B. Embellished goods.
Pascal is cunning by bringing the veil of ignorance into the argument to divert reason. The net effect of this veil is to allow the another sub-meme to come into play, "Things will get better sooner or later." What this sub-meme does by way of enticement is to establish in our minds that more good will accrue if the "God exists" alternative is approached as believable, as worth living for, than the alternative. At the very least, life on earth will be better sooner if we simply act as if the option "God exists" were true. The sub-meme turns us away from worrying about God's existence and towards calculating payoffs in having one belief over the other.
In terms of payoffs for holding one belief over another, the sub-meme "Things will get better sooner or later," if one has a belief in God has great import. The rewards of Heaven are infinite whereas the rewards of an atheistic life seem paltry by comparison. Further, as we have already seen, having a belief in God which changes one's behavior "for the better" will more often than not produce a happier life. In terms of payoff, there seem to be good reasons for having a belief in God.
C. The flaw in the ointment.
At least that's the way Pascal would want us to have it. But, what is wrong with the wager? Many things. First of all, the veil of ignorance flaws the argument. The Catch-22 is that one is expected to know enough about God and His products (Heaven) to come to the conclusion that he will be better off believing that "God exists" even when he knows that he cannot have that very knowledge. One is expected to be able to know what Heaven is in order to be able to desire it. But, the very reasons why we cannot know about the existence of God are the same reasons that we cannot know about His product, Heaven. Consider again the conception that God is all perfect in every attribute, that His essence involves the greatest perfection conceivable. Well, a flat-out rebuttal is to simply say that such an essence is inconceivable. One cannot conceive of attributes such as omniscience, omnipotence or absolutely goodness. In fact, because God is infinite, He must be beyond knowledge. Even Pascal admits this. But, unfortunately, Heaven which is eternal and perfect bliss is equally inconceivable.
Not so, a Pascalian believer will say. Heaven with God and a Christian life ("Heaven on earth) are entirely within the range of adequate comprehension.
It is here that Pascal loads the deck to make his wager work. There are two "goods" offered. One is that "Things will get better sooner." A person's life will markedly improve if he acts on the belief that God exists. The second is that "Things will get better later." A person's future will drastically improve for the better after death with the acquisition of Heaven. The first statement is an empirical claim. The second is a metaphysical claim. Let's examine both.
If one acts as if "God exists," would his life be better? Would the world be better? Pascal says, "Yes." By doing right actions commanded by God, one's life and the world around him becomes better. There is less suffering and more commodious living. In fact, says Pascal, "Now, what harm will befall you in taking this side? ( Having a belief in God) (If you practice the Christian way of life then) You will be faithful, honest, humble, grateful, generous, a sincere friend, truthful. Certainly you will not have those poisonous pleasures, glory and luxury; but will you not have others? I will tell you that you will thereby gain in this life, and that, at each step you take on this road, you will see so great certainty of gain, so much nothingness in what you risk, that you will at last recognize that you have wagered for something certain and infinite, for which you have given nothing." (From Blaise Pascal, Pensees, trans. by W. Trotter (London: Dent And Co., 1908.) The additions in italics in the quote are mine) This seems to be a straight utilitarian argument based on the wagering principle of maximizing one's gains while minimizing one's loses in a gambling situation. Life is a gamble, and the happiness in it depends a great deal upon circumstances beyond our control, but much depends upon what we can control. It looks reasonable that behaving in a Christian way will produce a happier life than not.
But, wait a minute Pascal. The question is, what are the right actions of a Christian life? Here the going gets very sticky. Many wrong actions have been done in "the Name of God." We have only to remember the Crusades and all the many other examples of "ethnic cleansing" to know that religiously right actions can conflict with our ordinary moral intuitions. Doing the religiously right action may be incompatible with what we may consider to be morally right. In my mind, the jury is still out concerning whether or not morality derived from religious beliefs has produced a better world to live in. Certainly, the Old Testament God has attributes and does actions which are not compatible with our ordinary intuitions of what are good and right. There is too much evidence to the contrary that actions based on a belief in God and the rightness of His commands will lead to a better life for any individual who reviews the general plight of the world situation today. Further, right actions demanded by Christianity do not need God as a source or authorship. That the most amount of good is produced as determined by reason is sufficient to make the action right.
Secondly, Christianity may demand too much. A working ethical principle is that if an action is said to be a duty, the action must be capable of being done; "ought implies can." Christianity may demand that persons be supererogatory agents. In the New Testament, we may recall the story of the wealthy man who comes to follow Christ. Christ asks him about his actions and beliefs. The wealthy man seems to meet the criteria for being a Christian. Then Christ asks the wealthy man to give all his money to the poor and follow Him. The wealthy man balks and does not follow. He would be giving up too much of his "worldly goods." The story seems to indicate that even when God Himself presents the way to the treasure (Heaven), the treasure may not look so good when contrasted to what may be given up to get it. Heaven may not appear as desirable as a full bank account when way of life decisions have to be made. Socrates said that he would rather be a starving philosopher than a satisfied pig; but, would we really rather be starving Christians than wealthy atheists? The New Testament seems to indicate that persons ought to choose the former. Some even wish to apologize the New Testament away and have it both ways (one can be a rich Christian as long as he shares a "fair" amount of his goods through tithing), but the scripture is very clear. Money and Heaven do not mix; they cannot be sought as mutually obtainable ends. Christianity demands that right actions from all persons involve a true loving concern; we must do ALL within our powers to prevent unnecessary suffering. But, such a duty demanded by Christianity may be beyond our normal material and psychological resources; it requires more of us than we can actually do as reasonable human beings. Put another way, if we were to truly follow Christ, we would have to become just like Him --which is impossible, since He is God. Consequently, the "right actions" demanded by Christianity cannot be true duties. For a Christian who must act on his beliefs, things get worse sooner.
A Pascalian believer may reply. "Well, despite a rough earthy Christian life, that life will be worth it given that 'Things will get better later.'"
Right?
Let us consider. What about Heaven; what kind of good is it? As Twain noted wryly, many people begin to squirm after sitting in church for a hour. How can it be that when they are in the seat they profess all week to look forward to be in, after a mere hour, they begin to look elsewhere? In lieu of this introductory "evidence," let us examine what would it be like to be in Heaven for eternity?
Heaven is to be conceived as the greatest good achievable for persons. OK, but what is it? Two questions can be asked here: 1. Can persons, the way we are made up, actually experience Heaven and experience it as good; 2, Can persons survive Heaven as an individual person, for Heaven involves a long time and it is proper to ask whether a human mind can last that long?
Many Christians view Heaven as eternal bliss in communication with God. But, what state of mind would be involved here? Could a human experience God's thoughts and know ultimate answers? No, no more than an ant could "tap into" a physicist's thoughts --actually experience them-- and understand and enjoy quantum physics. Could a human even begin to understand the complicated moral and ethical orders purportedly involved in the Christian world? No, no more than a first-grader could read and understand Kant's works. What then would a person experience in Heaven? Eternal bliss. OK, but how would that bliss be different from a continuous drug induced state of mind in which there is only the immediate sense of well-being with no awareness of past or future. I see no difference. Heaven as eternal bliss looks to turn out to be a state of eternal boredom or at worst, torment. If that is what Heaven is like, then persons seem to disappear as conscious agents, thinking beings, in fact, as PERSONS. Worse, what is left is a conscious state that is not desirable at all.
Another problem involves the time span of eternity. Eternity is a very long, long time. In fact, I would suspect that a person could not retain the same self over such a period of time. The problem is that if Heaven is impossible to live through, as it were, how much of it, temporally speaking, is possible for a person? My suspicion is that, at best, maybe 400 years. After that, more than likely the original person is gone or changed enough so that it could be said that a new person was then enjoying the benefits of Heaven. The long and short of it is that if 400 years is the infinite gain that Pascal talks about, he is mistaken about the psychological nature of man; the same person simply couldn't be around that long to partake of the infinite goods. And even if he could, given the above analysis, I cannot imagine a psychological state which could be good enough to be experienced for ETERNITY.
I think that I have shown that the rewards of the conditional (if one believes in God, then one gets the infinite rewards of Heaven) has problems. A belief in God is tenable only if the rewards of Heaven are desirable over other alternatives. In the above, it is very problematic that Heaven is that desirable at all. There is a conceivability problem; is the perfect reward (Heaven) conceivable? My suggestion is that it is not conceivable anymore than is the "most perfect essence," which we find as a major premise in Anselm's ontological argument and which failure constitutes a good reason why that argument will not work. Secondly, even if there were a Heaven, it is questionable whether or not persons could enjoy it in a meaningful way; Heavenly bliss seems to be not much different from a drug induced stupor. Finally, it does not look as if man could last through an eternity of Heaven; a self does not have the psychological staying power to last that long.
To summarize, Pascal wants us to bet on God because the expected payoffs now and later look good, better than betting on the other alternative, But, a closer review of these payoffs reveals that the Christian rewards have been embellished; there is a "bait and switch" routine going on. The Christian rewards to be gained sooner and later just are not that desirable. That being the case, the conditional, "If you choose God, things will get better sooner and/or later," loses its force. There is no motivation to choose God when doing so is not supported by evidence that the desired results will accrue.
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