When thinking about God in all He is, what are some of the aspects of Him and His word cause Christians to want to bet on God? Is it the abundance of grace that He gives all his people every single day or is it the love that He showed towards humanity by sending His only Son, Jesus, to die for the sinners of the world? The debate about whether or not that following God will lead to happiness or an after life has been going on for quite a while. On the one side people see all the advantages of following God and believing that He does indeed exist. However, there are still people that try to disprove that Jesus is not the Son of God and that he did not exist. The people that do not believe God exists, do not see the benefit in something that they believe to be false. In some way both of these scenarios have there merit in their decision. According to Pascal in Pensėes, betting on God in the long run will have a better pay off than believing that God does not exist.
In Pensėes, Pascal draws on the aspect of playing on a wager. However, before that he is trying to persuade that Jesus Christ is real. Pascal starts off by showing the example of how Muhammad and Jesus are completely different. One of the difference that he he states first is how “Muhammad was not foretold. Jesus Christ foretold.” (Pascal 75). In this statement alone, the statement can be made that since Jesus Christ had prophecies about him and his appearance on earth; he must be real and that in turn means that God is real. However, for many people that does not prove anything to them. Let’s take this a step further; forget about if God is real or not; and lets do it based off of the way they went about getting followers. In Pensėes, it is stated that “ Muhammad by killing. Jesus Christ by having his followers killed.” (Pascal 75). In this passage, it can be interpreted Muhammad gained most of his followers by killing anyone that was against him. With that being said, people either had to be with him or they would have to die. However with Jesus, he never killed anyone in opposition to him; but his followers needed to understand that they could potentially be killed for believing in him and in God. With following Jesus in a sense lead his followers to their deaths, it is clear that their had to of been something special about him to make people want to follow him. With death coming for the followers of Christ, logically there must be some type of reward or benefit believing that Jesus and God exist.
He states that “you have to wager” (Pascal 154). In starting off with the statement above, he is addressing his audience that there is no way to get out of betting something. Describe in this betting game is the possibility of two outcomes, winning and losing. He elaborates on these two outcomes, by stating that “if you win, you when everything; if you lose, you lose nothing.” (Pascal 154). In these basic terms it is obvious that these stakes are somewhat favorable. In the aspect of winning, an individual will win all that is at stake; yet if he loses, nothing bad happens. In the way that Pascal ties this to truth and reason, it can also be applied to lamin terms of if God exists or not. On the one had if God is real, an individual gets two lives; on the other if God doesn’t exist then they still keep their life. In the instance of God existing, if the player were to win he would possess the life that he has on this earth, along with an eternal life with Christ in heaven. However, if you lose and God doesn’t exist; then the player will still have his life on earth.
In the scenarios discussed above, Christains and other people have the most to gain when betting on God. However, if they live believing that God exists and he turns out to not exist, they haven’t lost anything. They will still possess their human minute life on earth, but they will not be given their everlasting second life in heaven. This allows for individuals to see that there is nothing to lose when betting on God. Either way people will still possess there life on earth.
All in all, Pascal’s writings lead the reader to believe that there is a benefit with betting on God. It doesn’t seem like he is trying to push the idea of people need to follow Christ or they will be condemned to hell. However, it would seem that he is trying to explain that there is no harm in exploring the possibility of God and Jesus existing. Believing that God and Jesus exists only adds benefits to the life that individuals already possess. These benefits include having an eternal life after there human life is over. However, if it comes out to be that God and Jesus do not exist, then individuals will just have there human life on earth and once it is over they will disappear out of existence. Never to be thought about again. It sounds bleak, which gives reason to why there are people that believe that there is something after death for them to have hope for.
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