Pascal's Wager

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Pascal’s Wager
During the seventeenth century, religion was a main segment of people’s lives. Majority of people who lived during this time had the fear of eternal damnation in hell if they were not living as Christians by the way of God. Christians believed that following the “word of God” would inevitably grant them passage to heaven in the afterlife. French mathematician and physicist Blaise Pascal lived during these times and was well known for his achievements in his fields. Upon converting to a meticulous form of Roman Catholicism, he experienced an overwhelming religious incident that changed the rest of his life. He then “devoted his intellectual energies primarily to religious matters” (Abel and Stumpf 129) and began writing “Apologie de la Religion Chrétienne,” but was unable to finish due to his death. His notes were later compiled and published into a work titled “Pensées” which contains the widely known defense for Christianity known as “Pascal’s Wager.”
Everyone in life possesses the attribute of “free will.” This power entitles us to have numerous beliefs throughout our lives we live. Humans possess the “free will” to make a decision to believe in God or not. Pascal believes that humans alone are “incapable of knowing either what he is or if he is” (131), but we have the choice of believing in God or not. Everyone has to make this choice about God, but contained in “Apologie de la Religion Chrétienne” is “Pascal’s Wager” which gives four outcomes from Pascal’s ideas of what the result will be from our own beliefs.
To “live morally, as religion requires” (Abel and Stumpf 130) is a way a person expresses that they believe in God. To not believe in God is to do just the opposite. The way you live your life determines the outcome of what will happen to you in the next. According to Pascal, he believes that “you can do neither the one thing nor the ot...