Further Reflections on Pascal’s Wager and Modern Miracles

The Gospel is both True and Important

(In Modern Miracles do we have the type of evidence that could ‘Turn the World upside down’? Acts 17:6)

Abstract

“Receive this Book (the Bible) the most valuable thing this world affords… these are the lively oracles of God” was one of the first things spoken at the beginning of the coronation of Charles III; I believe the evidence accumulated by Professor Craig Keener on modern miracles should result in a second reformation that restores the Bible to a central place in our society and that a modified version of Pascal’s Wager gives us a moral imperative to ensure this transformation takes place.

Pascal’s Wager 

If we accept that Craig Keener’s work on modern miracles has the potential to provide a powerful evidential argument for the God of Christianity^[1] being true, because almost all modern miracles take place within the context of Christianity^[2] (see appendix 1), then we can examine how this impacts Pascal’s Wager^[3].

Though Pascal’s Wager is often associated with belief in God being underdetermined in reality Pascal thought the evidence for God was reasonably strong - basing this evidence on miracles and fulfilled prophecies. I would argue that the evidence for modern miracles has the potential to furnish us with the proof needed to demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt that Christianity is true. The claim that miracles have the ability to achieve that level of proof is also something that God expects. The following quotes should confirm this.

In response to the lack of repentance in Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum Jesus makes the following stark observations: “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I say to you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgement than for you. And you Capernaum, who are exalted to heaven, will be brought down to Hades; for if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained unto this day. But I say to you that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgement than for you^[4]”

Matt 11:20-24

In response to Israel’s refusal to believe that God could deliver them from the giants of Canaan - the Lord said to Moses “How long will these people reject Me? And how long will they not believe Me, with all the signs which I have performed among them?”

Numbers 14:11

In response to John the Baptist’s doubting that Jesus was the ‘Coming One’ - i.e. the Messiah Jesus ‘cured many of infirmities, afflictions, and evil spirits; and to many blind He gave sight. Jesus answered and said to them (the messengers from John the Baptist) “Go and tell John the things you have seen and heard: that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have the gospel preached to them. And blessed is he who is not offended because of Me”

Luke 7:21-23

What is interesting about Jesus’s rebuke to John the Baptist is that Craig Keener’s research furnishes us with many examples of the types of miracles Jesus performed to authenticate that He was the ‘Chosen One’ Israel’s long awaited Messiah. Therefore, if we can establish that modern miracles provide us with proof beyond reasonable doubt that Christianity is true, then two of the major objections to Pascal’s Wager are dealt with: the issue of credulity and the issue of alternative gods. Instead the Wager becomes what Pascal mainly intended it to be:  a plea for his fellow academics to wake up from their indifference to Christianity and to issues of eternity. We can sense Pascal’s passion on this issue from the following quotes:

‘it is a monstrous thing to see in the same heart and at the same time this sensibility to trifles and this strange insensibility to the greatest matters…. The same man who spends so many days in anger and despair at the loss of office or at some imaginary affront to honour, is the same who feels neither disquiet nor emotion at the knowledge that he will lose everything by death’ (Pensee 427, p131).

‘The immortality of the soul is something of such vital importance to us, affecting us so deeply, that one must have lost all feeling not to care about knowing the facts about the matter’ (Pensee 427, p128)

With respect to the mechanics of Pascal’s Wager, if we use +1000 instead of infinity to assess the benefits of spending eternity with God and -1000 to assess the costs of spending eternity separated from God, then this makes the Maths easier to manage. With regard to the following table I have assessed as +1 the best outcome for those who do not believe in the God of Christianity and He does not exist, assuming the person goes on to experience a fully realised life; while the worst outcome for a Christian who believes in God and He does not exist is a completely unrealised life e.g. horrendous lifelong severe persecution, which is assessed as -1.^[5]

However, since the argument from modern miracles has the potential to prove beyond reasonable doubt that Christianity is true, we can change the Wager so that it could be renamed Pascal’s Certainty.

Using ingredients from the wager we can now produce a modern Risk Assessment. As a former Head Teacher I had to deal with many Risk Assessments to ensure the safety of the pupils. The following is a reasonably recent example. The risk is that a pupil will have a serious injury in the playground during break times e.g. a broken bone:

If the aim was to bring the total risk to around 5 or below then it is a judgement call whether to have a second adult on break duty.

