That the Only Rational Reaction to Death is to Call on God for Aid

I am assuming as the basis of the following argumentation (as well as throughout this essay) that God has neither been proved to exist nor disproved; that God may exist and may not; and I hope to defend the Pascal’s Wager position that faith in God is the only rational response to life as we have it, though without proof that he exists. Were we purely rational beings, of course this could not be defended. Simply believing in any P with no proof at all, when the burden of proof is on P--take any P you like--is an irrational position and thus would be abhorrent to philosophy. But--for good or for ill--we are not purely rational beings but beings in a predicament, beings susceptible to horrific suffering and the categorical helplessness of death, wherein we have no control but nonetheless must accept whatever waits for us--even if it be eternal sleep. Were we disinterested in God’s existence as we are disinterested in the ontological status of numbers, it would only be rational to believe in God insofar as we can prove and defend our position via evidence and logic. But we are not disinterested when it comes to a being who can save us from all evil; and our life will never be disinterested toward God so long as we are subject to death, suffering and the rest of the human predicament. We have much more than a minor interest in seeing whether God exists: we have, in fact, the highest stake in the question.

If they are right who claim--and most who believe in God have claimed this--that God will favor those who call on him and believe in him, that God will come to the rescue of those who request his aid, then we have a peculiar situation for philosophy. We have a situation where this is far from some abstract, non-practical question to which to apply logic and reasoning; we have a situation where those who believe in a given P may show practical gain for so believing--and when human life is as dire as it is, with the possibilities for suffering as great as they are, it is an incredible gain for those who believe in this P (that God exists), if it be true. In fact, if God exists, belief in him would be the most crucial thing we could do to save ourselves from a world full of evil.

We said above that death is categorical helplessness and that death is a certainty for all, and a conditional possibility for all at every moment. A helpless situation is one in which we can do nothing to aid ourselves, but must rely on rescue from others. This is precisely what death is, though it is not just any others that are able to help us. In fact, our friends and family, who may be present as we are dying--they cannot help us. We are leaving the material world, and nobody can predict what awaits us; no one living can come to our rescue, and even should death be simply eternal sleep and nonexistence, then we helplessly accept eternal sleep and nonexistence.

But again, according to the story as we have it--the story of God--God will forgive liberally, and is able and willing to come to our aid at death, if only we are humble enough to call on him. We do not know that this story is true, but nor do we know it to be untrue. Are we then to withhold our plea to God for him to come to our rescue, even at the categorical helplessness of death, because we have not a proof that God exists? When the stakes are as high as that, is it rational to withhold our plea for help? Are we to refuse to ask God to aid and save us, because he may not exist? Is this at all rational--in such a situation of practical, real consequences--to refuse to solicit the aid of one who, if he exists, will certainly save us? Suppose a ship’s captain refused to send the mayday signal as his ship was going down, simply because he did not know for certain anybody was in range to receive the signal. The ship is certainly going down; is it rational for the captain to withhold sending the mayday signal because it hasn’t been proved to him there are ships listening and near enough to save the crew? This is analogous to our situation here. If we were not mortal creatures, if we had no stake in all of this, if death were not categorical helplessness and total dependence--then, perhaps we could debate the existence of God as we debate the ontology of numbers; then we would be totally disinterested. But--fortunately or unfortunately--we are not disinterested, but in fact this is a question of incredible practical gain or loss for us, with very real consequences in a very real predicament.

We can argue all we want about whether God is compatible with evil and death; we can point out fallacies in proofs of God’s existence and use the problem of evil to show him unlikely to be; but nonetheless, the only rational response to such a world--a world with evil and death--is after all to plead and call on the one who can save us from such a wretched state. Evil may make God’s existence less likely, but it will always--and ever has--been the very reason to bend the knee and plead for rescue from the dismal situation of our mortal life.