BLAISE PASCAL

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A Term Paper

Presented to

Instructor: Dan Cates

Memphis School of Preaching

Memphis, Tennessee

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As a Requirement in

Christian Evidences

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By

David Jiménez

January 9, 2021
 Blaise Pascal: scientist and ‘Christian’ apologist

Life

 One of the most intriguing and original thinkers

of the early modern period, he was a

Mathematician, a physicist, a philosopher, but

his main purpose and aim was to be an

apologist of the truth of God.

 His philosophic genius, his troubled life and his

feeble health that accompany him all his life

have also placed him as one of the founding

fathers of existential philosophy and theology.

 He was born on June 19,1623 in Clermont-Ferrand, France. His father, Etienne

Pascal, was a legal officer at Clermont. Pascal’s mother died when he was 3 years

old and ended up being raised entirely by his father who also took charge of the

boy’s education.

 At a very early age, Pascal showed his interest and skill for mathematics and

physics. At the age of 16 he published an essay on conic sections and soon after he

invented a calculating machine to aid his father in his work.

 Later, he reworked Torricelli’s experiments to proof the existence of physical

vacuum, which served for his later propositions on hydrostatics.

 At the age of 23, he and his family converted to

Jansenism, a catholic movement which was later

condemned by the Vatican centered in the

 convent of Port Royal right outside Paris, to which Pascal’s sister Jacqueline had

entered. This movement emphasized Augustine’s ideas about free will and election

and was very close to Calvinism. This will play an important part in Pascal’s ideas.

 In 1654 Pascal had a personal experience of conversion to the “God of Abraham,

God of Isaac and God of Jacob”, as it is attested in his Memorial (a piece of paper

sewn inside his jacket, discovered after his death), which meant the existential

recognition of the personal God and the role of Christ in his life. His life was

changed and although he did not abandon his scientific endeavors, they were

submitted to his religious ones.

 After his conversion experience, he focused his attention to create an apology the

Christian faith that consisted in two parts: the misery of man without God and the

blessedness of man with God. This work was never completed and left only notes

and small pieces now known as Pensées (thoughts).

 By the end of his life, his studies on the problem of cycloid led him to lay the

foundations for the creation of calculus later developed by Leibniz.

 He died at young age on August 19, 1662 in the middle of solitude and of spiritual,

physical and emotional anguish.

Philosophy

 His worked belonged to the line of work of Descartes (with whom he had a

turbulent relationship): both considered mathematics and geometry as the valid

method for the demonstration of any proposition about the world, at least in its

limited field.
 The limitation of the Geometric (or Mathematical) method consists that it requires

to define every term and demonstrate every proposition, but this is impossible, since

the very basis of the method cannot be demonstrated nor defined.

 The evidence for concepts such as “time”, “space” or “movement” cannot be given

by this method of demonstration, instead they are given by intuition. They are the

presupposition that the method requires and assumes, not the result of any

reasoning. However, this does not make them less evident, they just arrive through

different means.

 For Pascal it was the “heart” (intuition or immediate perception) what reached these

concepts and gave the geometry its foundation, although it cannot give any reason

for them.

 The term heart must be understood not as mere emotion, but as a principle beyond

reason that justifies reason it self.

 In this sense Pascal set the mathematical method above the Aristotelian logic, and

thought that the logicians took their method from the geometry and not the other

way around.

 He rejected the “proofs” for the existence of God, both the metaphysical and the

physical ones. Because he believed that, in any case, these would lead to an abstract

form of God and not to the God revealed in Christ as redeemer and savior: “God of

Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of philosophers and scholars” (Pascal,

Memorial).

 In that sense, the geometrical method would in no sense lead to a knowledge of God

but it had to be done purely by faith.

Theology and ‘Christian apologetics’.

 The approach to a “defense” of the Christian faith that Pascal takes is not to show

that the scientific or historical statements of the Bible are accurate, but to show the

inability of anything beyond God’s revelation can offer happiness and meaning to

one’s existence.

 In that sense, Pascal’s road is an existential one. He looks to destroy man’s self-

understanding and self-fu

 Philosophy just as it is incapable of coming to an understanding of God, it is

incapable to give man any reason or safe guide to morality to lead him to a happy

life.

 In that sense, man ought to recognize his misery and contradictoriness in his

solitude without God, then and only then is he going to be able to recognize that his

greatness is in God: “in his misery and greatness, man is a contradiction, a mystery,

a torment to himself… but Christian faith, which is a gift of grace, can overcome it”

(Roberts, 42).

 The way in which faith does this is not by intellectual means but by making man

one with himself and with God. However, this does not resolve the contradiction of

man, it emphasizes it and holds it together: “Christian faith acknowledges human

weakness without falling into despair, and human greatness without falling into

pride” (Roberts, 43).

 Finally, it is worth to mention the most famous (sometimes misunderstood)

apologetic idea of Pascal, his wager.

 o The argument is long and complicated but is summarized in saying that faith

gives an advantage and happiness that, if it were dependent on man’s own

will to obtain it, it had to be the only reasonable choice.

o Pascal, however, puts this problem outside of the reach of reason. Reason

cannot proof, nor disproof the existence of God, and so, reason does not

judge in either option that man takes, either believing or not believing.

o Since believing gives you more to win and nothing to lose, it is more

reasonable to bet for it than not to.

o This is more directed, not to convince anybody, but to one who is in the

edge of faith, but unsure whether or not is it worth it to give it all for it.

Consulted works

Roberts, D. E. Existentialism and Religious Belief. New York, NY: Oxford University

Press. 1959.

Pascal, B. Pensées. New York, NY: Penguin. 1966.

Copleston, F. Historia de la Filosofía. Vol. IV. Barcelona, Spain: Ariel. 1996.