Pascal's Wager - Pragmatism

In between classes today we went to the Olive Garden - GREAT stuff. After being switched tables for no reason, and having some leftovers thrown away, Aaron and Barbara (two of the fellows) found themselves with $10 giftcards. It was a nice afternoon!

SO...Today in apologetics class we were studying Pragmatism. What is pragmatism? The easiest way I can explain it is the following quote from William James: "Ideas are never useful because they are true. They are true because they are useful." What this is basically implying is that Pragmatics tend to only base opinions based on reason, and consider truth to be anything that can be perceived as useful. They do not believe in absolute truth (But by saying that there are absolutely no absolute truths, aren't you contradicting yourself? YES!! That's the point). Anyways, the author goes on to discuss Christians..And brings up a very good point that a lot of us miss I think sometimes.

I think back to when I actually became a Christian. I'm not going to tell my entire testimony, but if anybody ever wants to hear about it let me know; I love talking about any of this - it's my favorite thing to do - but writing it can sometimes be pointless if you know what I mean(Hard to emphasize things). But basically, Let us ask ourselves the question - Not "Why am I a Christian, " which would be a different answer, but "Why did I become a Christian?" My answer was very pragmatic: and I don't think I'm alone. I was at a place in my life where things were going good - I was beginning to ask the hard questions, and began shaping my worldview. I had been raised a Muslim - Yes, crazy - but had no real religion in my life...And everything was great, I loved living, I was just trying to make sense of everything.

I became a Christian not because I believed the gospels are true, but because they are workable." They helped me make sense of my life. I didn't look into them, I looked at the surface of them. I used my logic to give myself an explanation of why I was living, and what my purposes were here on Earth. That worked for about six months, maybe a little longer. Then it all stayed the same...I hit a plateau early in my faith and never grasped it again - I read a lot, I learned, I went to church, I prayed...I sinned...But that isn't what being a Christian is mainly about. I took the ideas of the gospel and made them useful for me. I didn't see anything as right and wrong - I was forgiven. I read the point in Dr. Peter Moore's book (Ironically our teacher) titled Disarming the Secular Gods that said even false ideas can be useful. Look at Abortion. People will make the argument (Intelligent people even) that abortion is acceptable because it is the best interest of the child. I was doing the same thing!

Exodus 14:10 - 13 discusses Moses leading the Egyptians to the red sea:

"As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up, and there were the Egyptians, marching after them. They were terrified and cried out to the LORD. 11 They said to Moses, "Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? 12 Didn't we say to you in Egypt, 'Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians'? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!" 13 Moses answered the people, "Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the LORD will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again."

This helps us understand pragmatism a little better. Now put yourself in the shoes of the Egyptians - What would you do? They ask in verse 12 to be left alone to serve, but they have trusted Moses, and he has led them to a dead end. They have 2 choices - Stay, and probably die - or go back, and be enslaved again. Pragmatically, based on previous experience, they, and you, would probably go back. Then something happens - the red sea parts. Now what? And Moses expects you to walk through . I know what the FIRST think I'd do. I'd march my butt right up to Moses and say "Moses..Hey buddy, come here for a sec. Look, I know you saw a burning bush and all that jazz, but come on bud, let's talk rationally for a second. You want me, to walk through an ocean, with mile-high walls of water on both sides of me. ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?" Pragmatically my experiences are telling me that this is probably a 50/50 chance or so of my death. That was my mistake. See the point I'm getting at? When I became a Christian, I did it because it made sense, not because I had complete faith in Christ. We have to get past that, and realize that we have to have a leap of faith...To COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY trust God...And by questioning him, we aren't trusting him.

This got us into a discussion on "Pascal's Wager" - something many of you may be familiar with, maybe not. Basically this is the argument that we are all faced with a bet in life (very GENERAL, not specifically for Christianity) - Is there a God, or isn't there a God? Pascal's conclusion is that it is foolish to bet that there isn't a God, and that the only logical choice is to bet that there is a God. If you bet on God, you have everything to gain, and nothing to lose. If you bet that there isn't a God, you have nothing to gain, and nothing to lose. It's like poker - are you gonna sit at a poker table and play to win, or are you going to fold any hand, and not even give yourself a chance to win. Pascal(crazy guy in the picture - hey, he's kind of cute right?) and Peter Moore (teacher) came to the same conclusion:

1 - If I bet on God and you don't and you're right, I'm a fold.
2 - If I'm right, where does that leave you?

This is not to say this is the way Christians should think at all. THIS is why I became a Christian. "Why not?" I couldn't answer this question, so I gave my life to Christ. It wasn't until MUCH later that I realized and felt his presence in my life. HOWEVER I do believe this is a very valuable evangelistic tool...I never would have put my fot in the door if I didn't hear this first. This opened the door for me. I feel it is scripturally accurate to equip ourselves to be able to handle these situations in a support for our faith...Then we can take it to the next step.

I could write on and on...I am using this as a way of organizing random thoughts, so It is very helpful to me. If anybody actually READ this far...And you have any comments I'd love to hear from you...As I said this before, this is really my new favorite thing to talk about...Learning from others is such a valuable tool.