Pascal's Wager

Pascal's Wager is simple! (too simple)

If you've never heard of Pascal's Wager it goes like this: if God IS real and you DO believe in him, you have eternal reward. If he IS real and you DON'T believe in him, you face eternal consequences. If he IS NOT real and you DO believe in him, nothing happens. If he IS NOT real and you DON'T believe in him nothing happens.

The problems I have with the dilemma are this:

1. It says nothing about what a life lived fulfilled with the Holy Spirit is actually like
2. It is based on fear, rather than love
3. Belief in God alone does not predicate entering into Heaven

Problem number one:
The dilemma only focuses on the afterlife. Saying nothing happens if you believe and are wrong is like saying you wasted your time believing something that wasn't true and you could have had a way better life had you not believed in God. So what does a Godly life entail? Being led by the Holy Spirit after accepting Jesus into your heart means you get to be connected every second to God's eternal wellspring of love. With him guiding you, the old sinful ways of the past become distasteful and you realize how meaningless those things were anyway. Luke 14:28 says "Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won't you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it?" Now what is the cost of removing something from your life that is killing you? Nothing. It actually pays you back. Estimating the cost of removing sin from your life and accepting God's grace is like trading your old garbage for a Lamborghini.

Problem number two:
1 Corinthians 13:2 says "If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing." God wants us to do everything out of his love. Convincing somebody to believe in God primarily because they are afraid of going to hell does not have much love in it. I try not to get too wrapped up in talking about heaven and hell to people because that is treating them like a soul instead of a person. Not to say their soul isn't important, but if you are just focusing on getting somebody saved without regarding for them right now, it can come across as shallow and uncaring. I can see it being easy to fall into the trap of treating somebody like a mark on a chalkboard and that's not what we want to do as Christians. The most important thing is to do things out of love, so rather than sound like a turn or burn preacher, I would much rather ask the person questions abut why they feel the way they do and really try to show them the wages of their sin and why they do not want to sin.

Problem number three:
Matthew 7:21 says "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven." In an attempt to avoid going too deep into Calvinism vs. Armenianism, I'm not going to talk about "once saved always saved" or "can you lose your salvation". But the point I want to make is this: James 2:19 says " You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder." this says that it is not knowing that there is one God that gets you into heaven. It is through faith we are justified and forgiven for our sins, but it is by doing the will of the Father that we will enter the kingdom. Like Paul talks about in Romans 6, we are dead to sin, and made alive in Christ so "For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin— because anyone who has died has been set free from sin." (Romans 6: 6-7). We cannot continue to live in sin and believe that we will enter into heaven, as Pascal's Wager implies.

It is understandable that Pascal's Wager is a limited understanding of what salvation means in Biblical terms because it is intended simply to help people understand the weight of their decisions and beliefs here on Earth. And while it may be somewhat useful in furthering God's kingdom, my problems with using it as a tool for apologetics come from the experiences I have seen it being used where people become defensive very quickly or cling to an idea of wanting to "have fun" in life and not worry so much about God or meaning or deep questions. Continue talking to people about the wonderful gift we have all been given in Christ and have a blessed day.
-Daniel S. Morris