WHAT HAVE YOU GOT TO LOSE?

"What have you got to lose by giving your life to Jesus?"

The question is usually asked by a prosperous white American living comfortably with a spouse, a house, three children, and a white-picket fence. In an evangelist setting it sounds something like this:

"If God isn't real and Jesus isn't the truth, and this life is all there is, what has it cost me? I had a good life following God and loving my family, and if I die and there's nothing else, I have nothing to lose. But IF God is real and Jesus is the truth and there is a heaven and a hell after this life, then YOU have EVERYTHING to lose!"

This proposition is known in philosophic circles as Pascal's Wager.

1. "God is, or He is not"
2. A Game is being played... where heads or tails will turn up.
3. According to reason, you can defend neither of the propositions.
4. You must wager. It is not optional.
5. Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing.
6. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is. (...) There is here an infinity of an infinitely happy life to gain, a chance of gain against a finite number of chances of loss, and what you stake is finite. And so our proposition is of infinite force, when there is the finite to stake in a game where there are equal risks of gain and of loss, and the infinite to gain.

But both Pascal and the modern user of this piece of logic miss out on something quite elementary: There is a lot to be lost in wagering for God/Jesus in the eventuality of his non-existence. You'd have a hard time believing it in affluent North America today, but the life Jesus called his followers to was one of self-denial, persecution and tribulation.

Matthew 16:24, Mark 8:34, Luke 9:23,
Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.

John 15:20
Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also.


On the one hand, Pascal is right. IF there is an eternity, then banking your temporary life on its existence seems smart. But on the other hand, if this life is all there is and you don't happen to be blessed with a comfortable middle class life that makes you a winner either way, the stakes of the gamble are MUCH higher.

I may choose to live my life very differently if I believe there's no higher power to whom I must justify my life choices. I may not abstain from sex and die a virgin simply because I can't find a man who wants to commit to me in marriage. I certainly won't waste my summer getting sunburned handing out tracts to "lost souls" on the sidewalk. I will probably continue to care for the suffering and needy around me - because I too am flesh and can empathize with their plight. But I certainly won't choose to be a martyr for Jesus if I'm not absolute certain he's real.

So Mr Pascal, you're mistaken. Living as though there is a God isn't necessarily the best move. If you love your life of Sunday School Picnics, have a loving spouse and a good Christian family you may have less to lose if you turn out to be wrong about the existence of God. But for those of us for whom a life of following Jesus really does turn out to be trial, tribulation and sacrifice. We've got a lot more to lose. And the answers to Pascal's coin-flip matter a lot more, either way.

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"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." - Jim Elliot
"He is a fool who clings to what he does not have and loses what he does." - Kristine Kruszelnicki