Theologians you should know about

1. Theologians you should know about Blaise Pascal

2. T.S. Eliot • ‘I can think of no Christian writer… more to be commended than Pascal to those who doubt, but have the mind to conceive, and the sensibility to feel, the disorder, the futility, the meaninglessness, the mystery of life and suffering, and who can only find peace through a satisfaction of the whole being.’

3. Biography • Born 1623 • ‘First Conversion’ 1646 • ‘Night of Fire’ Nov. 1654 • Published ‘Lettres Provinciales’ 1656 • ‘Apology’ begun 1656 • Died August 1662 • First Edition of ‘Pensées’ 1670

4. Battles on two fronts • Rationalists – • Rene Descartes • Pyrrhonists • Michel de Montaigne

5. From Pensées • “This internal war of reason against the passions has made those who wanted peace split into two sects. Some wanted to renounce passions and become gods, others wanted to renounce reason and become brute beasts. But neither side has succeeded, and reason always remains to denounce the baseness and injustice of the passions, and to disturb the peace of those who surrender to them. And the passions are always alive in those who want to renounce them.” (L410)

6. The Problems of Rationalism • Unreliable Reason • “Put the world’s greatest philosopher on a plank that is wider than need be; if there is a precipice below, although his reason may convince him that he is safe, his imagination will prevail!” • Ambiguous Revelation • An Impersonal God

7. The Problems of Scepticism • “What else does this craving and this helplessness proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, for this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object: in other words, by God himself.” (L148)

8. The Problems of Scepticism • “the prophecies, even the miracles and proofs of our religion, are not of such a kind that they can be said to be absolutely convincing, but they are at the same time such that it cannot be said to be unreasonable to believe in them”. (L835) • “I maintain that a perfectly genuine sceptic has never existed”

9. The Human Condition • ‘That is what makes us incapable of certain knowledge or absolute ignorance. We are floating in a medium of vast extent, always uncertain and floating, blown from one place to another; whenever we think we have a fixed point to which we can cling and make fast, it shifts and leaves us; if we follow it, it eludes our grasp, slips away, and flees eternally before us. Nothing stands still for us. This is our natural state and yet the state most contrary to our inclinations. We burn with desire to find a firm footing, an ultimate, steady base on which to build a tower rising up to infinity, but our whole foundation cracks and the earth opens up into the depths of the abyss.’ (L199)

10. The Hidden God – Le Dieu Caché • “What can be seen on earth indicates neither the total absence, nor the manifest presence of divinity, but the presence of a Hidden God.” (L449) • “Thus wishing to appear openly to those who seek him with all their heart, and hidden from those who shun him with all their heart, he has qualified our knowledge of him by giving signs which can be seen by those who seek him and not by those who do not.” (L149)

11. Learning from Pascal • Ambiguity and Clarity – being postmodern and modern • Address the heart (desire) before the mind • “Make it attractive, make good men wish it were true, then show that it is.”