Pascal's Decision

Yesterday a friend and I visited another, mutual friend who is living in an assisted care facility for people with dementia.

My friend is especially torn because of the onset of dementia with our mutual friend.

So, at one point, just the two of us were sitting in the lobby while our mutual friend was enjoying herself having a cupcake in the activity room.

My friend said things like dementia, and social injustice, cause her to question the existence of God. It's a classic case of, "If God's so good and all-powerful, why does God allow..."

Blaise Pascal came up with an approach to handle this question which is called Pascal's Decision or Dilemma. It goes like this:

If there is a God, and you live a moral life, then you've satisfied the criteria to be in Heaven when you pass from this life.
If there isn't a God, and you live a moral life, then at least you've lived like a decent human being, regardless if God exists or not.

Now, there are lots of arguments, pro and con concerning Pascal's Dilemma, and I'm not a philosopher and I'm not writing this post to prove the existence of God. (Actually, it would seem that if there is a fail proof argument that absolutely, without a need for faith, proves God's existence, then we would have discovered it by now; or God would have given it to us).

My main point is much less ambitious and pretty simple. It's that God, if God exists (and I want to say that I happen to believe that God does exist), decided to require faith to establish relationship with us.

It seems like it really comes down to that. Each of us either decides to believe, or not. On faith. That's the essential question. You can debate God's goodness or any other aspect of God that you like, but it seems like those other questions are philosophical icing on the cake.

I don't mean to minimize tough questions. Or ignore the fact that awful things happen in life, oftentimes, without our ability to make sense of them. I'm only trying to grab hold of the broader, bigger issue, in light of my friend and I's conversation in the lobby of the assisted care facility.