Analysis Of Blaise Pascal's The Wager

During the mid-1600s, or the Age of Reasoning, Blaise Pascal authored “The Wager,” to convince others of the time to decide whether or not they believed in the existence of God. Pascal sought to convince the religious skeptics and people of Libertine lifestyles to “wager” their belief that God exists. The hedonistic and self-pleasurable lifestyle led by the Libertines had a tendency to not have any significance or relevancy to the lifestyle of religious devotion. He argued that one is unable to determine the existence of God because he is “infinitely beyond our comprehension” (Wager 101). Pascal then created an either-or situation by forcing the Libertines to choose “ ‘Either God is or he is not’ ” (Wager 101). However, I argue that Pascal
However, in Pascal’s case, the two sides are that God exists or he does not. If God does not exist, then one does not lose anything, but if in the case God exists, it would be wiser to believe in God for infinite happiness as opposed to not believing and receiving eternal suffering. In “The Wager,” Pascal worked his way slowly getting Libertines on his side by asking if they would wager one for a chance to win one, or one for two, or even one for three, slowly increasing the number, but then ended his point by saying that the prize would, in fact, be infinite (Wager 101). Pascal gave his audience the choice to choose to either place their bets to believe in God or disbelieve and left his actual existence up to chance. By believing in God, we leave ourselves with either winning everything or losing nothing. If we choose not to believe in God’s existence, then we are left with losing nothing or losing everything. The only thing that Pascal asked of his audience is that they wager something finite, for something infinite, which would be the finite life of self-interest and hedonism for a religious devout one. Pascal argued that gamblers would take risks for gains, and that one ought to consider this wager because of the finite risk and infinite gain (Wager 102). He established such an enticing gamble that it would go against reason to choose not to believe in the existence of God because, as a self-interested individual, you would lose the chance of obtaining infinite happiness. He concluded “The Wager” by offering advice to those wishing to gamble: Ask those “who were once bound” (Wager 102) like the skeptics and Libertines how they changed their