Given that the argument from modern miracles has the potential to give us an extremely strong proof that the God of Christianity is true we can now consider the following Risk Assessment: ‘The risk that students are living without a saving faith in God’. To construct this risk assessment, if we assume eternal judgement is 1000 times worse than the loss of our mortal life, then the impact of eternal judgement is 5 x 1000, which equals 5000. With regard to the likelihood of our students not having a saving faith, judging from what I have read and heard, we can assign a figure of 4 out of 5 for likelihood. Therefore our risk assessment without any mitigations will look like this:

As we can see this risk assessment presents us with a massive safeguarding issue - so what mitigations should we put in place?

1 Inform students of the evidence for modern miracles so that they have a realistic assessment of the probability that Christianity is true.

2 Also inform them of the consequences of not having a saving faith.

3 Address potential barriers to faith e.g. explain to the scientific community that the evidence we now have for modern miracles is very strong and consistent with Christianity being true, therefore when dealing with the origin of our universe, life etc. methodological naturalism is not appropriate. In which case, as Anthony Flew pointed out, 50 years of biochemical research now points to the biological world being designed^[7]. This is especially so, because once we no longer have the requirement for methodological naturalism^[8], evolution is no longer the best in field description of what we see in biology; instead intelligent design would become the best in field description^[9]. Once intelligent design becomes widely accepted by the scientific community then I suspect many of our students would become more open to receiving a saving faith in God^[10].

Traditionally these approaches have been called evangelism and apologetics. I believe for the first time in centuries the academic community now has the data needed to be at the forefront of these two approaches. Ultimately, even if the academic community did pursue these mitigations with vigour, I suspect the likelihood number would only drop to 3 or at best 2 because faith cannot be compelled; it is in the end an individual moral decision, but at least the academic community can ensure that this decision is a properly informed decision^[11].

One final observation: if we think these mitigations are too difficult to implement, think about the mitigations we put in place for Covid 19 which constituted a significantly smaller safeguarding risk. Interestingly, Josiah provides a biblical example of this type of mitigation process, when he rediscovered the book of the law (2 Chronicles 34:14-33). I believe that a proper appreciation of the significance of modern miracles would create a second reformation with a profound recognition that in the Bible we have unique access to that most precious of commodities - revealed truth.

Postscript

If we are not convinced that modern miracles provide the proof of Christianity that I have claimed, then Pascal’s Wager means that we need to be sure our arguments for such a position are rigorous and well researched because the consequences of our scepticism are potentially enormous.

Bibliography

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Corner, David Miracles (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

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Keener, Craig Miracles (Baker, 2011)

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McGrew, Timothy Review of ‘A Defense of Hume on Miracles’ by Robert J Fogelin (Mind, Jan, 2005, Vol 114 No 453 (Jan 2005) pp 145-149)

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Appendix 1

In 2011 Professor Craig Keener published Miracles, his book on modern miracles which is full of data that provide very strong evidence that modern miracles do take place; these include situations where 83% of believers surveyed in a Lutheran church in Ethiopia attributed their conversions to healings and exorcisms (2011:318). This is similar to a figure he quotes for Nepal which states ‘80% of Christian conversions in Nepal are due to healings or deliverance from spirits’ (2021:33). With regard to individual healings Keener records many of these, including in his latest book Miracles Today (2021), an extraordinary account of the healing of Barbara Cummiskey who had multiple sclerosis as a teenager, which left her without the power to walk or digest food and ultimately left her blind. It was when she heard the voice of God saying “My child: Get up and walk” that she was healed instantly. Today 40 years later she can still walk and eat and see, and her physicians still have the documents to show what her condition was (2021:xii-xv). Both of Keener’s books are full of testimonies and statistics that provide overwhelming evidence for the reality of miracles. The following are a small sample of the miracles referred to in Professor Keener’s 2011 book on this subject:

A mostly bedridden, eighty-three year old woman who had suffered for a decade from spinal arthritis and angina of the heart was permanently healed after the prayer of a charismatic Episcopal priest.

An engineer's gash wound was completely and instantly healed during an episcopal priest's prayer.

A Baptist pastor's daughter was born with cerebral palsy, with no medical hope for recovery; he was happily astonished when she was healed after prayer, transforming his subsequent ministry.

