I’ve finally resumed working through The Great Ideas Program after a break of over two years, beginning with Reading 11 in Plan 4: Religion and Theology of the program, Blaise Pascal’s Pensées. In their introduction to the reading, Mortimer J. Adler and Seymour Cain observe that Pensées belongs to “that group of writings which describe man’s plight as he seeks God and at the same time doubts God and claim that it is “one of the greatest of such works.”
Blaise Pascal
For a brief account of Pascal’s life (1623-1662) and works, see https://opentheism.wordpress.com/2019/06/28/11-pascals-account-of-the-great-experiment-concerning-the-equilibrium-of-fluids/. For a fuller account of them, see Britannica.com or Wikipedia.
Here I’ll just record the English translation of his thoughts at the moment of his conversion in 1654 given at https://ccel.org/ccel/pascal/memorial/memorial.i.html. Called “The Memorial” it was found after his death sewn into the lining of his coat, where he carried it all the time.
The year of grace 1654,
Monday, 23 November, feast of St. Clement, pope and martyr, and others in the martyrology.
Vigil of St. Chrysogonus, martyr, and others.
From about half past ten at night until about half past midnight,
FIRE.
GOD of Abraham, GOD of Isaac, GOD of Jacob
not of the philosophers and of the learned.
Certitude. Certitude. Feeling. Joy. Peace.
GOD of Jesus Christ.
My God and your God.
Your GOD will be my God.
Forgetfulness of the world and of everything, except GOD.
He is only found by the ways taught in the Gospel.
Grandeur of the human soul.
Righteous Father, the world has not known you, but I have known you.
Joy, joy, joy, tears of joy.
I have departed from him:
They have forsaken me, the fount of living water.
My God, will you leave me?
Let me not be separated from him forever.
This is eternal life, that they know you, the one true God, and the one that you sent, Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ.
I left him; I fled him, renounced, crucified.
Let me never be separated from him.
He is only kept securely by the ways taught in the Gospel:
Renunciation, total and sweet.
Complete submission to Jesus Christ and to my director.
Eternally in joy for a day’s exercise on the earth.
Not to forget your words. Amen.
Pensées
Shortly after his conversion, Pascal began reading and collecting material for what he planned to be an apology for the Christian faith, putting down his thoughts on scraps of paper. These were found, collected, and edited after his death. The version used in Great Books of the Western World is divided into fourteen sections, of which The Great Ideas Program considers Sections III and IV. Here I’ll just note what stood out most to me from Adler and Cain’s exposition of those sections and pose the questions which they discuss about them.
In Book III Pascal identifies three kinds of persons: “those who serve God, having found Him; others who are occupied in seeking Him, not having found Him; while the others live without seeking Him and without having found Him.” He explains why he thinks that the last group betrays a lack of virtue as well as of reason. He considers how the second group can find God, arguing that God is “hidden”—not being evident in nature, reason, or history —but is knowable to the pure in heart “through Jesus Christ, without whom all communion from God is cut off.”
In Book IV Pascal considers the relationship between reason and religion. He says that reason is one of the sources of belief but that is not enough, faith being necessary to believe that God is. In response to the question of how those who are in doubt to attain faith, he proposes wagering: “Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is.”
The quotations above are ones quoted from Pensées by Adler and Cain.
Questions about the Reading
- Is Pascal’s “wager” an offensive and invalid argument for faith?
- Would the performance of religious acts without inner belief encourage hypocrisy rather than faith?
- Why cannot reason know “the reasons of the heart”?
- Is Pascal’s aphoristic style suited to his subject?
Bob's Corner 