I've been asked recently--by Dennis--to review some sites that try to discredit Pascal's wager. What I'd like to see is someone railing against Pascal's LAW!
Before I review these "angry birds" websites, I think it will help to review where I am at with Pascal's Betting Parlor.
First of all, one must see that the methods of arriving at his wager are very similar to those used to arrive at his Law; which is to say, statistics.
In a Newtonian scheme, one works on the law of averages. One is not concerned with outliers; one is not concerned with individuals, be they particle, wave, or magnificently complex being.
Boyle's Law and Pascal's are configured as the result of the aggregate behavior of the majority of gas molecules in relationship to various conditions of volume, pressure, and so on. Pascal is still honored in scientific nomenclature, as in Pressure measured in Pascal Units, as in the partial pressure of oxygen in the blood, SPO2. So the scientific impact of these Laws remains unbroken over the centuries. Very useful in my biz.
In a purely physical sense-in theory that is- there may be no such thing as the purely physical at the very least because of entropy. Materialism, like pragmatism, swallows its own tail.
The wager, on the other hand, is an attempt to reduce the metaphysical to the realm of scientifically derived statistical analysis. At the very least, it does outline the seriousness of God's Modest Proposals to man found in the Bible. But the fit is ultimately a poor one, rather like some one's project, "Reasons to Believe." For believers who may be gifted in math or science, these are very interesting and perhaps comforting. But if God could be proven by such technical means, He could also be disproven by similar techniques at some point. Such is not the case, of course. God, by definition, cannot be "found out," nor is He bound by any law, scientific or other.
If one looks at Pascal himself, not as a cipher or an errant molecule, but as an ordinary individuated human being; you will find that Pascal's belief was rather nominal until he had his direct and supernatural Pauline-style Damascus Road experience, which was written in short form, happened in an instant one night, and sewed into his coat, only to be found fortuitously after his death. (One only finds hints of it even in the Pensees. I sometimes wonder why he hid it in his coat--scientific pride and unwillingness to be embarrassed in front of his Renaissance colleagues? So much; in so little; is the rule still for most Christian practitioners of science, in spite of science's inherent limits which can be outlined in a few minutes, or reasoned with a few minutes of real thought induced by a trace of real humility.)
One of the things that makes Quantum Mechanics so fascinating is that it IS concerned with outliers--with particles being inside the box and outside of it at the same time. It's still statistical; but the difference is that it is different on different levels. Making it, for instance, quite possible to go through material walls as Jesus did. However, proof is more of a mechanical device and it is quite easy to speculate with the Uncertainty Principle always hanging around. "Plenty of room for miracles." as Robert Spitzer SJ has said (Dr. Spitzer is a physicist and mathematician who was recently president of Gonzaga U. You should check him out Dennis; his lectures have been compared to the opening of a fire hydrant full blast. I have listened to one or two of them and they are very good if you can keep up with him.)
( I might add that the soft sciences including biology still operate in a Newtonian mechanistic thought-universe.) Last man standing?
In sum/in some, Pascal's belief was not based on a scientific conceit but a direct touch from God--provoked perhaps by Pascal's honest pursuit of Jesus. It is best to read all of the Pensees' to put into perspective the inherently speculative nature of his wager. If one has not read it in the original--English, not French unless one is fluent in both--one cannot appreciate the fact that his wager is a very technical one, and not that easy to understand the way he writes it. But other Pensees are full of "proofs"--by the supernatural nature of God and His Christ. He realized that God is the Ultimate Outlier yet owns everything we can know and infinitely more. His evaluation of the more materialistic and sensuous Montaigne reflects Jesus more than any statistical analysis.
I look upon it the same way I look upon "maps" of the known universe. It should be a humbling experience, not a "religious" one. Spiritually, yes, however, one can derive much wonder. But if God were in the reach of final proofs, He could also be disproven and would not be God at all.
Never put your life in the hands of statisticians (I'm not sure why I have to point out the bleeding obvious)--this is more of an evasion of personal responsibility to our Creator and avoidance of the needed personal response to a Person--Elohim/Jehovah--who requires of us not only general holiness--which is not to be attained by human effort but may be helped by personal intent--but also requires personal assignments; these two areas of responsibility form the backbone of the Testaments, the Law, and Grace. Pascal's human responsibility was to be a scientist not first but earlier in life; then a testament to God's Grace in Christ. Those who are gifted in logic should never feel that God is beholden to bow down before what is ,after all, His Property...logic is a bit like time itself, it is a tool of measurement-- subject to be broken anytime anywhere and in any Holy manner--when God breaks into the tiny worlds of science and the truly limited selves that power it. Even or especially in this world, we are servants, never masters. Even logic will tell us that...
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