This is a blog post to mark a momentous subject. this will not make easy reading. I write it as an encouragement to myself and to you, but it is encouragement in the light of the upside down nature of Gods kingdom. When we are weak, we are strong. Sometimes we need to be made aware of our weakness before we can be strengthened. This might be one of those posts.
I have often taken much security from Pascal's wager. Even before I knew of it, this thought continually gave me sustenance in periods of doubt; That if it (Christianity) all turns out to be false, If there is no God and Jesus was never raised from the dead, that I have lost nothing, and lived the best kind of life I could, a moral life filled with hope, even if it turned out to be a placebo, rather than the real thing.
I have often taken much security from Pascal's wager. Even before I knew of it, this thought continually gave me sustenance in periods of doubt; That if it (Christianity) all turns out to be false, If there is no God and Jesus was never raised from the dead, that I have lost nothing, and lived the best kind of life I could, a moral life filled with hope, even if it turned out to be a placebo, rather than the real thing.
Pascal's wager is a philosophical argument, in favour of Christianity, that says everyone is gambling their life on whether there is a God or not. The Atheist stands to gain little if he is right, but lose much (eternity in hell) if he is wrong. The believer stands to lose relatively little in this life (Some comforts and pleasures) but gain substantially by entering heaven.
Many believers, being perhaps more emotionally invested than the pragmatic wager would imply, would argue that you, in fact, lose nothing. A spiritually fulfilled life, at peace with and in communion with God, living in a way that your creator intended you to, is no loss at all. And, at it's best, the Christian life can offer all of these. And yet, it is a flawed view. In 1 Cor 15:17&19 St Paul offers an insight into his own view into this divine gamble.
And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.....If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.Why wouldn't Paul say, And If Christ is not raised we've not really lost anything? Was he not spiritually satisfied, did he not have a sense of peace with the world that came from having done business with Jesus? You bet he did. But way, way more than that, Paul was invested 100%. If Christ was a lie, he lost everything. He reminds us, in order to inspire us to a similar devotion,
I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things~ Phil 3:8
He forsook all. He sold the farm and bet it on Jesus. Emotionally, financially, physically, spiritually, he was invested up to the hilt.
It shows me for what I am. Pascal's wager exposes the shallowness of my commitment. I don't worry about losing anything, because I have invested relatively little. But the price is that I DO doubt. I doubt often. I doubt when I don't feel fulfilled or at peace.
Jesus told a story about a man who wanted to build a tower but didn't count the cost. An unfinished tower is called a folly. And faith that has not counted the cost is just that. A folly.
The key to Paul's passion is revealed in the same passage from Philippians.
I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.
He actually wanted to share in Christ's suffering. This is how he saw the power of the resurrection; he participated with gladness in the suffering for the gospel. He backed it up with ship wrecks and imprisonment, stoning and snake-bite.
In an age when some young disaffected Muslims are offered (and unbelievably some take it up) an ideology to die for, the church often pedals comfort upon comfort. The gospel has to be more. It is an unpopular message, and one I fear myself. Perhaps we have bought in to Pascal's wager just a bit too much. Can we, like the disciples in Acts 5:41, rejoice that we are counted worthy to suffer for the name of Jesus.
Suffering and doubt do not make good bed fellows. Suffering and pragmatism seem a little at odds. Suffering and faith however, are somewhat more compatible. I think we have to reconsider how much we have spiritualised the act of taking up our cross, and dying daily. Some suffering is literal. The power of the resurrection only makes sense in the light of the suffering of the cross. God help us to count, and recount the cost.
