The Apologetics Advertisement for Christianity
By Nathaniel Ashcroft
Pascal’s Wager
Blaise Pascal was a very intelligent philosopher, mathematician, and physicist of the 1600s. He encouraged unbelievers to make a bet of sorts, later called Pascal’s wager, which goes like this: there are 4 possible outcomes that can result from your choice to be a Christian or to not:
1- If God does not exist and you do not believe, you have a finite outcome.
2- If God does not exist and you do believe, you have a finite outcome.
3- If God does exist and you do not believe, you have infinite loss.
4- If God does exist and you do believe, you have infinite gain.
If Christianity is correct, then when believers die, they receive eternal life, amazing blessings, and live in the dwelling of God; anyone who rejects God is put into a horrible place separate from God in which they receive infinite loss. If atheists are correct, then nothing happens to the believers different from what happens to atheists. So, if you have more probable reason to believe than not, you should bet on God existing. Pascal’s Wager isn’t necessarily an ‘argument for God’, so to speak, but it provides a different perspective on the decision to follow God; if we find Christianity to be more probable than not (I must confess, Christianity is far, far, far, far, far, far, far more probable than not. Hence my writing of this book), the best option by far is to follow, even if we do not have ‘proof’(I put proof in quotes because we don’t really have 100% proof for anything. I can’t even prove I’m writing this sentence. I could be sleeping. I could be in some sort of coma. I could be controlled by a computer chip in my brain that I am not aware is there), because the states of gain strongly favor the Christian outcome. There is no real gain from atheism; you either get a finite outcome, or infinite loss (how great is that loss!). However, there is extreme gain from Christianity; you either get a finite outcome, or infinite gain.
If you were actually to be betting between each of these sides without knowing whether God is real or not, considering these rewards, why would you ever, in your right mind, choose atheism? If you ‘won’ that reward, you would basically be winning nothing. That’s betting based purely on the possibility God could be true. And that is what we are doing in this life. We have our lifetime to bet between these two belief sets. We won’t be 100% sure which side is correct until we pass away. When we consider the possible states of gain provided from each belief set, Christianity is the clear choice, provided we find Christianity to be more probable than atheism. When we pile on the philosophical, empirical, historical, scientific, and practical evidence for God, that pushes us that much farther towards following Christ.
Pascal is not arguing that you should just follow every avenue in your life that could lead to the most gain without considering evidence. That would be quite irrational. He’s arguing based on probability and possible gain. If you find Christianity to have a good possibility of being true, you should definitely go for it, as it has so much to offer. Even if you are incorrect, and Christianity is false, you would not have achieved a different outcome if you had not believed. You would have missed out on nothing.
Some will object and assert that, since there are a multitude of religions, this argument does not provide value to specifically arguing for Christianity. This refutation is only true in part. If you find Christianity to be more probable than other religions, you should still continue to pick Christianity.
Liz Jackson states in the article, Pascal’s Wager: A Pragmatic Argument for Belief in God,
“…Imagine you’re given the choice between a 90% chance at an infinite good or a 10% chance at the same good. You should clearly take the 90% chance. When we apply this to Pascal’s wager, the result is that you should wager for the religion you think is most likely to be true. Christianity and Islam actually do not have the same expected value—wagering on the more probable religion gives you a higher chance at an infinite good, and so has a higher expected value. Further, since it’s unlikely that atheists and agnostics (agnostics suspend judgment on whether God exists) go to heaven and theists go to hell, Pascal’s wager implies it’s irrational to be an atheist or agnostic.”
The value in this argument, for my purposes, comes from its ability to provide a sense of curiosity and urgency to the unbeliever (specifically those considering the Christian religion, or those considering leaving it). Currently, our culture has this odd phenomena where unbelievers do not seem to be hostile to Christianity, they just don’t seem to care about it. Or theism in general for that matter. One way to dispel this ignorance (I do not intend this word to be hostile; I mean it in its literal meaning) is to remind them that, if Christianity is true (or any theistic belief for that matter), then it has serious implications for their life. Pascal’s Wager can spark curiosity and the feeling of necessity to actually look deeper at Christianity from both a theological and evidential standpoint.
I want the listener to understand that they really ought to make their decision on theism an educated one. This decision matters more than any other decision you will make in your lifetime. If you remain on the fence, never making a decision, you could miss out on the blessing of Christ and exchange it for judgement and condemnation. If you should find Christianity more probable than not, you should go for it. The potential gain is too immense. The potential loss is too immense. Even if you follow Christianity and it ends up being untrue, what did you lose? You lived a morally permissible life, you found meaning and joy, and you positively impacted others to some degree. I’ll take the chance.
Or you could just ignore all evidence and put your whole life under Christianity in a crazy high-stakes bet…
(I don’t recommend ignoring the evidence it’s better to be sure than not)
Have you heard the gospel? If not, click here.
View next week’s section to learn about atheism.
Works Cited
Jackson, Liz. “A Pragmatic Argument for Belief in God.” 1000-Word Philosophy, 4 Jan. 2021, accessed 4 Dec. 2025, Pascal’s Wager: A Pragmatic Argument for Belief in God – 1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology