Pints With Aquinas - 102: What is Pascal's Wager

Episode Date: April 17, 2018

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Welcome to Pints with Aquinas. I'm Matt Fradd. So anyway, look, Aquinas gave me a call this morning. He's like, hey, Fraddy, I can't do it, eh? I'm super sick. And I'm like, come on, man. Everyone's expecting a podcast. He's like, nah, can't do it. So I'm already in the pub, right? Because, yeah, he called me on my cell phone. So I'm just walking around thinking, what am I going to do? These people need a podcast. And who should I see slouched in the corner having a beer but Blaise Pascal, 17th century Frenchman, mathematician, and philosopher? And I thought to myself, let me ask him about his bloody wager. Who's in your house? this opportunity to just address the wager. So today, we're not really going to be looking at Aquinas so much as we are Pascal. Also, I want to let you know that I'm going to put up some

diagrams and some quotations from Pascal at pintswithaquinas.com today under this episode. It'll be in the show notes. Just click the link and it'll take you there. And you might find that helpful because we're going to read a little bit from Pascal here and there, but not at length. And you might find that helpful because we're going to read a little bit from Pascal here and there, but not at length. And then also a diagram will help you understand his wager. And I'll throw that up there. Again, that's pintswithaquinas.com or just click the link in the show notes. So as you know, Aquinas in the Prima Pars has five arguments for the existence of God. There is the, let's see if I can do them right off the bat. There's the argument from motion. There's the argument from causality. There is the argument from contingent being. There is the argument from degrees of being. And then there is the argument

from finality or the argument, yeah, sometimes called the argument from design. Now you might think, well, gee, Pascal, I mean, you lived a few centuries after Aquinas, you must have been pretty impressed with these. Turns out he wasn't. And we'll get into that in a moment and talk about his wager. But just so you know a little bit about him, as I say, Blaise Pascal was a French mathematician. He was really brilliant, like a prodigy child. child he invented depending on how you define computer he invented the first computer like he invented like essentially a calculator to help his dad do tax stuff when he was um he when he was young he became a follower of the the catholic heresy well the heresy i should say not the catholic heresy the heresy 17th century heresy jansenism

which held among other things that christ didn't die for old men, but only for the saved. Anyway, so he fell away from his faith, and that was when he was about 20-something. When he was 31, he experienced a really profound mystical experience, and it convinced him to basically just devote his entire life to Christ. And he was writing a work on Christian apologetics that he had planned to finish, but he actually died of a stomach ulcer, I think, before he was able to finish it. And so his friends collected all of his notes that he had been writing in preparation for this book, and they published it as a single volume called the Pensees. In French, that means thoughts. Now, because it's just a collection of his

thoughts, number one, it's kind of fun because if you've got ADD or something like that, like I almost certainly do, it's kind of like reading a bunch of tweets. Some of them are obviously longer than tweets, but it's fun to go through. But it's also kind of infuriating, especially for people who are trying to make sense of Pascal and the different things that he had to say. So we'll get to the wager in a minute, but of the wager, there's like, he has like three attempts at it and it's not entirely clear exactly how he would have formulated it today. So we just have to go off his notes. I mean, you imagine what that would be like, right?

Like, let's say you're working on a number of books and you've got notepads on your computer and then you die. And then somebody takes your computer and takes all the information off your hard drive and publishes it. You'd be like a little weary if you knew that was going to happen. And you would also want them to give you the principle of charity, right? Like the benefit of the doubt. Like, please interpret what I'm trying to say in the best light possible. And so that's what we want to do today when we talk about Pascal. But back to what he thought of metaphysical arguments. He didn't like them. In the Ponce's, he says that he doesn't think they're much good. And no doubt he's referring to Aquinas' arguments

as well as others. And he says, look, here's the reason. Number one, most people don't understand them. Okay. Even Aquinas would admit that. And then he says, secondly, even for those who do understand them, maybe they find some solace in them while they're, you know, going over the premises and thinking through to the conclusion. But even these people, you know, when they, they've got to do other things, of course, they can't just keep thinking about these arguments. So when they go away and they do other things, maybe they'll think to themselves, gee, maybe I made a mistake and I'm not right after all. And so he wasn't a big fan of metaphysical arguments. Instead, he wanted to kind of say, look, we should rely on prophecy and miracles. And, you know, these are the sorts of

things that we see in Christ, right? A fulfillment of prophecies. And you don't see Christ laying out a syllogism for the existence of God. Now, maybe that's because he was dealing with primarily Jews who believed in God. But the way he proved himself was by miracles. So that's what Pascal thinks. Now, I don't know what you think. Because maybe you've heard me talk about Aquinas' arguments. Maybe you've even picked up my book, Does God Exist? A Socratic Dialogue on the Five Ways of Thomas Aquinas. And maybe as you read them, you think, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, like this really makes sense. I see that belief in God is rational.

But maybe you don't end up with the sort of satisfaction that you wish you had, or you suspect other people might have as you go through them. And if that's the case, then I think Pascal might be your man. As I say, he lived in 17th century France. He was a contemporary of René Descartes, the father of modern philosophy. And so it was a very skeptical age, okay? And they didn't have a lot to do in the 17th century in the sense that they didn't have TV, they didn't have the internet, they didn't have social media to waste time on. Poor Blaise Pascal couldn't record podcasts. So a lot of what people did for their downtime was gamble, actually. And because of this, people began to think very mathematically about when it was good to make a bet and when it was good to refrain

from making a bet. Well, Pascal, who was a believer in God and Christ, decided to take this interest and say, okay, well, why don't we talk about the existence of God? Okay? And we'll use gambling as a sort of way to think about that. And so this is where the wager comes into play. Okay? And so the basic gist is this. Okay. There are two options. Either God exists or God doesn't exist.

Okay. You can have two responses, right, to the God question. You can either have belief or you can have unbelief. Now, notice that there are no other options, right, because these are mutually exclusive. You either believe, and if you do anything other than believe, then what you will be doing is having unbelief. Okay. So for this reason, Pascal says, okay, let's think of this wager. If we're going to bet on God, bet on his existence, devote our life to him. Let's say this is then a forced wager. Like you don't have a choice. You have to bet. You can't abstain from betting. So are you going to bet on God or are you going to bet against God? Now, suppose you have weighed up in your mind evidence for the existence of God

and evidences for atheism. Okay. So you've listened to arguments from atheists, maybe about the hiddenness of God or the problem of evil or whatever. And then you've listened to arguments for God's existence, like maybe the Kalam argument or the moral argument or the whatever, the contingency argument. Now, maybe after you hear both of these, you think to yourself, I really don't find myself feeling convinced one way or the other. Like, I don't think that atheistic arguments have the upper hand,, I don't think that atheistic arguments have the upper hand, but I don't think that sort of arguments for God have the upper hand either. What then should I do? Well, to get back to the wager, since this is a forced wager and you have to bet,

and then Pascal says, since reason cannot decide one way or the other, it is rational to make a decision based on something other than reason at this point. Because if you thought there was more evidence to think atheism is true, then he would say, okay, bet on atheism. But since you can't decide, says Pascal, let's use another reason, namely self-interestedness, right? Like self-interest is not a bad thing to go off if reason can't decide. Okay, so let's see what we get one way or the other. Okay, if God exists and I believe in him, says Pascal, then I get everything, okay? I live in accord with reality in this life. I become a good person by practicing the virtues. And I get to be in heaven for all eternity.

Okay? Now, if God doesn't exist, okay, and I choose to believe in him, I've got a little Catholic blog, I go to church on Sundays. Okay? What now? What now? Well, Pascal says you don't lose anything. And at first you might say, well, that's not true. I would lose a lot of things,

right? I mean, like, you know, if you appeal to the more baser parts of your appetite, you might say, come on, I would love to be able to do these like sexual things. Like I'd love to, you know, watch more porn or hook up or like leave my wife or leave my husband. And I'd love to, you know, watch more porn or hook up or like leave my wife or leave my husband. And I'd love to kind of do that, but I can't. So I miss out on that if I believe in God and think these things are a sin. And you might say, well, even little trivial things, you know, I get to miss out on. Like if I'm a Christian who's going to get up on Sundays, like I miss out on sleeping in. And so Pascal's aware of this, right? And so he says, effectively, it might appear that you're giving up certain things, but actually you're not, all right? And I think there's actually good research in some sense that goes to show him to be right here. You know, there have been

like studies from the Pew Research studies that have showed that those who attend a religious service with regularity tend to be happier people. Or you think of Jordan Peterson, okay? He doesn't appear to explicitly believe in the existence of God or that Christ was who Christians think he was. And yet, you know, clearly even someone like Peterson is helping convince even atheists that like, if you want a beautiful, flourishing life, right, where you take meaning seriously, and then the plea of other people and these sorts of things, like, then you shouldn't be an atheist. Like there's actually a lot of benefit in being a religious sort of person. So if God doesn't exist and you believe in him, even though at first it

appears that you're losing out on a lot of stuff, in the end, you're not. You're actually gaining, okay? So, that's Pascal's argument. And then you go, okay, well, that's what happens. Okay, God exists. I believe in Him. I get that. God exists. Sorry, God doesn't exist and I believe in him. I don't lose anything. Okay, so what if God doesn't exist? Okay, well, that's a possibility. Okay, so God doesn't exist. Okay, this entire thing surrounding you, including yourself, I don't know how it happened. No one knows how it happened since there is no higher intelligence to explain it to us. We have science, which can kind of push back our ignorance and maybe back to the Big Bang. We're not really sure what happened before that, but it doesn't seem like we're ever going to have a comprehensive understanding of the universe. And if there

is no creator, no designer behind what appears to be designed, then this would appear to be an accident, a cosmic accident of sorts. That is, it happened without purpose. Okay, so God doesn't exist. What do I get if I believe in him? You know, so I run my Catholic blog, I go to church on Sundays, and what do I get? Well, you get lots of stuff. Like, you get all those things that I talked about before, in a sense. Like, you get to believe in that your life has meaning. You know, you get to believe that your loved ones go to a beautiful place, you know, like you, you get to, uh, you get to believe that your life ultimately isn't going to be futile and that even if no one takes notice of you, this God takes notice of you, now, you might not be right.

In this instance, you aren't right. But who cares? So what? Just be an idiot. Like, what does anything matter anyway if God doesn't exist? So just go ahead and believe in him. And when you die, guess what? You're not going to know about it.

So you'll be a faithful Catholic your entire life, and then you're going to die, and you're not going to have a clue that you were wrong. All right. Now, God doesn't exist still, and you choose not to believe in him. What do you get then? What do you lose then? Well, if God doesn't exist and you don't believe that God exists, well, you're right, but who cares in a sense? I mean, like, you're never going to know that. Like, you will never know that you as an atheist were right. Right? You can believe that you're correct by looking at the arguments and evidences, but you'll actually never know with 100% certainty. You're like, I'm an atheist,

I don't believe this. And even if you're right, you die and it's lights out and you fall into oblivion and you will never know. And so, yeah, you get to engage maybe in some immoral activity if you want, but it turns out that immoral activity isn't necessarily conducive to human flourishing, and therefore you might not end up winning in the end anyway. Now, don't get me wrong. Obviously, I'm not saying that atheists are all wicked and immoral people. And I hate that I have to keep repeating myself on this point, but let me just say it, lest anyone should misunderstand me. I have no doubt that there are atheists out there who live more moral lives than many Christians do. Many strong, believing Christians. Okay. That said, I don't know if I would. Like, I really don't think I would. I think I would be like, okay, well, look, this is the

only life I got. I got to make it count. So if I'm with a spouse and, you know, she's not doing it for me anymore, she gets really sick and I don't want to be with her anymore. I don't have to put up with that. Then I'll just, you know, this is the only life I got. You can't call me selfish. This is it. So I'm going, right? Why am I trying so hard not to say, look at porn or have an affair or something when really at the end of the day, so long as I keep it somewhat under check, it's not the end of the world. I'm not getting addicted or any of that stuff. So why bother? So even though I think, like even a lot of Christian apologists have gone out of their way to say being an atheist doesn't make you immoral. Okay. All right. It's almost like maybe we've pushed that too far. Because I do think that for the most part, if you think that there's no ultimate meaning to reality and no one to hold you accountable, then given human nature and just

the weakness of human nature, you're probably going to end up, and I would probably end up justifying my wretchedness, my sin, you know, my, well, things that wouldn't be sin unless God does exist, but those sort of wretched behaviors that make everyone else's life, including my own, miserable. So there you go. There's the wager. If you bet on God, says Pascal, you get everything. And if you don't bet on God and he doesn't exist, well, you don't really get anything either. So he says, it's obvious what you should bet on. Bet on God. All right. Like imagine if you've got four options in front of you, you know? Like, we can bet on this, you can bet on this, you can bet on this,

and bet on this. Well, if you bet on this and it's there, you know, so you think of like four cups, okay? And under one of those cups is a ball, perhaps, okay? This isn't, I'm thinking this on the spot, so it's probably not the best analogy. And you know that, okay, if it's in that cup and I bet on it, like I'll get $1,000. And if I bet against God, I'll essentially get nothing.

Or if you want to nitpick, maybe like $10. Well, bet on the $1,000 one, obviously. It makes the most sense. And this is Pascal's argument. Now, there are, as you might imagine, many objections to this argument. And so, what I want to do for the rest of this show is go through several of them because I think this is actually a good argument. So, the first thing that needs to be, well, responded to is some people will say this is a terrible argument for God's existence.

Right, it is. But it wasn't intended to be an argument for God's existence, right? This is not an argument for God's existence. This is an argument for why all things being equal, if your reason cannot decide, you should make a decision based on self interest. All right. It's not an argument for God's existence. It's an argument to believe in God. Okay. Well, what's another objection people have? Well, people might say, look, there are many religions out there. Okay. So, you know, it's not like there's only two choices. It's not like you've got the god of Catholicism or atheism. I mean, you've got lots of options, right? There's all sorts of gods that humans have come up with. So, it's not as simple. It's not as black and white as this. Really, if this is to work, you're going to need to do a wager for every single God and atheism

out there. But I don't think that this is a good objection because it's not like at any given moment you're discerning every religious possibility. There was a philosopher in the 19th century named William James. He wrote an excellent piece on Pascal's wager. It was called The Will to Believe. You can find it online. I'll try and throw it up in the show notes. But he points out that at any given moment, we are only drawn towards certain options. Again, we're not drawn to like 500 options, are we? Like at any given moment. So at your point right now, you're listening to this episode, like you're probably drawn to a couple, right? I don't know. Maybe if you're the sort of person

out there who says, I don't know, atheism, theism, Islam, you know, like maybe you got three, but you don't have like 500, right? So this is what William James calls live options, right? William James called live options, right? So, if belief in the God of the Bible and atheist-leaning skepticism are your only options, then the wager can help here. I also want to say, and maybe I should have made this clear in the beginning, I don't personally think that the arguments are on par, okay? I, Matt Fradd, am not saying that arguments for the existence of God are essentially equal to arguments for atheism. I don't think that at all. I've looked as well as I can and as honestly I hope as I can at the arguments for atheism. And I just, even though I might find them emotionally convicting, and even though there are times where they seem more plausible than not, at the end of the day, I don't find them compelling. Whereas when I look at arguments for the existence of God,

even if I'm not always moved by them, I'm like, yeah, that just resonates with me. Like, it just makes sense. Now, of course, we live in an internet age, right, where we can always go back to the internet to see who disagrees with us. And that can be a tempting but futile process, okay? Because there's always going to be somebody who disagrees with you. Like, no matter what side you adopt, there will always be someone out there who raises arguments against your position in a way that you haven't heard before. And so, it's at the end of the day, again, to go back to Pascal's forced wager, you have belief or unbelief. And you can't forever keep God up on the drawing board and not make a decision, because to not make a decision

is to make a decision. And that is to essentially make the decision of unbelief. All right, here's another objection, and that is the evidence objection. Okay, so a lot of people will point out that Pascal's wager, it's a convenient, pragmatic argument, but it's not an evidential one. Like, it doesn't argue that God exists, and as we've already said, that's true. But why is that a problem? Again, to quote James from The Will to Believe, he points out that there's a problem with the evidence rule, right? Like just saying that everything has to be based on evidence, at least as Pascal's critics are advancing it. Like, if you really are in a situation, and I've met people like this, where based on the evidence,

you just can't decide between believing and not believing something, then you have to make a decision based on something else. You have to make it because there are no other alternatives besides, as we've said, believing and not believing, right? You can't decide based on evidence because of the situation you're in, right? Then it makes sense, it's rational to make a choice where evidence can't decide. And again, based on self-interest. Like, you know, maybe this is becoming a little too abstract. Because right now you're listening to me and you're jogging on the treadmill, or you're laying on the couch, or you're driving to work. And so your death really seems far away away. But let me put it this way. Like, suppose you're on your deathbed right now.

