The Apostle and The Wager

I find that in Pascal’s “The Wager” he provides an interesting point on Doxastic Voluntarism. This is when believing and not believing are a choice left to the individual to make. However it is not just fully choice. It is more of the allowance of belief and then strengthening that belief. He provides an example in which if someone were to pay you $1,000 to believe that pigs do in fact fly, you still not genuinely believe so just because of the incentive. In order to truly adopt a belief, steps must be taken to strengthen yourself in that belief. Just as with anything we as humans peruse in life. The proper measures must be taken.

In the movie I chose to watch this week called, “The Apostle” belief seems to be one of the struggle that Sonny struggles with the most. He has a strong foundation in God and a fairly open one at that. He grew up going to a non-segregated church. He firmly believed that there was no such place for that in the House of God. He is a faithful Pentecostal preacher who begins to lose his touch with God when his wife leaves him for another man and he acts violently against him by putting him into a coma. It seems that the more he questions God, the further the wedge between himself and God.

It is not until he begins to take steps towards God that he truly begins to feel like he is within His presence again. He has a moment of rebirth when Sonny baptizes himself and calls himself “The Apostle E.F.” He brings together a church, a radio show where he also delivers sermons, as well as converting a racist man who fully intended on originally dismantling Sonny and his church. These are examples of the steps in which Pascal is talking about. However, Sonny still has to face the consequences of his actions seeing as his ex-wife’s former lover, who once was in a coma, did not come out of it and died.

Sonny is left to start over again in his pursuit of God’s favoring eye. He submits himself into the arms of custody from the police he has been running from for years. By the end of the movie, we see him using his time in prison continuing to preach to those who listen. We are left with an ending scene in which Sonny and other inmates are cleaning up the sides of the highway all while speaking on Jesus.