Is there a Ducky in Pascal’s Box?

Your Rent a Friend is listening to Dashboard Confessional

His mood is negatively effected by cheap French Onion Soup

Are you a gambler? Do you love the thrill of tossing those dice, spinning that wheel or pulling the leaver? Are you, like me, seriously disappointed by the new slot machines where you push a button? I mean, seriously! Push a button? Pulling the leaver is half of the fun! Where else in life do you get to pull a leaver anymore? Maybe if you’re a mad scientist creating a monster in a lightning storm, but for the rest of us (Or mad scientists in nice weather I suppose) we want the leaver! Don’t take away the only interaction I have before my money disappears forever! I want a leaver to pull and spinning pictures of fruit! I’d get that feature in my next car if it were available.I myself am not really a gambling man. The primary reason is this: I will always lose. You’re better off betting against me than against the Chicago Cubs. If there are dice in my hands, I am going to lose. I think it’s my spiritual gift. Which brings me to today’s topic. What if I could offer you a bet with a certain and amazing pay off?  Yes, you have to pay in at the front, but you can’t lose anything, and you have the chance of winning vastly more than you can possibly imagine. Sound good? Let me give you a metaphor: “Is There a Ducky?”!

The game of “Is There a Ducky?” is simple. There is a box which MIGHT contain a rubber duck. You pay a dollar to play. Your job is to guess whether or not there is a duck in the box.

If you guess that there is a ducky in the box, and there is, you get A LIFETIME of FABULOUS RICHES!

If you guess that there is a ducky in the box, but there is not, you don’t get fabulous riches, but you get your dollar back, and a free consolation party with buffalo wings and a build-your-own-sundae bar.

If you guess there is no ducky in the box and you’re right, you get your dollar back and the flu.

If you guess there is no ducky in the box and there IS a duck in the box, you get fined $20,000 and you serve up to fifteen years in prison.

The smart money will bet on the ducky. Nothing to lose, lots to gain. Bet on the ducky.

I happen to have a gamble for you which is even better than that! But first, a little French History.

In the 1600’s there lived a Frenchman named Blaise Pascal. This guy was freaky smart. He invented the world’s first calculator for his father, who was an accountant working with the chaotic mess known as French money. After he invented the calculator he (no joke) immediately found people selling cheap knock offs of his invention. Necessity is the mother of invention, but invention is the mother of plagiarism.

Pascal also discovered some scientific proofs for the existence of the vacuum (the absence of matter, not the cleaner of carpets), invented public transportation, and did some fancy math for gamblers to figure out who’s winning at any point in the game. His mathematical work with gambling is used to run the world of insurance today. I wish I was kidding about that- but it does explain a lot. In short, the house always wins.

The sure bet I am offering you is actually the work of this man- Blaise Pascal. It’s called Pascal’s Wager (Catchy, right?) and it goes like this:

Bet on God! You Can’t lose!

OK, that’s an over simplification. Let me break it down.

Pascal realized that, when it comes to God and your belief in Him, there are only four possibilities:

1. God is real, and you believe in Him.
2. God is real and you do NOT believe in Him.
3. God is Not real, but you believe in Him
4. God is Not real, and you do Not believe in Him.

Why would you chose to bet on God? Because the payoff is either good or awesome. You can’t lose anything, but you might win everything!

If you believe in God and He is real, your payoff can be a right relationship with God, salvation from sin, eternal life in heaven, purpose and meaning in this life, a basis for morality, an identity in your loving creator, and many more joys. In short, lots of super awesome things!

“What if you bet on God but He is not real?” you ask. In that case, you THINK you have all of these things, and live a life believing morals are real, life has meaning, you have value, and heaven is to come, but when you die you blink out of existence and never know you were wrong. You get your dollar back.

Is that so bad?

But what if you decide there is no God? You will believe that you are not the creation of a loving, eternal God. You are the accidental collision of atoms. There is no purpose to life, or meaning to anything, and you are a valueless accident with no hope for anything in the future except pain and death. You get to believe all of that. Not much of a pay off.

But what if you decide to believe there is no God but you are wrong? In that case, you think you live a meaningless, hopeless life with no moral basis and no intrinsic value, and you miss the truth about your value, the hope of what could be your future, the relationship with God that he offers you, and instead make yourself His enemy. Instead of blinking out of existence, you find yourself on the wrong end of his judgment and wrath.

In short- if you decide there is no God, you’d better be REAL SURE. Because if you’re right, it’s bleak and miserable and hopeless and the pay off is thinking you are right about life being bleak and miserable and hopeless. If you’re wrong, it gets much worse.

Pascal invites you to bet on God because the pay off, even if you are wrong, is pretty good. But of course, I plan to show you that, not only is God very real, but He’s closer than you know, easy to meet, and eager to love you forever. Pascal’s wager doesn’t prove the existence of God, but I think it proves that you’d be pretty unwise to just remain an agnostic, and, frankly, fairly foolish to want to be an atheist. Even if you’re right, the pay off stinks. The alternative is at least worth looking into.

Take the smart bet my friends! Roll the dice with me and see what comes up! I’m going to introduce you to all kinds of metaphysical, philosophical, historical, scientific, and mathematical proofs for the existence of the God of the Bible. Maybe you’ll meet God personally and heaven will be your reward! You won’t find a lot of Casinos offering that.

I’m betting on the ducky in the box. But I’m also going to show you how to shake the box and hear the ducky bouncing around in there, read the label that says “Contents: One duckie” and then we’ll sneak up to the box and say, “Hey, ducky. You in there?” and he’ll say, “Yes. I’m in the box.”

I say, pull the metaphysical leaver. What have you got to lose? And, thankfully for me, there are no actual dice involved. My odds of winning have skyrocketed.

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