Reason for God - Pascal's Wager | Tim Keller Videos

Blaise Pascal was the father of modern science. He innovated the scientific method as well as laid the foundations for what we know as the science of statistics and probability. His work paved the way for modern decision-making models such as cost-benefit analysis and expected payoff.

One thing that is certain in statistics and probability is that there is nothing that is 100% certain. Blaise Pascal, having fathered the science, would have probably said the same thing...before his dramatic conversion.

Pascal's conversion was more than mere mental ascent, cognitive reasoning or an intellectual excercise. Although he did prove that belief in the existence of God was a scientific and rational decision based on probabilities, what's known today as Pascal's Wager, his conversion was more than an excercise in rational decision-making. He described his conversion experience with the words, 'certitude, certitude.' It was his empirical analysis that he had indeed met the God and Creator of him and this universe in Jesus Christ.

After Pascal's death, a note was found in his coat pocket recording his conversion experience:

In the year of Grace, 1654, On Monday, 23rd of November, Feast of St.
Clement.

From about half past ten in the evening until about half
past twelve.
Fire.
God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers and scholars.
Certitude. Certitude. Feeling. Joy. Peace.
God of Jesus Christ
“Thy God shall be my God.”

When we have the experience of God regenerating us to salvation and new birth, it's an unmistakable experience. I never wonder if someone who claims to be a Christian is faking or lying or delusional. The reason I rarely suspect that is because I know I had a unmistakable experience, thought unprovable and intangible, I know with certainty that I experienced it. And I know millions upon millions of people have experienced that same supernatural experience with God, and upon my own testimony and the testimony of countless others, I base my faith in Christ.

It's more than a mental ascent or a joining of a club. It's following Jesus as a natural recourse of experiencing Him as God.

Although Pascal was certain of God in his heart and spirit, he also admitted that there was no way to scientifically prove that God exists. But at the same time, he also said that you couldn't prove that God DOESN'T exist either. Pascal said that in light of those 2 facts, it was more rational to believe than not to believe. Philosophers call this Pascal's Wager.

There are four possibilities with four results.

Possibility #1: God doesn't exist and we don't believe. Result: We had a great life living the way we want. There is no after life, so nothing happens after we die.

Possibility #2: God doesn't exist and we choose to believe. Result: We had a harder life, one where we are self-less, sacrificing and possibly suffering for our faith. There is no after life, so again, although we had a more difficult life than the former, nothing happens after we die.

Possibility #3: God does exist and we don't believe. Result: We're screwed and go to hell. We had a great 70-80 years of pleasure, but now we suffer in hell for eternity.

Possibility #4: God does exist and we choose to believe. Result: We lived a hard life, but we have eternal pleasure in heaven.

That's Pascal's Wager in a nutshell.

Bottom line is this, because we can't prove God doesn't exist, we are more rational, because of the eternal consequences to believe or at least find out for sure that He doesn't exist.

The mathematical functions of this decision making model is called expected payoff, which Pascal innovated. It's a statistical and probability model of decision making that is widely used in business and science and politics because it's been found to be the best and most rational way of making decisions based on reality.

The same functions that we use to run our business, economics, science and politics, Pascal used to decide it was a rational decision to believe in God.

I grew up in a Christian home and I always believed in God growing up.  I had a conversion experience where I became I true Christian at the age of 9.  I never doubted my faith.  I had many spiritual experiences that were to me supernatural.  In addition, I felt God's presence on a daily basis.

During my college years I began to doubt everything like most college students do.  I needed God and Christianity to make sense.  I knew the Christianity in America as I had been taught wasn't necessarily the same thing as God and I was on a search to find out what was true.  I couldn't stomach the American evangelicalism anymore that taught me I'd be blessed if I obeyed and followed the rules and formulas properly.  That system came crashing down for me and with that, the intellectual structure, the cognitive structure of my faith went down with it.  I had to start from scratch because I no longer knew what was true, even God.

I recall telling God that I wouldn't believe in Him until He made sense to me intellectually.  I was miserable for the next 6 months.  Finally, with my spirit having been imprisoned to experience the grace of God because of my deliberate unbelief, I surrendered and too advantage of the grace that was already present to believe in God.

In the coming weeks and months, God began to answer my prayer to make intellectual sense and it began with Pascal's wager.  Pascal's wager was the beginning of my feeling free to believe intellectually what I already believed in my heart and spirit.  I believe in apologetics.  I believe that God makes sense to the rational mind, and I've come to discover that believing in God is the most rational thing in the world to do.

Now, armed with faith in my spirit and in my mind, I feel confident to walk in this world that basis it's operation on reason and logic, knowing that living with God in mind is the most rational thing you can do.

Tim Keller wrote a book called Reason for God: Belief in the Age of Skeptics, where Keller lays out answers to the most common questions about Christianity.  He also did a few talks based on his book.

Audio Resources by Tim Keller:

How Could a Good God Allow Suffering?

How Can There Be Just One True Religion?

Reason for God: Belief in the Age of Skepticism