We closed yesterday’s blog with observations on John 3.36:

Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him. (ESV)

We noted that “believes” in contrasted with “does not obey” and concluded that “believe” is stronger than we think, and its opposite is “does not obey.” This is why Scott Adams’ deathbed “conversion” probably isn’t.

Scott Adams is the brilliant creator of the comic strip Dilbert which did a marvelous job capturing the absurdity of life in the modern corporation. He died on January 13 of cancer. Before his death he said in a widely reported quote:

You’re going to hear for the first time today that it is my plan to convert. I’ve not been a believer. I am now convinced that the risk-reward is completely smart. If it turns out that there’s nothing there, I’ve lost nothing… If it turns out there is something there, and the Christian model is the closest to it, I win.

He closed with…

Many of my Christian friends have asked me to find Jesus before I go. I’m not a believer, but I have to admit the risk-reward calculation for doing so looks so attractive to me, so here I go: I accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior and look forward to spending an eternity with him. The part about me not being a believer should be quickly resolved if I wake up in Heaven. I won’t need any more convincing than that. I hope I still qualify for entry.

I’m not his judge, but many of us are questioning whether his “acceptance” is “enough.” When my son Mark sent me word of this, he observed, “It’s not my part to figure out what’s going to happen between God and Scott Adams, but I don’t think this actually works.”

Mark is not alone. A lot of people have weighed in (not that it makes any difference to God what we think!). A Catholic website explains that Scott’s reasoning comes from Pascal:

Hardly the words of a man deeply converted. Instead, his posture echoes an application of Blaise Pascal’s famous wager. Pascal argued that reason alone fails to deliver certainty regarding God’s existence, yet reason still presses man toward a necessary decision. The wager is a pragmatic argument, suggesting that it is rational to bet on God’s existence; in a nutshell, if God doesn’t exist, you’ve only lost a little and would have lived a good life, but if God does exist and you don’t believe, you lose everything.

In short, Pascal’s wager is a decision theory argument, not a positive proof. It does urge a life of faith, albeit for the best possible outcome even if God doesn’t exist. – Marcus Peter, January 15, 2026

It’s a good article: I recommend it in its entirety. Marcus makes many of the same points that non-Catholic articles do, namely, it’s not a good strategy to wait until one’s deathbed to convert. One might not even have a “death bed.” A friend of mine, my age, went to church a couple of weeks ago, came home, dropped dead. Others are killed in car accidents, or lose their mental capacities. So waiting until the last minute is not a good idea.

Last-minute conversions do occur, of course, but repentance should accompany confession, and I don’t see any sign of that in Scott Adams’ experience. His “confession” contained neither belief nor obedience (from John 3.36).

One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!” But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” And he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23.39 – 43, ESV)

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 7.21, ESV)