On Grace and Gambling: Understanding Human Nature (4 of 5)

“All men seek happiness. There are no exceptions” (148). Yet, our lives are riddled by “inconstancy, boredom, anxiety” (24). Our only consolation is to bury our unhappiness in diversions. Countless pleasures and preoccupations keep us from the introspection that inevitably leads to depression (36). “If man were happy, the less he were diverted the happier he would be” (132). But we are so uncomfortable in the present that we are always looking ahead “planning to be happy” and never arriving at what we seek (47). So, to wish a person rest out of kindness is to completely misunderstand human nature, for to rest is to wrestle with our restlessness, to have the uneasy luxury of contemplating our emptiness (136). Happily, there is a remedy to our condition. This “infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself” (148).

So, once again, The Wager becomes important. If one was to bet that God exists and it turned out to be false, nothing would have been lost but an unhappy life. Nevertheless, Dawkins disagrees, saying, “that you will lead a better, fuller life if you bet on his not existing, than if you bet on his existing and therefore squander your precious time on worshipping him, sacrificing to him, fighting and dying for him, etc.”[1] To this Pascal retorts, “no one is so happy as a true Christian, or so reasonable, virtuous, and lovable” (357).


[1] Dawkins, Delusion, 105.