Tag: faith

Men of faith wager their lives on the existence of an afterlife. Is that a good gamble?

“But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”.

1 Corinthians 2:9

There is an old philosophy from Blaise Pascal that acts as a fail-safe for our faith. It’s called “Pascal’s Wager”. It states that what you believe about the afterlife is a gamble, because you cannot truly know what will happen after death. The main point is that one should behave as if God exists, because the possibility of eternal punishment outweighs any benefit of atheism.

So the atheist wagers that there will be no God, and no afterlife.
The Believer wagers that there is a God and as a result there is an afterlife. 

Both cannot prove what they think in the present moment, that is why it is a wager. Pascal argues that The Christian’s wager is better or safer than the atheist’s.

If the atheist is wrong, he goes to hell. If he is right, he goes to non-existence. His wager is a win-lose scenario, a 50/50 chance of his gamble working out in his favor. 

For the Christian: if he is right, he goes to heaven and eternal pleasure. If he is wrong, he goes to non-existence.

His belief is a win-win scenario, a 100% chance of the afterlife working out in his favor, because there is nothing wrong with non-existence. In fact, some might find the idea of non-existence more pleasing than the idea of heaven. This is a result of the way that weak people in the Church have decided to describe heaven. In reality, men don’t want to sit around singing “Days of Elijah” on an endless loop for all time. That is how the Church describes heaven. That is one reason why men don’t find the idea of heaven very motivating. Some may even leave the Church because of this.

This entire wager is a buffer for us as weak men. We will doubt our faith, doubt God, doubt the afterlife, but this wager can be a tool that we use to combat the doubt. I know there are some pusillanimous people who will freak out when you try to use anything besides mindless “faith” and emotional “belief” when it comes to your motivation to do what is right. Many days you will have to conjure up some sort of external motivation. 

Hell deters us from evil. Pascal’s wager deters us from leaving the faith. Use this tool to maintain the faith when you are particularly weak. 

Mantra

Faith has no downside.

Application

Use the wager to beat your doubts. When your emotions begin to fail you, use your rational mind to maintain the faith. Pascal’s wager is designed to appeal to the rational mind. Use the wager to remind yourself that your “gamble” about the afterlife has the best possible outcome. 

It is in your best interest to behave as if there is a God. No immediate pleasure is worth eternal punishment. Always be mindful of that.

Conduct yourselves like Men.

Read On

“And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.”

Hebrews 11:6

“The apostles said to the Lord, ‘Increase our faith!’”

Luke 17:5

“He said to them, “Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.’”

Matthew 17:20

Is your faith weak? Or do you have no idea what faith is? What many individuals in the Church have done is they have confused faith with an emotional state.

Faith is not emotion, it is action.

Action then in turn creates the emotions commonly associated with faith. Do not confuse what you feel for genuine faith. In the same way that you should not confuse what you feel emotionally towards another person for genuine love.

You think your faith is weak because you have thousands of questions about the nature of God.

You wonder why He is the way that He is.

Why He chose to destroy people in the Old Testament or execute a furious vengeance on people who did not obey Him.

You question your own salvation and wonder if the grace of God is enough to save even a soul like yours.

You are not sure if you will be saved because you are confused by God’s justice and the way it differs from man’s justice.

You wonder if you are wasting time in the Church, wasting time in your faith and giving up on pleasures of life solely for the purpose of faith.

All these thoughts are the attacks of the enemy on your faith.

You hold fast to the faith even when you do not feel like it, when you do not want to or even when you think everything about it is wrong. You hold fast the faith through discipline and focus because that is how a disciple behaves. This is true faith. Staying in the Church when your emotions pull you away from it is faith. Doing what is right even when it is inconvenient is faith. Faith is trusting in God’s plan even though it looks wrong to you. Faith is maintained despite everything you feel. Real faith is not an emotion, it is an attitude combined with an action.

Faith is the attitude of relentlessness, knowing you will never give up the faith. Then following it up with the action of maintaining that faith. Christianity is very difficult, very Spartan. It is not for the faint-hearted. Modern culture has made it possible to have a weak faith and be faithful because there are no real consequences to being faithful right now. When the times arises for the true warriors of Christ to rise and resist a violent persecution, the weak will fall away. The strong and faithful will remain.

All of your questions will not be answered in this world.

You will not get to the bottom of the way you feel and you will not know if your sacrifices in life have been worth it until the very end. You will not know if giving everything up in life was worth heaven. You do not even know if you yourself are going to heaven.

This is not weak faith, this is a faith that is being refined by fire.

Your faith is tested and tried through all of these assorted evils. The most faithful will survive to the end of the gauntlet and be rewarded. Maintain your faith. You do not have weak faith, you have a faith that is under assault, there is a huge difference.

Faith is action and Attitude.

Application:

Recognize that every thought, fear and worry you have in your mind regarding your faith is merely a test. The strength of your character, mind and discipline are being tested against the evils of this world.

You have to make large sacrifices of pleasure in order to hold the faith. You will not know if it is worth it, but you must maintain the faith nonetheless. You must hold fast to the disciplines that you know and blot out the evil thoughts of the adversary that pollute your mind. This life is a game of endurance, all you have to do is endure to the end and you will be victorious.

Do not question your faith if you are having great difficulty in your life, for this is merely the fire that is turning you into the strong individual that you want to be.

Every great person that you admire, whether in the faith or in the world, has undergone this transformation. A valuable gold cannot be refined without a hot furnace. Endure those moments of refinement and you will understand that your faith is not weak, it is being built into something great.

Prepare your mind for the siege of the enemy. Gather together positive thoughts and ideas that you will contemplate when you are attacked by the enemy. Create the best possible mental image of heaven to motivate yourself to that goal. Resist every evil thought of the evil one. You can win this war, it is only a matter of time.

Strengthen your mind.