The decision of whether or not to believe in the presence of a divine being is at the least a large and rather complicated decision that one must make in their life. However, for many people this decision is not made with any particular thought, but rather a learned pattern that is acquired by conditioning during childhood. This belief, although sometimes questioned, is most often taken for granted and placed as the foundation of all later beliefs. Pascal in his Wager considered belief and regarded it as an essential property due to the gamble which people must take upon deciding for or against belief. In this sense, Pascal encourages the unexamined beliefs. However, Pascal's Wager, while a valid argument for the necessity of belief, does not extend much beyond the idea that belief is indeed warranted and that one should pursue such a life.

Pascal's wager, taken at face value, is not an argument of little significance. The idea that one has a choice between belief and non-belief and a chance between right and wrong is simple, straightforward, and clear. However, the details of what this decision can bring a human being is not as clear nor as significant and therefore diminishes the power of his argument.

The fact that the argument was written from a Judeo-Christian point of view is not lost on the reader as he/she is regaled with standard expressions of a typical Christian religious life. "Follow the way by which they began; by acting as if they believe, taking the hold water, having masses said." (Pojman 399). However, his wager does not point to a particularly detailed account of which god to believe in and how to perform such a life of belief to the fullest. As long as the principle behind the belief in a god is revolving around eternal life or no eternal life the wager still holds. This denies the idea that the god that controls the gift of eternal life is not the Judeo-Christian conception of God.

The idea that the god is not the Christian god is a large problem in the Wager. In the Protestant Christian belief system, one must have belief that Jesus was sent as a savior to the world. If one believes in this happening, then one gains the fruit of eternal life. If the actual god is the Protestant god and the person holds this belief, the Wager holds and the person gains. However, if the actual god is not the Protestant god and instead requires the doing of good works to gain the benefits of eternal life, the Wager does not benefit the user for it does not guarantee compliance with the requirements of the infinitely powerful being. This lacking is a severe flaw in Pascal's urgent encouragement to return to blindly pursued faith.

Secondly, Pascal's argument lacks in an explanation of sufficiency of belief. While it encourages the logical person to believe in God, it does not state at what point said belief is sufficient enough to grant the prize of eternal life. Many people feel that belief is personally regulated by what one feels is "sufficient" thought and practice in a particular religion. However, what one determines to be the sufficient belief in a god and what is actually enough to gain the mercy of the eternal being may be different. The Wager does not point to this possibility and therefore is less useful to one's decision-making process.

As Clifford agrees in his article "The Ethics of Belief," the examined belief-life does not automatically eliminate a correct application of the Wager. It is normal to assume some responsibility when making a choice involving risk and to evaluate the choices that one has for their merits. "Every time we let ourselves believe for unworthy reasons, we weaken our powers of self-control, of doubting, of judicially and fairly weighting evidence" (Pojman 402). If one is to play a game of chance, say poker, one wants to make sure that the dealer is honest, the cards are not stacked, modified, or missing, and fellow players are not cheats. Only once these factors have been reasonably evaluated out of the picture then may the game proceed. The point at which one has eliminated the doubt sufficiently from the situation is the point at which the amount of assurance that one's value is not at risk outweighs the potential that it is. This is how all risk is evaluated, on basis of what is risked and what is assured. Hence, this formula turns against Pascal's Wager in that since the amount risked is infinite goodness and life, the amount of suspicion that the fulfillment of this gift is not sure is greater than any other risk. Therefore, it seems natural to want to evaluate the decision one makes about belief as much as possible, all life long.

If all one does is look through albums, the dancing will never begin. This is true with belief also, and so one must be careful not to question constantly and never begin to live the belief. Hence, a happy medium must be struck between questioning and living. This is possible by choosing a belief, living that belief, and yet evaluating the belief from time to time on its merits, stepping back to include all negative and positive aspects of the belief within one's appraisal. By following this formula one assumes that responsibility which is forced upon each person.

Even following all of this, full belief in one principle is still not possible. For Pascal, full belief in something is requisite to initiate the Wager and one must do all things possible to dispel any disbelief. However, if one pursues a full, untethered belief in a principle it leaves no room for doubt. Doubt remains important not as a deterrent to belief but as a tool of evaluation towards embodying the correct belief. If one is to occasionally question a belief in order to make judgement, it requires at least a small margin of doubt to be present in the system so that this self-critique may take place. In this sense, Pascal's Wager does not help the believer since it requires unnerved weight placed upon a belief system.

While the Wager presents an argument that is compelling and valid, the extent to which the argument is applicable to one's own life is limited. The details are not ironed out by the presence of the Wager and therefore are left for the believer to determine. Trusting in the Wager completely and blindly may in fact reap exactly the opposite results from what is intended. One's decision, then, on what to believe and how to life is still a matter of thinking.