Recently, I dug out some old floppy discs which I had used twenty or more years ago and used a USB floppy drive to read them and see if there was anything I wanted to salvage from them. I found this academic paper I had written years ago about Blaise Pascal, one of the most fascinating humans to ever walk the face of the earth. Some of you, if you are well read, mathematicians, gamblers, philosophers, or thinking religionists you might have heard of him. Most of you will not have heard of him. But he is one of the most important people in the early history of several different disciplines: mathematics, philosophy, game theory, decision theory, and an area of religious philosophy known as Christian apologetics. Here is that rather short paper I wrote about him a long time ago. I hope at least one of you enjoys it.
Let me warn you that this did not translate well from a floppy disc to this blog format but it is easily readable in spite of the software issue. I might have even written this on a Brother Word Processor which would explain the issue. I hope it doesn't make it too difficult for those of you who chose to read it to gain something from it. Let me also suggest that you go to a good library and read a copy of his book "Pensees".
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To: Whom It May Concern:
Re: An Examination Of The Ideas Of Blaise Pascal
Dear Sir or Madam:
I extend to you the opportunity to join me in both enjoying and questioning the attached work. It is both interesting and risky. Very rarely is it wise to postulate a piece of work from a viewpoint that quotes freely from the Bible. I took a calculated risk in writing this piece from this position. I am undecided about the success of the endeavor. I suspect that it would be lauded by most Christians and indicted by most non-believers. The quality of the writing is generally good. However, as frequently happens with Biblically based argument, it seems to appear stilted and unnatural. It is questionable to attack the work of one well-known Christian thinker by using the text on which he based his life. The argumentation seems to tail off near the conclusion. It may perhaps have not been sufficiently supported by academic research outside the Bible. However, it is also a genuine academic effort to study the Bible. The attempt to utilize the Pascal quote to formulate a thesis that questioned the writer’s commitment to the spiritual experience may have been an intellectual parlor trick of sorts. Like the entire thesis of the paper this is risky business. It is impossible for any author to adequately judge his own work. I leave that task in your hands. Read. Enjoy.
Roger
D. Hicks
Roger D. Hicks
AN EXAMINATION OF THE IDEAS OF BLAISE PASCAL
“It is the heart which perceives God and not the reason.” Blaise Pascal
Blaise
Pascal, son of a French tax collector, lived from 1623 to 1662. In his remarkably short life of thirty-nine
years, he managed to affect three disciplines, mathematics, theology, and
philosophy, in ways, which are still felt and discussed more than three hundred
years later. Pascal did groundbreaking
work on conic sections, invented a mechanical calculator and the syringe, and
his “Pensees” made him an icon to the school of existentialist philosophy. This paper will examine the influence of some
of the ideas contained in the “Pensees” and Pascal’s resultant influence on the
worlds of philosophy and religion.
Pascal became a converted Christian
in November 1654 and began to spend time at the Jansenist monastery, Port Royal
des Champs. The monastery was a center
for the spread of Jansenism, a branch of Catholicism founded by Cornelis
Jansen. Jansenism numbered among its
adherents the artists Nicholas Poussin and Phillipe de Champaigne, and the
eminently powerful Cardinal Richelieu. After
his conversion, Pascal began to publish anonymous religious writings in defense
of Jansenism.
“Pascal’s most famous work in
philosophy is ‘Pensees’, a collection of personal thoughts on human suffering
and faith in God which he began in late 1656 and continued to work on during
1657 and 1658. This work contains
‘Pascal’s Wager’ which claims to prove that belief in God is rational with the
following argument.
If God does not exist, one will lose nothing by
believing in him, while if he does exist, one will lose everything by not
believing.[1]
This
statement has been bandied through arguments and across pulpits worldwide. The statement is at the heart of Pascal’s
philosophy. In fact, it is at the heart
of all modern existentialism. ‘Pascal’s
wager’ has been the cornerstone on which thousands of men and women have built
deep religious beliefs.
Dr. A. J. Krailsheimer, in his
introduction to the Penguin Classics edition of “Pensees”, writes: “The
‘Pensees’ are a …direct attempt to
communicate to others what had been vouchsafed to him.”[2] This ‘direct attempt’ can be seen as Pascal’s
personal form of evangelism. Pascal had
become a Christian by virtue of a cathartic experience. Marc Escholier writes in “Port Royal The
Drama of The Jansenists” that:
“For the first time, Pascal
rebelled against the reason that could show him the straight path but could not
open it to him; the false God he had adored was nothingness. It nevertheless remained within him,
separating his heart from the superhuman world for which he had been
created. ‘Humble yourself, powerless
reason; be silent imbecile nature; learn that man is infinitely higher than man
and listen to your master. Hear God!’ The scientists fell to his knees; he humbled
his talents.”[3]
However,
the mathematician in the man required that he formulate and promulgate his
‘wager’. Pascal used his intellectual
abilities to justify the cathartic experience of his conversion. In spite of his deeply held religious
convictions, he could not simply expose those convictions to the world of his
intellectual peers. Pascal could voice,
but not fully accept the truth of the quote from the “Pensees” which is used to
head this paper: “It is the heart which perceives God and not the reason.”