You're in the hospital, in one of those awful bleach-smelling hospitals with nurses and doctors that change shifts every so often, and new doctors are coming in, they're coming out. And not a lot of it makes sense to you, but the one thing you know is that you're about to die. And your family, they're coming and they're going. They're going to the cafeteria to get something to eat because it's rather burdensome and boring to have to sit with you this long. But you're about to die, right? Well, suppose you're about to die and you've looked at the evidence, right? You're like, I just, I can't tell. Well, at that point, right, if evidence can't tip the scales, at least in your opinion, you're going to need to move on from evidence, right, at this point and think about something else. And at that point, it seems to me,

and it seemed to Pascal and William James argues for this, that it's appropriate for you to embrace belief on the grounds that you want to go to heaven. Like, that's appropriate. Like, Like my grandfather died and he was baptized on his deathbed. Did he choose to be baptized because he found the arguments for Christianity compelling? I mean, I don't think so. I mean, maybe. I actually don't fully know. But I suspect it has to do with that he wanted to reconcile with God. And maybe if he was really honest, he might say, I'm not even sure if he exists, but I just want to hedge my bets sort of thing. And that's exactly what the wage is about.

Here's a quote from my friend, and he's an apologist, Jimmy Akin. He says, here's a quote from him. He said, I would take matters a step further and argue that our passional nature's desire for good does constitute a form of evidence. Our passions, our desire to eat, to sleep, to flee danger, are oriented towards our good. Given the way of the world, if we never ate, slept, moved around, or fled danger, we die. Thus, our passions tell us something about the way the world is. They are a kind of indirect evidence about it. Achan continues, given that, and in the absence of decisive evidence to the contrary, like reason to think that there is an evil God who damns his believers, he says, there is no reason not to trust my desire to go to heaven when it tells me to seek God. In the same way, there's no reason not to trust my desire to heaven when it tells me to seek God. In the same way, there's no reason

not to trust my desire to eat when it tells me to seek food. The presumption is that both passions are oriented to my good unless proven otherwise, and they both provide indirect evidence about the world I live in, one where both God and food exist. Okay. So, here's another objection that you might hear, and this is the argument that if you believe, you know, just based on your desire for heaven, that this is really kind of hypocritical, right? You just want to go to heaven, and that's why you believe in this. Well, we can say a couple of things to this, right? The first thing is, in this? Well, we can say a couple of things to this, right? The first thing is, it's true, I think, that believing in God for the sole purpose of going to heaven is not a mature Christian faith. But God stoops to conquer. And if you remember, so did the disciples. Like when you read the apostles in the book of Acts, what do they do?

They don't go around telling people, you know, there are some things in the world that move. Those things are moved by other things. You know, it's like they're not laying out an argument. What are they doing? They're saying, you want to be saved. Like, come be baptized so that you can be saved. want to be saved. Like, come be baptized so that you can be saved. So, self-interest is clearly presented as a motive for belief, if we just consider the apostolic message, right? So, it's okay to believe in order to be saved. Now, when you look at the doctors of the church,

they'll talk about things like, you might have a mercenary view of God where, you know, you're only out for yourself. But, you know, as I say, God stoops to conquer and the hope is that as you receive the sacraments and you begin to pray, that you will grow in virtue and in relationship with this God who you now come to have a reason to think exists, yeah? And you begin to love him for himself as opposed to loving him solely to be saved. And so, it's important to realize like Pascal, it's not like Pascal had no evidences for God's existence and was saying, look, I don't know either. So, why don't we just believe in God? That way we'll get some out of it. No, Pascal was in some sense a mature Christian who loved Jesus Christ and wanted other people

to love Jesus Christ. So, he's not encouraging hypocrites to go through the motions so that they can be saved. He's encouraging them, look, if evidence can't decide in your mind one way or the other, just take a chance on God. And then he says to them, you know, take the sacraments, use holy water, use the sacramentals and pray and that you'll grow in your relationship with God, okay? So, the third reason or third response to this sort of objection that you're a hypocrite for this is that our greatest good, right, the Christian belief is that our greatest good is to be united with God in the beatific vision, which is heaven, okay? So, seeking our greatest good thus consists in seeking union with God. So, this idea that you're either seeking truth, you know, and then you find God, or you

just, you accept God because you want good for yourself, like, in a way, you can't separate the two, right? Because your greatest good is to be with God. And so, in seeking your own self-interested good, in a way, you're seeking God in doing that. Like, you want what's best for yourself, which is God, you see? So, in a way, you can't separate the two. Now, another objection is the, someone might say, sure, okay, and we've just spoken about this a little bit already, but this idea that, okay, maybe you're right, and maybe I hear Pascal's wager, and I say to myself, you're right, it's within my interest to bet on God, you know, but then you might say to yourself, you know, but I can't control my beliefs, you know, like, yeah, maybe one day I listen to Pascal, I'm like, yeah, okay, I'm going to believe in God. But I don't know, a lot of the times I might find myself leaning towards atheism stuff, leaning towards atheism and watching atheist YouTube channels. I think, gosh, maybe the evidence is stacked against it. Let me read you a quote from Pascal because he

anticipates this objection. He says this, you would like to cure yourself of unbelief and ask the remedy for it. Learn of those who have been bound in unbelief like you and who now stake all their possessions on God's existence. These are people who know the way which you would follow and who are cured of an ill of which you would be cured. Follow the way by which they began, by acting as if they believed, taking the holy water, having masses said. Even this will naturally make you believe and deaden your acuteness. Excuse me. So I touched upon this already, right? So the idea is, this might be a crass way to put it, but faking it until you make it.

So he's not just saying, okay, we'll bet on God and then go back to sleep. It's like, no, like do what Christians do who have gone from unbelief to belief. And there's some examples, you know, attend Holy Mass, right? Receive the sacraments, pray, and so forth. If you find that one of the reasons you can't believe in God is because you have like, I don't know, like it's some, maybe it's not even a rational thing, right? It's just like you have an emotional barrier that you can't seem to overcome, right? So maybe for you, you have a bad relationship with your dad. And so every time you try to believe in this God, you just can't get on board with it because you've got so much pain in your relationship with your earthly father.

Well, then I think Pascal would say something like, well, then try to overcome this as best that you can. Like, try to overcome this emotional obstacle, this emotional barrier. Now, whether you like it or not, many Catholics, converts have said that Mary is the one who led them to Jesus because they, right, like perhaps you listening, struggled to have a relationship with a heavenly father when all they experienced from their earthly father was criticism or abuse or something else like that that's terrible. And so, many people have gone to the Blessed Mother and have just prayed to her. I mean, this seems to be what took place in Mexico and why Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared. You know, it's like preaching Christ, preaching the Heavenly Father didn't seem to work,

but for some reason, they absolutely responded to this image of the Blessed Virgin, and then millions of them became Catholic. So, that might be another way to just start praying the rosary, to develop a devotion to Mary, to speak to her in prayer and ask her to help heal your relationship with your earthly father and your heavenly father. Let's say something again, similar to what I said at the beginning of the show, right? And that's this idea that, okay, if I believe in God, I do lose something, right? And for many people, it may be the cost of the Christian life that's preventing them from choosing belief. Unbelief for this person might be a heck of a lot easier right now, right? Because if I have belief in God, then I might have to change my views on certain

things, right? I might have to start trying to be humble and generous and all these sorts of things, and it's really hard to do that. I got to stop having sex with my mistress or my girlfriend or whatever. And so maybe the barrier is like this emotional barrier that's preventing you from accepting Christ is having to give up sin. So I mentioned before that Pascal said, you know, really, even though it seems like you're losing something in coming to God, you're really not. So I want to just maybe close by reading a quotation from him here. This is from the Ponce's again. He says this.

Now, what harm will befall you in taking this side? You will be faithful, humble, grateful, generous, a sincere friend, truthful. Certainly you will not have those poisonous pleasures, glory and luxury, but you will not have, but will you not have others? And then he says, I will tell you that you will thereby gain in this life and that at each step you take on this road. Isn't that a great quotation? So here's what I want to recommend. I know that we have atheists and skeptics who listen to Pints of the Quietness, and I know that because you're right to me. So let me just say this. When I talk about praying and things like that, and, you know, acting as if you believe, I'm not going to go over those things again. But another thing that I would recommend that you do

is to take a break from listening to atheist podcasts and videos. As I say, maybe you're the sort of person who's been binging on these debates, you know, with William Lane Craig and all that. And you're like, I just have fatigue. I'm just done. You know, it's like, gosh, I don't seem to be advancing at all here. Well, okay, take a break from that. Now, again, I'm not saying bury your head in the sand, you know, don't listen to

rationality. I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is you've watched hours and hours of this stuff. You've read books and books of this stuff and to no avail. So, take a break from it, take Pascal's wager, take it seriously and bet on Christ, right? Which of course is the God that Pascal's referring to, the God of Christianity. Bet on him. Okay. Now, when you bet on him, avoid those atheist books and those websites. And instead, in addition to praying and using holy water, start listening to good podcasts, you know, like this one, hopefully. And start listening to things like Bishop Robert Barron on YouTube. Start watching videos from Father Mike Schmitz on YouTube. Pick up a copy of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. And I think what you'll find, put it this way, let me just offer a very kind of skeptical answer

here. If God does exist, if the whole thing's true, which it may be, okay, then surely he will reward you in praying to him, in seeking him, by listening to people who know more than you, such as Bishop Robert Barron, in trying to understand the Catholic faith by picking up a copy of the Catechism. He'll reward you, and won't he bless you with the gift of faith? I think he will. So you might take me up on that bet. Thank you very much for listening to Pints with Aquinas. As I say, I know this is a different one. Every episode of Pints with Aquinas revolves around a question that Aquinas deals with, right, in the Sumer or elsewhere. Today, it didn't, but I think it somehow relates because I know we've done a lot of talking about

the existence of God lately. And it's my hope that this will supplement those episodes if you, like skeptics I've met in the past, have found themselves in the position where they just can't make up their mind. I hope that was a helpful episode for you. I'm sure there's more objections to the wager that I addressed and maybe the ones that I did address, I didn't address as well as I could. I just went online after recording most of this episode. And I typed in Pascal's wager into YouTube. And there's all these atheists who are, I think, saying things that I've responded to here. I really don't think their objections are very good.

I think they misunderstand Pascal. Or they aren't approaching him, as I mentioned earlier, with a spirit of charity, which is what we should always do when we are working, not just with the notes of someone who's deceased, but the unfinished notes of someone who's deceased, right? So I hope that's been a help. I want to invite you, if you haven't already, to consider supporting Clients with Aquinas on Patreon. I know I do this every week, but this is like my main source of income, so I have to do it every week. So what's cool about this is it's a fan-funded show, right? So you make the show run, and I don't have to get big commercials for like mattresses and toothbrushes and things.

So you don't have to support the show, obviously, but if you do want to, if this show has been a blessing to you, if you listen to it week after week and you're like, you know what? Just, yeah, I want to support him. Go to pintswithaquinas.com and click support. And when you do, if you give like $10 a month, there's a ton of free stuff that I actually give you back in return, like ongoing audio content and on getting video series and philosophy courses, like things that like just are for you, my patrons. You also have access to a community forum that's just for you. You get a signed book of mine, all sorts of stuff. I won't tell you all of it. I'll invite you to go check it out and consider it. Go to pintswithaquinas.com, click

support. That'll take you to our Patreon page. You can see all the many gifts that I give you back in return, just a little thanks. Because I know that people aren't supporting Pints with Aquinas because, oh yes, I get a mug. Yeah, I get a book or whatever. Like most of you who write to me say, this has helped you and you just, you want to help support me and my family. So again, I know people aren't supporting you just to get these gifts, but those gifts are just a little way that I can say thank you. So thank you if you're already supporting and a big thanks to you if you're going to decide to support today. God bless.

Chat with you next week. I would give my whole life to carry you, to carry you.