“Belief is a wise wager. Granted that faith cannot be proved, what harm will come to you if you gamble on its truth and it proves false? If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation, that He exists.”
- Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)
Blaise Pascal was a 17th century French mathematician, physicist and philosopher. He contributed to all 3 fields despite a relatively short life (died at 39).
His Wager was the formulation, set out in his posthumously published “Pensées,” of a construct to deal with perhaps the most important question any of us face: is there a God (particularly as understood by Christians)? If so, should we choose to believe in such a Being and act accordingly?
Everyone must choose; not choosing is not an option.
Science cannot prove whether such a Being exists.
But neither can it disprove such.
As American astronomer Carl Sagan commented, in different context, “Absence of proof is not proof of absence.”
So here is Pascal’s Wager (one does not have to be a betting person or probability theorist to see the elegance of this matrix):
Examination of this construct shows that the bettor (which is every person ever born) only breaks even in the event…