A man with a severed ankle tendon had his foot locked in place with pins to prevent movement; once healed after prayer he could walk around, moving his foot freely despite ‘the complex mechanisms meant to keep it stationary’.

A woman long suffering from severe asthma and chronic bronchitis was instantly healed.

Inspired by faith in Jesus’s resurrection while watching the Jesus film, a terminal cancer patient who was expected to die soon was healed, and scheduled tests the next day showed that her previously cancer-riddled body was cancer free.

A scar in the eye disappeared, although medically this does not happen on its own.

A woman who had been diagnosed with low blood sugar, allergies, a long-term heart murmur and a pancreatic problem, was immediately healed of all of them.

A person was healed of deafness and inability to walk when a believer prayed.

A young man was expected by doctors to die, but after four days he was out of bed, in conjunction, he claims, with a vision from Jesus.

Page 501 Vol 1 ‘Miracles’, Professor Craig S. Keener (2011 Baker Academic)

Also watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-a9mJYF-AQ

Appendix 2 - Jesus' use of Pascal's Wager

Matthew 5v12 “Great is your reward in heaven”

Matthew 5v22 “In danger of hellfire”

Matthew 5v25 “Be cast into prison”

Matthew 5v29 “It is more profitable for you, that one of your members should perish than for your whole body to be cast into hell.”

Matthew 5v24-27 Contrasting wise and foolish people

Matthew 8v12 “Weeping and gnashing of teeth” (for lack of faith)

Matthew 10v15 “More tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment, than for that city.”

Matthew 10v28 “Fear him who is able to destroy both the soul and the body in hell”

Matthew 10v32 “Therefore whoever confess Me before men, him I will also confess also before my Father which is in heaven”

Matthew 10v33 “Whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before my Father who is in heaven”

Matthew 10v41 Receiving prophets rewarded

Matthew 12v36 “Then every idle word that men shall speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment”

Matthew 12v41-42 But Nineveh and the Queen of the south shall rise up in judgment on this generation and condemn

Matthew 13v30 first gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn (see verse 42 and 43 for interpretation)

Matthew 13v49-50 “Angels will come forth and separate the wicked from among the just and cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.”

Matthew 16v26 “For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul? or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?”

Matthew 16v27 “He will reward each according to his works”

Matthew 18v8-9 If hand, foot or eye offend, it is better to enter into life maimed than to be cast into everlasting fire.

Matthew 18v34-35 Unforgiveness will be judged.

Matthew 19v29 “Everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands for My name’s sake shall receive a hundredfold, and inherit everlasting life”

Matthew 20v1-15 Rewards for working in the vineyard.

Matthew 22v6-7 Because the kings servants were treated spitefully, the king destroyed the perpetrators.

Matthew 23v14 Hypocrites shall receive greater damnation

Matthew 23v37-38 “Jerusalem the one who kills the prophets … how often I wanted to gather your children together... but you were not willing. See your house is left to you desolate.”

Matthew 24v44-51 Faithful and wise servant rewarded, evil servant punished

Matthew 25v1-13 Wise virgins rewarded, foolish virgins punished.

Matthew 25v14-30 People using talents wisely rewarded, those that do not are punished.

Matthew 25v31-46 Sheep and goats; one rewarded one punished according to how they treated the least of God's people.

The following are verses from the other three gospels.

Mark 3:29; Luke 6:23; John 3:3                Mark 6:11; Luke 6:25; John 3:15

Mark 8:36; Luke 6:35; John 3:16        Mark 6:38; Luke 6:46-49; John 4:14

Mark 9:42; Luke 9:25; John 5:24        Mark 9:43-48; Luke 9:26; John 5:26-29

Mark 10:29-30; Luke 10:12-15; John 6:27        Mark 12:38-40; Luke 10:20; John 6:40

Mark 14:21; Luke 11:31-32; John 6v47        Mark 16:16; Luke 11:39-52; John 6:53

Luke 12:5; John 8:24                Luke 12:8-9; John 10:9                                Luke 12:16-21; John 10v27

Luke 12:36-38; John 11:25        Luke 12:43-44; John 12:25        Luke 12:46; John 12:48

Luke 12:59; John 14:2                Luke 13:5; John 14:21                                Luke 13:24-26

Luke 14:14;         Luke 14:24;        Luke 16:19-31         Luke 17:33

Luke 18:22                 Luke 19:27                Luke 23:53