for leading someone to salvation by giving them God’s word, it may even be a reward of multiples of Heaven’s level of happiness. After all, that is the amount of gain it is producing for the person being saved.  Woah! Yippee!

   And just think: Would you do less or different than such a great reward and blessing for someone you loved like yourself if you were infinitely perfect and powerful as God? … Of course, you would do as great a blessing if you could. So it makes sense that God would too! The Bible says that we know how to give gifts to our children and we are born sinners, so how much more would a perfect God in Heaven give when He gives gifts to His children.

   I must repeat. The end result of choosing Number 4= No loss! Death is defeated and you get awesome gain!

   Based on Pascal’s wager the obvious choice is to ask God to help us to believe in Him and to accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Receive His Holy Spirit into your heart today and keep working on getting rid of unbelief in His glory. He wants to help you with it. Decide now and pray for salvation from Him and it will make your new direction one of a magnificent future! I hope you will. I would love to celebrate your salvation with you someday in a perfect Heaven when I get there! Don’t bet your life on whether God exists. Faith is the safest way anyway, and the most profitable choice if the Bible is true. I expounded on Pascal’s Wager to try to help you make a more educated decision on whether to have faith. This is so that you could be saved. I want everyone who can to enjoy Heaven with God!

With love,

David Michael Cray (Crayfish)

Christian Classical Guitarist/Husband/Dog lover/Poet/Multi-instrumentalist/Sound Engineer/Crayfish Enthusiast