subject: Rebuttal of ‘Pascal's Wager'! Based on the Scriptures itself! [print this page] Rebuttal of Pascal's Wager'! Based on the Scriptures itself!
Rebuttal of Pascal's Wager'! Based on the Scriptures itself!
Pascal, a mathematician of the seventeenth century, worked out a mathematical formula based on gains and loss of the choice of belief and disbelief in God in accordance with the Scriptures.
The Argument from Superdominance
"God is, or He is not." But to which side shall we incline? Reason can decide nothing here. There is an infinite chaos which separated us. A game is being played at the extremity of this infinite distance where heads or tails will turn up... Which will you choose then? Let us see. Since you must choose, let us see which interests you least. You have two things to lose, the true and the good; and two things to stake, your reason and your will, your knowledge and your happiness; and your nature has two things to shun, error and misery. Your reason is no more shocked in choosing one rather than the other, since you must of necessity choose... But your happiness? Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is... If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is."
Thus and according to this wager, if you believe in God and there turns out to be God then you did well and you have all the felicity to gain in the hereafter. But, and according to Pascal, if you choose disbelief, because you have to choose between belief and disbelief any way, you lose nothing.
This argument does not accord in any way with the scriptures for the choice between belief and disbelief results in either reward or punishment.
The Scriptures specify that if a human being believes in God then he has gained for himself eternal felicity in Paradise, but if a person disbelieves in God then he has assured himself eternal abode in hell fire.
So, where is the presumption of Pascal that if a man chooses to disbelief then he loses nothing', compared with t scriptures. It is simply not false to promise the believer great gain and the disbeliever nothing. What would the believer do on the day of judgment then?
The Wager of the scriptures is clearly laid out: If a man believes in God then he gains eternal felicity, which is a great gain, but f a man disbelieves in God then he place in hell fire is assured. Would a place in eternal hell fire be considered as no loss'? Unless the great genius does not consider Hell Fire as a loss!!
Pascal was far away from reading correctly the scriptures and makes his own misinterpretations of the consequences of disbelief in God. Strange thing for a mathematician and thinker of his caliber!!
