Blaise Pascal, born in 1623, was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, and Catholic theologian. He argued that in terms of probability, the greatest wager in life is whether or not to believe in God. He explained that it is better to believe in God because the payoff for believing is infinitely better than disbelieving. If you gain, you gain it all; if you lose, you lose little to nothing.

Let’s look at this chart for reference:

	God exists	God does not exist
You believe in God	infinite gain	finite
You do not believe in God	infinite loss	finite

If God does not exist, whether you believe or do not believe in God, nothing happens after you die. Whatever happened, happened just in this finite world. BUT, if God does exist, your eternal future depends on what you believe.

What’s important about all this is that the wager itself is obviously not fiction; it’s math. It’s about probability and its consequences. Thus, whatever you believe, you need to do flawless research on it! Eternal doom or salvation can be at stake. I end with this – let’s say there’s even a 1% chance God exists, shouldn’t we look into it?

“If there is a God, who came before Him?” “How do you know nothing came before Him?” These are some of the most infamous questions one will hear from atheists and agnostics. Theists too may ask this question too out of curiosity.

This can be tackled in several ways:

1. Logically, there has to be an end. Imagine in a police department, you are a lieutenant and have an issue. You go to the captain. If the captain doesn’t have the answer, he goes to the major. What if he doesn’t? That can go on and on! When will the issue get resolved? Will you keep saying, “Let me go to the higher authority” or expect there to be an end eventually?
2. When you ask such a question, you are never going to address the matter itself – whether God exists or not. You have to face that first and foremost. The rest is all secondary. If God exists, you better find His True Religion and then follow it. Otherwise, there will be consequences. Why get lost in what-ifs? Very often, people will ask “Who came before God?” and not tackle the more fundamental questions of life. If you don’t even do that, what are you prioritizing?
3. In Islam, the texts suggest that God created time and/or has control of it. See the examples below. If that is the case, and if time is different in the “realm” of God and the hereafter, then we can’t ask questions like “What came before God?” That is because time isn’t a factor to warrant such a question. The word “before” doesn’t apply anymore because God is and has been there for eternity!
   • “And He it is Who has created the night and the day, and the sun and the moon, each in an orbit floating” [Qur’an 21:33]
   • Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) said, “Allah the Almighty said: The son of Adam abuses me. He curses time and I am time, for in my hand are the night and day.” [Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 4549, Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 2246] “I am time” is, of course, a figure of speech.
   • “And indeed, a day with your Lord is like a thousand years of those which you count.” [Qur’an 22:47] So time is different to God!