Pascal's *Pensées*(Blaise Pascal, 1670) advances a prudential argument for theistic belief that has shaped the apologetic literature for three and a half centuries. The wager does not claim that the God of classical Christian theism exists, nor that the evidence weighs in favor of existence. It claims that, under uncertainty, belief is the rational bet: finite stakes are wagered against infinite expected return. Where the cosmological and ontological arguments engaged earlier in this cluster purport to establish a conclusion about what is the case, the wager purports only to settle a question about what to do under irresolvable uncertainty. Its appeal is that it appears to bypass the metaphysical disputes the other arguments inherit. The appearance is misleading: the wager does not bypass the metaphysics; it presupposes it, and what the presupposition invites and costs must be assessed on the wager's own decision-theoretic terms.

Contemporary reconstructions sharpen the wager's defended form. Jordan(Jeff Jordan, 2006) develops the canonical analytic treatment, treating the wager as a many-gods-robust decision under genuine option in the William James(William James, 1896) sense, and shows that the wager survives several classical objections when properly reconstructed: the principle of insufficient reason, the mixed-strategies dilemma developed by Hájek(Alan Hájek, 2003), and the symmetric-payoff parodies. Lycan and Schlesinger(William G. Lycan and George N. Schlesinger, 1989) press the dominance argument: granted any non-zero credence in the classical Christian God, no available strategy dominates belief. The load-bearing premise across these reconstructions is the same: *P*(God exists) > 0, where the God in question is the necessary-being God of classical Christian theism whose existence underwrites the infinite expected payoff.

*The modal smuggle.* The wager's prudential framing invites a modal reading it cannot pay for. Non-zero *objective chance* would require a genuine possibility, but Pascal's wager ordinarily uses epistemic credence. A rational agent may assign non-zero credence to a proposition that is in fact impossible because its modal status is unknown. Thus *P*(God exists) > 0 does not by itself entail metaphysical ◇(God exists). The wager therefore need not assert a metaphysical possibility premise; it needs a defensible epistemic credence. The God on whose existence the wager's infinite payoff depends (the God of classical Christian theism, omniscient and omnipotent and morally perfect across worlds) is a necessary being on the tradition's own commitment (Anselm, *Proslogion* II; Aquinas, *Summa Theologiae* I.2.3; Plantinga(Plantinga, A., 1974)). The classical conception forecloses a contingent reading: *God exists* is therefore equivalent to □(God exists), with no contingent witness available. If metaphysical possibility of a necessarily existing God were independently established, S5 would yield necessary existence. The wager's epistemic credence does not establish that modal premise. The argument and its S5 defenses are carried at [§2.1.5](<2.1.5 The S5 Bottleneck.md>), and the parallel line through the modal ontological argument's explicit possibility premise is closed at [§5.1.7](<5.1.7 Modal Ontological Argument.md>). The wager's probability premise does not entail its metaphysical conclusion; it supports only a decision under uncertainty.

The wager resembles Plantinga's argument only if epistemic probability is conflated with metaphysical possibility. Kept distinct, the wager is a decision-theoretic argument under uncertainty, not a disguised S5 proof. Plantinga explicitly uses a metaphysical possibility premise and S5. Pascal uses credence and expected utility. Conflating the two would be an error; the wager must be assessed on decision-theoretic rather than modal-transfer grounds.

*The epistemic reading.* A defender might press that the wager's probability is epistemic, not metaphysical: Pascal is gambling under ignorance, not measuring credence over modal alternatives. This is the wager's standard interpretation, not a retreat. Decision theory routinely operates with epistemic credences under uncertainty. The harder problems are different: assigning coherent probabilities across rival religions and payoff schemes, handling infinite utilities, accounting for mixed strategies and finite costs, and determining whether belief is voluntarily controllable. The epistemic reading therefore preserves the wager while exposing it to the standard decision-theoretic objections.

*A further pressure.* The classical-Christian-God specification is not optional for the wager: it is what underwrites the infinite payoff. The payoff structure requires that the wagered-for being be such that its existence settles eternity in the manner the wager presupposes: omnipotent enough to deliver infinite reward, omniscient enough to recognize the wagered belief, morally engaged enough to honor it. A merely contingent god, or a god whose attributes fall short of the classical specification, does not deliver the payoff structure the wager needs. The many-gods objection presses this from one side: too many candidates fit the prudential frame, and the calculation cannot select between them. The present objection presses it from the other side: only the classical necessary-being God delivers the payoff at all.

*What closes.* The wager does not establish God's existence and should not be converted into an S5 derivation. As prudential reasoning, it depends on contestable epistemic credences, utility assignments, and a treatment of the many-gods problem. The classical-Christian specification supplies one payoff model but does not receive probability merely from being describable. The wager can remain a pragmatic recommendation for some agents under some credal states; it does not settle the rival-ultimate question. A second strand of the wager (Pascal's counsel that one may *cultivate* belief by acting as if, until assent follows) meets the account of the will at [§8.9](<8.9 Will.md>), which shows the will cannot install a conviction its field withholds; it is taken up where that result bears on inculpable nonbelief, in the divine-hiddenness entry (E.13). The strong claim that belief is uniquely rational does not survive without further decision-theoretic and theological premises.


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← [5.1.10 Moral Argument](<5.1.10 Moral Argument.md>) | [5.2 Doctrines of the Divine Nature](<5.2 Doctrines of the Divine Nature.md>) →
