Decisions are hard, especially when they affect others, as most decisions do. There are consequences to every decision, even the joyful ones.

"Will you marry me?"

"Yes!"

Cue the deluge of decisions that now need to be made – day, time, and location of the wedding. Not to mention the menu, flowers, dresses, suits, and guest list. You picked a day when Uncle Bob cannot make it, so he’s upset. You picked a dress style or color that doesn’t necessarily suit a bridesmaid, so she smiles politely but laments that she has to pay for something that she does not like. Your mom wonders why your fiancé needs to invite so many distant relatives when your family is relatively small and will barely fill a pew. How will that look to other guests? she asks. And on and on.

And then there is the tendency, perhaps even the temptation, to avoid making a decision because you know it will hurt and/or disappoint someone. Or worse, you are an inveterate people-pleaser so every decision, no matter how minor, is agonizing because you just know, deep down, that someone will be upset. You think that the best solution is simply not to make a decision but then you learn that someone’s hurt because you did not make a decision! And on and on.

Common sense seems to suggest that there are winners and losers with every decision that is made. The mundane: my wife and I invite another couple over for dinner but they are already committed to something else. We "lose" the joy of their company. The exceptional: I decide to move across the country from where the rest of my family lives. We "lose" the joy of seeing each other in person on a regular basis. In either case, there is some degree of hurt even if it is unacknowledged and even if there is also a celebratory nature. For example, "We are so happy that you are moving across the country to pursue your dream of working at Tesla but of course we will miss you greatly and wish that you could be here for all of our family get-togethers." A bit of hurt coupled with genuine happiness.

So what do you do when you come up against a decision in which there appears to be no happiness for all and certainly hurt for some? Or, to say it differently, what if there are two sides to a particular issue, as is often the case? The one side is convinced they are right but so is the other. There have been years, even decades, of discussion, yet there is still an impasse. Moreover, what if the decision has deep, even dire, consequences, not just of an earthly sort but also of an eternal sort?

That is the context for Blaise Pascal’s infamous "wager." Pascal believes that if "there is a God, he is infinitely beyond our comprehension." Thus, we "are therefore incapable of knowing either what he is, or if he is." In short: human finitude makes it impossible for us to know without doubt that there is a God, much less that we know everything about him. Hence the need for faith, and not mere rational consent. Pascal continues, "Let us therefore examine this point, and say: God is, or is not. But towards which side will we lean? Reason [alone] cannot decide anything." And because reason is limited and "cannot decide anything" it cannot make us "choose one way or the other, reason cannot make [us] defend either of the two choices." So, Pascal asks, "How will you wager?" He goes so far as to say that we "have to wager." It is no longer an option, we have to make a decision no matter the consequences because there are eternal consequences.

Pascal concludes that the proper way to wager is to believe that God is. For if God is then humankind has everything to gain and nothing to lose. If, it turns out, God does not exist nothing is lost in living as if he does. But if one lives as if God does not exist but he does, then that poor soul loses everything. In the language of winners and losers: believing that God is, is a win, win situation but believing that God is not, though he is, is a lose, lose situation. Pascal writes, "I should be much more frightened of being wrong and finding out that the Christian religion was true than of being wrong in believing it to be true." And this matters because the stakes are high. In fact, they are at their highest. The bottom line: it is either heaven or hell. How would you wager? It seems to me a sincere, reasonable person would take the wager and live as if God does, indeed, exist. If she is right then she enjoys God forever. If she is wrong then… well, she’s just wrong – no harm, no foul.

A similar situation seems to be plaguing the Church today, or at least our own Anglican Communion, including our province. That is, the issue of the ordination of women to the presbyterate appears to be at an impasse since there are two sides, and neither side believes it is wrong. Those who support the ordination of women, continue to ordain women. Those who do not support it, do not ordain women. And in spite of the ACNA’s College of Bishops conclusion "that there is insufficient scriptural warrant to accept women’s ordination to the priesthood as standard practice throughout the Province," women continue to be ordained. And in spite of the ACNA’s College of Bishops conclusion "that this practice is a recent innovation to Apostolic Tradition and Catholic Order," women continue to be ordained, and apparently not due to scriptural or tradition’s warrant but for juridical reasons: "we continue to acknowledge that individual dioceses have constitutional authority to ordain women to the priesthood." But if the College of Bishop’s thinks that it is less than biblical and less than traditional then why are bishops still ordaining women? Simply because they have a juridical right?

But what is really at stake is nothing short of the salvation of all humankind. In other words, the Anglican Church of North America finds itself, it seems, in the same position as Pascal. Not the only, but a primary, ministry of all presbyters in the Church is to "do" the sacraments, (or, "confect the sacraments," to be a bit more crass) especially the Holy Eucharist, which is the source and summit of the Christian life. And the sacraments, especially the dominical sacraments of baptism and Holy Eucharist, are salvific. How so? Minimally they convey grace and grace is what every non-believer needs to respond to God’s offer of salvation and what every believer needs to remain faithful and to mature in Christ. Maximally, according to the Roman Catholic Church, they are regenerative ex opere operato.

But what if those sacraments were not, in fact, sacraments? Without even taking sides, we can see that the stakes are high when it comes to the question of women’s ordination. If women cannot be priests then they are unable to "do" these dominical, salvific sacraments. They are not, then, offering grace and salvation to God’s people but empty, graceless copies of the real thing. They are offering, even promising, something that they, in fact, cannot provide. And what’s at stake? Salvation! If women cannot be priests but are allowed to "act" as priests then they are putting the souls of God’s children at risk. If this is the case, then I think that Pascal would encourage us to take the wager; that is, not to ordain women to the presbyterate because there is too much at stake. If, in God’s economy, women cannot be presbyters then allowing them to act as if they are is to put ourselves into a lose, lose situation. If, in God’s economy, women can be presbyters but are not allowed to be ordained presbyters then the Church’s shepherds will have to answer to God for that but in doing so they will not have risked the lives of human souls. In that sense, not allowing women to be ordained presbyters is a win, win situation.

So, I ask, along with Pascal, towards which side will we lean in the ACNA? The answer is of the upmost importance and carries eternal consequences. Thus, we must choose not just wisely, but in a godly manner for souls are at stake.