Recently, an old friend of mine informed me and another friend that he has been going back to the church where we all met in our teenage years – a church I can’t imagine ever personally stepping foot in again. I and the other jaded friend present questioned him on this, asking why go back there, of all churches, much less any church of the kind really. In sharp contrast to the two of us, he seems to still think highly of this church, which I suppose is perfectly fine if it works for him.

But at one point he said, in so many words, it’s better to be going to church and be a heathen, than to be a heathen and not go to church at all. Of course, I can’t really follow such reasoning or see any point in it at all unless he was trying to make a case that church serves a function of being a positive influence on individuals to somehow keep their worst impulses in check and/or make them better people. But even then, if the individual is coming and going without going through any significant change or feeling the need to seriously adhere to anything, then I would have to say the church would be seriously failing to serve such a function, and the whole point would be defeated anyway.

Of course, I am not suggesting churches are to play that role (and they do seem to routinely fail at it anyway). Also, others might make a strong case that that is not what the gospel or the Church is really supposed to be about. But I thought about all this shortly after the conversation and realized, while it may not often be overtly expressed or officially supported, my friend’s thinking here really isn’t all that uncommon. Further, his reasoning is not without philosophical precedent either. Here, I’m thinking of Pascal with his well-known “Faith is a Rational Wager,” wherein he used a cost-benefit analysis to argue that belief in God is, in essence, the more reasonable side of a coin we all have to call in the air so to speak. In other words, Pascal argued, while we are not able to definitively prove God’s existence (or nonexistence) with reason and may not have adequate evidence for it, we still have to make a choice; a wager for or against God’s existence and all that goes along with it.

Pascal concluded it is reasonable to believe, or at least work toward belief, because the believer stands to gain an infinite amount, while practically risking nothing, or at least risking only finite trivialities. He even suggested that those who feel they are unable to believe should simply begin going through the religious motions, “acting as if they believe,” and that by doing so they will gain in this life (by becoming better people) and then likely come to truly believe (or effectively make themselves believe) after they see so much sense and reward in believing, at such little cost.

I’m sure that many can muster (and have mustered) numerous criticisms of Pascal’s Wager. And I imagine even many Christians might criticize it as a misleading, oversimplified picture of faith. But I am not suggesting what Pascal described is what all faith boils down to by any means, or that he even accurately portrayed the Christian faith.

However, I point to Pascal for two reasons. One, his wager can easily be translated into my friend’s reasoning for at least going to church, or, to put it more broadly, into the kind of halfhearted, churchgoing, “good” Christian life identity common to my cultural surroundings. Two, no matter how one approaches faith or determines what really constitutes being a “believer,” it seems, with religion, it is really difficult to escape, as a primary consideration, this kind of self-interested cost-benefit analysis at the heart of Pascal’s Wager.

While many might disagree with the particular way Pascal treated faith, his primary assumption – that considerations of the infinite (afterlife) demand we must make a choice for or against faith – fully lines up with common approach to Christianity. We have all been told things of that sort at one time or another in church. In fact, preachers often paint a much more immediate picture of the situation than Pascal did. Pascal didn’t even focus on what the individual stands to lose (infinitely) for unbelief or not making any choice at all. But how often are people reminded in church of the terrible punishment that awaits them, their family, and their friends in hell if they do not “come to Christ?” In essence, then, many preach the same point – just more intensely – that Pascal was getting at; that not believing or not choosing for faith is a bad wager – it is just not worth the risk in other words.

I am pointing all this out, because, firstly, I think the cost-benefit analysis – or the closely related dichotomy between eternal reward and eternal punishment – is consistently used to compel or even manipulate people into making a choice (or even merely churchgoing). Secondly, that and the following notion that we are stuck without any choice but to convert or infinitely suffer terribly is something I have come to severely struggle with. But just as Pascal argued that belief costs us nothing in comparison to what we can gain, I often hear many preachers praise just how simple and rewarding salvation is and how incredible God is to even offer us grace because we, in our sin, do not deserve it; or, in other words, fully deserve to suffer in hell. To be fair, though, most would deny that actually “living the Christian life” is easy at all, while yet still asserting that becoming a Christian is as easy as A(dmit) B(elieve) C(onfess).

So why is it no longer simple at all, then, for me to believe, much less choose (or go to church at all)? Sometimes I feel like I’m the only one I know who struggles with the choice. I highly doubt that is the case, of course, but most people I know seem to be comfortable with some sort of belief or somewhat content in unbelief. But I feel a bit stuck in this undecided middle ground and have come to resent the notion that I even have to make a choice. And what’s worse, I have come to seriously question God. Of course, whenever I do so, I am stung with the reminder of these words of the Apostle Paul,

But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’ “ Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use? What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory. (Romans 9:20-23)

But that is precisely the point. Why would God do such a harsh thing, and why exactly should we be alright with that? Or to put it another way, if God made us with the capacity for reason, intellect, and sense, then why should we be expected to, as Galileo said, “forgo their use,” and simply accept any part of his nature or any of his methods as rightly beyond our comprehension and our own sense of what feels right and wrong?

I recently heard a preacher, who is rather adept at standing up straw men, mention people who complain about Christian doctrine asserting that good people will have to go to hell simply for not ever knowing or calling on the name of Jesus. The preacher’s counter to this was that it was not the proper perspective. He said, instead, of course, that every one of us is destined for hell because of our sin, and we deserve nothing better. And, he concluded, it is only because of Jesus that we can be saved at all. But, for me, that is just a rewording of the same problem and doesn’t really make it sound any better. The troubling element of that whole doctrine goes all the way back to the initial idea that God created all of us and everything else, and this sovereign God seemingly chose to allow sin to enter the world at a supposedly terrible price; so that we are now here, born into this mess, presumably forced to choose (or be chosen for) one side of the coin or face the unthinkable consequence on the other side, whether we like it or not.

All I’m really saying is, contrary to what I was constantly told growing up, that is a very hard message with difficult implications, and it only gets worse the deeper one tries to go into constructing a systematic, biblical doctrine. But maybe Pascal had a point that it is a seemingly simple choice with so little to lose, or maybe Paul was right that we can’t fully comprehend what God is all about, but I am just not satisfied with those options. And if anyone is going to start questioning this whole thing, then I think they have to question the fear of impending judgment/desire for eternal reward that gives many cause to believe in the first place and keeps them coming back. Perhaps it is the common assumption that everyone must want to go to heaven – because the alternative must be an eternity of unbearable torment, while heaven, on the other hand, must be the greatest place imaginable – that should be questioned. Perhaps some see it, instead, as a matter less of the eternal self-interest consideration and more of simply either coming to genuinely want God or reject God (or not believe) and all that we’re told goes with or without him. In that case, my problem may just be not being sure if I really do want God after all – at least the God I have always been shown. I guess I just don’t know for sure, though there must be myriad ways to perceive all this.

But at any rate, I do know I am not satisfied to try to have and retain faith simply because people have attempted to foster an intense fear of hell in me; nor am I satisfied to continue going to church or foster a personal religion simply because people have tried to make me feel scared and ashamed of my own humanity. That is not to say I think terribly highly of my humanity, of course, but, rather, I just have no desire to be manipulated through shame, guilt, and fear.