A variant on Pascal’s wager suggests that since we are unable to be certain that there is no afterlife—that there is a 50/50 percent chance—we might as well "take our chances" and be good. This way, we might have everlasting life for just such a reason; for it is intuitive that people that do bad things haven’t a chance in the world. Of course, lots of people simply assume that there is no afterlife, or, analogously, that there is no God. But the argument suggests that since one cannot be certain that there isn’t one, it is better to be good than bad, given the chance that it may be rewarding to be good. Therefore, the argument suggests that one should be good, if only to escape eternal damnation.
Notice that I have recast this argument in order to minimize the problems that its original formulation provided. First, I am not suggesting that one must suppose that God exists. As far as I’m concerned, there is no theory-neutral way of going about defining what one means. Thus, it avoids the argument from inconsistent revelation. (Many argued that Pascal’s argument wasn’t sufficient to make one believe in Yhwh. In other words, many Christians might take this argument to be proof that it is rational to believe in Yhwh, without realizing that the very same reasoning can be used for any God, even Science.) Second: the argument is completely ambiguous what it means to be ‘good’. So, it doesn’t suppose that one must live a Christian life, with prayer and lots of kneeling, nor that a life filled with the absence of such things would be a life that is better; rather, it suggests that being good, being a moral exemplar, is open to proof. I suggest that this would be best carried out in the manner of the ancient Greeks: to find out what it means to be ‘good’, we compare exemplars. (And wouldn't that be revealing!)
I want to focus for a second on the above argument. According to that argument it is rational to be good. If we are good and there is an after-life reward in being as such, then we have everything to gain for being good. On the other hand, if we are good and there is no afterlife, then at least we were good. On the other hand, if we are bad, then if there is infinite punishment, we lose everything we might gain by being bad. Besides, we end up being jerks. On this reading, the gist of Pascal’s argument is that even if there is no reward in the afterlife for being good, it is still best to be good, because then we would be moral exemplars. The trouble of course, is that we have no idea what it means to be good.
It seems to me that the real pressing trouble with the above dichotomy is that it suggests that we should pursue the good life, because of the ‘rewards’ that await us possibly in the afterlife; and in particular, that the rewards that await us in the next life are better than the rewards that await us in this life. The sort of desiring experimentation problematically generates dystopian apathy about our world. By virtue of such potential hopes (for better rewards), we overlook the 100 percent certain fact that we are alive (not dead), and that it is 100 percent possible to be moral exemplars. We shouldn't be better people because it may reward us; rather we should be better people because being better is rewarding.
Of course, by comparing the rewards in this life with the rewards in the next (whatever these may be), it was thought that one could thereby distract everyone from the obvious fact that being good just isn't rewarding in any material sense. So by being good, it was reasoned that one would be rewarded with spiritual blessings. Furthermore, by focussing on the afterlife, it seems almost automatic that one is less likely to make an effort to improve present conditions. (But religion has bever really been that insterested). If we deflate this idea by focusing on spiritual blessing in life, rather than in the nothingness that may be after-death, it seems we are well on our way to realizing heaven on earth by being good. But couple the vague idea of 'blessing' (material and spiritual) with the absurd logic that God blesses the faithfully obedient, and you've got a pretty good explainer for why lots of the faithful wouldnt even come close to being moral exemplars by an reasonable observational standard.
Perhaps what we really have is not a world that is shot to hell, a view that almost necessitates a positive, hopeful, answer to the 50/50 question, is there a heaven?; but rather, a world in which one is living hell and reaping rewards and a world in which one is living heaven by reaping infinite blessings. How then might this appear? How might heaven, like Eden, or the practices of the early Christians (Acts 2:44-6)--Paris 1871--be on earth? Here's a story.
Perhaps becoming a moral exemplar is a matter of simply not being leviathan, a matter of resistance to the mega-machine that grinds us to the point of desiring more and more for ourselves. The machine takes, and we, in turn, take more. Perhaps then the infinite blessing in our 100 percent certain alive life today is simply giving more and more to the earth and its inhabitants, without any intention to receive. Not a holding-in for ourselves at the expense of others; rather an out-pouring of spirit, a pure immanent dance with each other. If we resist leviathan, we become human, ineffable perhaps; and if we realize our infinity through resistance to the megamachine--that we are not simply objects to be manipulated and controlled--and we make that our daily prayer, even if an afterlife could be better than that, it may not really matter.
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