Pascal’s Wager

Pascal’s Wager is the argument that it is rational to believe in God even without proof, because the possible gain from believing is infinite and the possible loss is small. It was set out by the French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal in his Pensées, published after his death in 1670. If God exists and you believe, you gain everything; if God does not exist and you believe, you lose little. The wager is one of the most famous arguments in the philosophy of religion, and also one of the most criticised. This guide explains how it works, why it was new, the main objections and how its defenders reply.

Pascal’s Wager at a Glance

	God exists	God does not exist
You believe	Infinite gain (eternal life)	Small, finite loss
You do not believe	Infinite loss, or at least loss of the infinite gain	Small, finite gain

Pascal’s conclusion is that, as long as there is any chance at all that God exists, belief is the better bet, because an infinite reward outweighs any finite cost.

What Pascal Actually Argued

Pascal began from the view that reason cannot settle whether God exists. If that is so, he said, we still have to choose, because not choosing is in effect choosing against belief. “You must wager,” he wrote. “It is not optional.” He then treated the choice like a bet. If you wager that God exists and you are right, you gain all; if you are wrong, you lose nothing of real importance. In the passage’s best-known line, if you gain, you gain all, and if you lose, you lose nothing.

The argument was new in its method. Pascal was one of the founders of probability theory, and the wager is often described as the first use of what is now called decision theory: choosing between actions by weighing the value of each outcome by its probability. Because the reward for correct belief is infinite, the expected value of believing stays infinite whatever probability you give to God’s existence, provided that probability is greater than zero and finite.

What If You Cannot Make Yourself Believe?

Pascal anticipated an obvious objection. His imagined opponent says, in effect, that he is so made that he cannot believe. Pascal’s answer was practical: act as if you believe. Follow the example of those who began the same way, by taking holy water, having masses said and living as believers do, and belief will follow. Pascal saw this as a way of quieting the passions that, in his view, stand in the way of faith.

Critics have found this one of the most troubling parts of the wager. Many hold that genuine belief is a response to evidence and conviction, not a forced act of will. Deliberately training yourself to believe something you do not find convincing can look like self-deception, and some philosophers argue that it would require you to corrupt yourself in a way that conflicts with a duty to seek the truth.

The Main Objections

The many gods objection

The wager presents two options, but there are many possible gods and many religions, each with its own conditions for salvation. Belief in the wrong god might be no better than unbelief, or even worse. The philosopher Denis Diderot made the point in the eighteenth century, remarking that an imam could reason in just the same way. The twentieth-century philosopher J. L. Mackie added that the church within which alone salvation is found need not be the one Pascal had in mind. Once the options multiply, the wager no longer tells you which way to bet.

The problem of sincerity

Many critics doubt that a god worth worshipping would reward belief adopted as a calculated bet. If God knows our motives, belief held only to avoid loss might count for nothing. Some go further and ask what if intellectual honesty is valued far more highly than blind, fearful faith? On that view, honest unbelief could be the safer course.

The role of fear

Where the wager is presented as avoiding damnation rather than gaining heaven, critics say that it relies on fear rather than evidence. Any claim backed by a threat of infinite punishment could be made to win the same calculation, however unlikely it is, which suggests to critics that something is wrong with the method rather than with unbelief.

Problems with infinity

Philosophers have also raised technical objections. Some argue that the idea of infinite value is itself suspect and cannot be used in ordinary calculations. Others, notably Antony Duff and Alan Hájek, point out that a mixed strategy, such as tossing a coin and believing only if it lands heads, also has an infinite expected value, so the wager does not show that belief is better than such a strategy. This shows, they argue, that the argument as stated is invalid.

The cost of believing

Pascal said that the believer who turns out to be wrong loses little. Critics reply that the cost can be considerable: time, money, freedom of thought, and choices about life and relationships shaped by religious rules. Whether the loss is small depends on what a religion asks of its followers.

How Defenders Respond

Defenders of the wager reply in several ways. Some argue that not every possible god deserves equal weight, so the many gods objection does not cancel the wager: the God of the major monotheistic traditions is a more serious possibility than invented deities. Some argue that Pascal never intended the wager as a proof, only as a reason for the undecided to take religion seriously and begin to practise it, after which sincere belief might follow. Others have produced revised versions that avoid infinite values while keeping the core idea that the possible benefits of belief are large. Philosophers continue to debate whether any version of the argument succeeds.

Why Pascal’s Wager Is Still Discussed

The wager remains popular in everyday debate because it seems to bypass the question of evidence. It asks not whether God exists but whether it is wise to act as though God does. That makes it different from the arguments that try to prove God’s existence, such as the ontological argument. It also raises questions that go beyond religion: whether belief can be chosen, how to reason about very unlikely outcomes with very large stakes, and whether it is ever right to believe something for its usefulness rather than its truth.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Pascal’s Wager in simple terms?

It is the argument that you should believe in God because, if God exists, believing brings an infinite reward, while if God does not exist, believing costs you little.

Where did Pascal write the wager?

In his Pensées, a collection of notes for a defence of Christianity that he did not live to finish. It was published in 1670, after his death.

What is the strongest objection to Pascal’s Wager?

The most widely cited is the many gods objection: there are many possible gods with different demands, so the wager cannot tell you which one to bet on. The objection that belief cannot simply be chosen is also widely made.

Is Pascal’s Wager a proof of God?

No. It does not try to show that God exists. It argues that believing is the wiser choice whether or not God exists. For the arguments that do try to prove God, see proof of God.

Summary

Pascal’s Wager argues that belief in God is a rational bet: the possible reward is infinite and the possible cost is finite, so believing wins whatever the odds, provided God’s existence is possible. It was a pioneering use of decision theory and remains widely discussed. Its critics argue that it ignores the many possible gods, assumes that belief can be chosen, would reward insincere belief, relies on fear, and runs into problems with infinite values. Its defenders reply that serious options are limited and that the wager is a reason to begin religious practice rather than a proof. For the wider debate about whether God exists, see is God real?

Sources

• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “Pascal’s Wager”. plato.stanford.edu.
• Blaise Pascal, Pensées (1670), section 233 in the W. F. Trotter translation (1910).
• J. L. Mackie, The Miracle of Theism (1982).
• Antony Duff, “Pascal’s Wager and Infinite Utilities”, Analysis 46 (1986).
• Alan Hájek, “Waging War on Pascal’s Wager”, Philosophical Review 112 (2003).