Re: Maybe this belongs in the Mind Twister Forum

Hello James.

While I am no authority on Blaise Pascal I find it difficult to believe that he would make the statement you paraphrased. Now, having said that, I must say I have been surprised before. Could you please give us a reference for your quote?


I offer the following quote from “Mind on Fire” from the works of Blaise Pascal, page 167:

“Instead of always complaining that God has hidden himself, you should give him thanks for revealing as much as he has of himself. You will also thank him for not revealing himself to wise men who are full of pride and unworthy of knowing so holy a God.
There are two sorts of people who know God. There are those who are humble of heart and who love their lowliness, whatever degree of intelligence high or low they may have. And there are those who are intelligent enough to see the truth, however much they may be opposed to it.”

Also from page 173:

“All Jesus did was to teach men that they loved themselves, that they were slaves, blind, sick, miserable, and sinful, and that he had come to deliver, to enlighten, to sanctify, and to heal them. This would be achieved by those who hated themselves and followed Jesus through his misery and his death upon the cross.”

Blaise Pascal as you can see would not be amenable to the modern psychobabble, feel good, self-esteem movement of our day. Pascal was truly a very humble man.

Concerning your quote; I do not think that Pascal would consider faith/trust/belief in Christ a mere insurance policy against possible eternal separation from our creator. I think Pascal would agree: that we should believe and trust in Christ because what Christ did and said about Himself was true, not because we might get something out of it. Pascal was a deep thinker. Thanks for bringing his name up. I think I will reread “Mind on Fire.”


Sincerely,
Bob Lautner

Bob, Thanks for the information on Pascal. I've heard the quote that James made, attributed to Pascal. It may be one of those "quotes", sort of like someone saying that Darwin said that "man came from monkeys". In other words it may be only someones crude interpretation of Pascal's ideas. Is "Mind on Fire" difficult reading? DR

I recently listened to a lecture on Pascal and the ultimate wager concept is from Pascals unfinished Christian apologetic Pensees (Thoughts on Religion) edited by his Jansenist friends in Port Royal (a convent eventually razd by the French to stop the anti-papal revolt).

Pascal was playing on the common fascination with gambling that was very much in vogue at that time. In Pensees, Pascal proposed his famous "ultimate" wager.

If you bet God exists you stand to gain everything and lose nothing. However, if you bet the opposite, you stand to gain nothing and lose everything. It isn't so much a proof, but a challenge to incite thought and consideration to the people of his day.

Pensees covers other themes - Mans misery without God, the absurdity of the human condition (murder is a crime on one side of the border yet soldiers are considered heros on the other), and man's many limitations and intellectual weaknesses that can all be overcome through faith in Christ - the prime purpose of our existence according to Pascal.

Pascal was definitely one of the leading fideists (like Bayle) who agrued for salvation by faith alone - human knowledge being too weak to rely on. He was probably the 17th centuries leading skeptics of the dominant belief in Aristotilian scholasticism.

With that, this post pretty much exhausts my knowledge of Pascal.