This flaw
in the Christianity that Pascal practiced may be contrasted with that practiced
by an earlier and equally intellectual man who benefited from a cathartic
conversion. Saul of Tarsus, a Jew whose intellectual
prowess might have rivaled that of Pascal, chose an entirely different response
to his conversion experience. In First
Corinthians 1.19-21, Paul writes of intellectualism and conversion:
“For it is written, ‘I
will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the cleverness of the clever I will
thwart.’ Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the
world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the
world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what
we preach to save those who believe.”[4]
This
greatest of preachers and intellectual equal of Pascal obviously chose to take
a markedly different approach. Paul
chose to set aside his intellectual leanings and take the leap of faith. This leap of faith and total acceptance of
the teachings of the Bible was impossible for Pascal. Yet he must have read Pauline Letters. In the continued discussion of wisdom that
comprises much of First Corinthians, Paul goes on to say:
“When I came to you
brethren, I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God in lofty words
or wisdom…Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom
of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of
God which God decreed before the ages for our glorification.”[5]
This marked
difference between Pascal and his predecessor lies at the heart of the
perpetual discussion of how a Christian responds to the conversion
experience. Do they seek like Pascal to
intellectually leave the high ground available for retreat? Or do they seek
like Paul to detach themselves from the intellectualizations and accept the
conversion experience at face value?
Does the cathartically converted Christian truly believe that it is the
‘heart which perceives God’? Or like
Pascal, in spite of his quoted words, do they continue to view the conversion
experience from a mental viewpoint?
Paul
obviously believed that the correct position on this issue was the position of
the heart. He wrote in his Letter To The
Phillipians that the followers of Jesus Christ should “…work out your own
salvation with fear and trembling…”.[6] Although this statement is frequently applied
to more fundamentalist positions, it is equally applicable to any situation in
which the Christian finds herself confronted with the decision to defend her
religion on an intellectual footing or one which is centered in the heart.
In modern
society, it is frequently more difficult to defend the position of the heart
than it was during The Enlightenment. Modern society is moving rapidly away from
many customs and values that were inherited from the eras in which both Paul
and Pascal lived. These changes are
being fueled by rapid developments in the sciences, and in particular by
computer technology. These changes can
be likened to those that The Enlightenment brought about. They, in both cases, have moved humanity in
directions that are presumed to have been upward and forward. However, this era, like The Enlightenment,
will only be fully judged in centuries to follow.
This writer
will take the Pauline position and avoid the intellectualization that was so
dear to Pascal. The modern adherent to
the Pauline position is required to withstand opposition and ridicule much like
that which Pascal withstood in his era because of his espousal of the Jansenist
position. In 1657, the Vatican banned
his work in Rome.[7] However, Pascal did manage to leave the world
via natural causes unlike Paul.
It is
unlikely in the modern world that a holder of any intellectual position will
die at the hands of his detractors. Yet
we modern intellectuals could learn a great deal from Pascal who, in spite of
his intellectualization, was willing to take a firm stance and endure venomous
criticism of that position. We could learn
even more from Paul who not only took a position that was open to criticism,
but also took that position based on the dictates of the heart. Such men and women are damnably rare today.
Works Cited
Clark, Ruth. Strangers & Sojourners At Port Royal.
New York: Octagon Books, 1972
Escholier, Marc. Port
Royal The Drama Of The Jansenists. New York: Hawthorn Books,
Inc. 1968.
The Oxford Annotated
Bible. New York: Oxford University
Press, 1962.
Pascal, Blaise. Pensees.
London: Penguin Books, 1966.
http:/members.aol.com/KatherenaE/private/Philo/Pascal/pascal.html
1Anonymous. “Blaise Pascal.” http://www-groups.dcs.st- and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Pascal.html 1998
[2]
Krailsheimer, Dr. A. J.,ed. Introduction. “The Pensees”. London: Penguin
Books, 1966. P20.
[3]
Escholier, Marc. Port Royal The Drama of the Jansenists. New York:
Hawthorn Books, Inc.1968. P89.
[4] “The
First Letter Of Paul To The
Corinthinians” Ch. 1, Vs. 19-21. The Oxford Annotated Bible. New
York: 1962.
[5] Ibid.
Ch.2, Vs. 1, 6, & 7.
[6] Ibid.
Phillipians. Ch 2. V. 12.
[7] Clark,
Ruth. Strangers & Sojourners At Port Royal. Octagon Books: New York,
1972. P. 152.
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