The thoughts of Blaise Pascal

The published thoughts of this French scientist, mathematician, wise Christian thinker, make for fascinating reading. Born 402 years ago he had a habit of noting down his thoughts with a view to writing a book in defence of the Christian faith, but his death came too early. However, his notes were considered so special that they have been published as his “Pensées” (thoughts). Even atheists like Friederich Nietzsche and André Comte-Sponville have expressed their appreciation of the profound wisdom of these Pensées and they have been translated into many languages and are still in print today.

Here is an example: “Man’s true nature, his true good and true virtue, and true religion are things which cannot be known separately”. Today we are perplexed about man’s “true nature”, or identity. We long to understand what is man’s “true good”, or human flourishing. Our secular society has no grounding for man’s true virtue, unable to provide absolute guidance about right and wrong. And the reason for our post-modern confusion on these issues may well be due to not having taken wise consideration of “true religion”, which for Pascal meant biblical Christianity.

Once we come to terms with the fact that our Creator God has revealed the “true religion”, we have the key to understanding all the rest. What is “man’s true nature”? He is a reflection of the pure righteousness and goodness of God, having been at the beginning “created in the image of God”. But he no longer fulfils that high and holy calling. Rather the Bible tells us that bad human choice has corrupted our nature, so our lives no longer appropriately display the holiness of God. That is why our purpose eludes us: we have lost our true good: tainted by sin, we no longer live in unspoilt virtue. Hence we misunderstand our true nature.

What will enable us to find true human fulfilment? A return to the true religion of the Bible where our Creator reveals his plan for human life and conduct. As we revisit that divine guidance, we need also to readjust our life-style in consequence. The Bible calls us all to this conversion – turning away from all sin and committing to live according to God’s revealed wisdom. This, as Pascal saw, is the key to experiencing true human fulfilment.

When Pascal died, what was called his “memorial” was found, handwritten on paper sewn into his clothes. It was the brusque report of a powerful experience of God that he had at the age of 31. It begins, “FIRE! God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers and scholars”. In other words, Pascal had met with the God revealed in the Bible, not with some mere philosophical supposition. He continues: “Certainty, certainty, heartfelt joy, peace. God of Jesus Christ”. This encounter overpowered him and convinced him that he was actually meeting with God. He adds, “He can only be found by the ways taught in the Gospels”, and quotes the words of Jesus’ prayer: “This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17.3). The “memorial” ends with a note of “Sweet and total renunciation. Total submission to Jesus Christ… Everlasting joy”.

This was such a transforming experience that he longed to teach the way of the “true religion” that he had not only studied, but experienced in this extraordinary meeting with the living God, through Christ. The “Pensées” that he wrote were the outworking of this powerful meeting with the living God.

Clive Every-Clayton

June 3, 2025 0

Away with religion?

The New Atheists were dedicated to eradicate religion from any place of influence in society. In this they were following in the footsteps of Karl Marx. Marx’s position is bluntly summed up by Professor Carl Truman, in these terms: “if religion is one major means by which the current unjust set of economic relations is maintained, then at the heart of any drive to transform society must lie a pungent and effective criticism of religion”.

It seems to me useful to discern here a principle that deserves to be exposed. Modern-day atheists, thinking that religion is the root of a lot of evil, attack it tooth and nail. “Religion”, of course, is an easy target to hit, for the word englobes all kinds of, quite honestly, ridiculous world-views with some kind of divinity attached (there are approximately 4,000 religions in the world). So under the heading of “religion”, one can find plenty to validly criticise.

I just want to make two points. The first is to consider where Karl Marx’s anti-religion stance ended up: huge persecution against millions of good-living people who, after suffering immense horrors, saw the collapse and failure of the whole atheistic Soviet enterprise. It is worth considering therefore, whether the modern atheistic attack on “religion” may also harm a large number of essentially decent folk, and also bring about a kind of godless society which, instead of raising the total sum of human happiness, actually brings society down to bizarre and awful horrors. Indeed, are we not already witnesses to the effective decline brought on by the insistence on godless “freedom” where selfishness replaces Jesus’ ennobling call to “deny yourself”, where immorality brings about so many broken homes and broken lives, where children suffer most of all, and antagonism and hatred of others replaces the basic principle essential for a harmonious and positive society – “love your neighbour as yourself”? The godless and religion-less influence we see undermining our erstwhile peaceful and relatively happy society should give us pause for thought.

The second point I want to make was well made by Blaise Pascal three centuries ago when he noted: “I see a number of religions in conflict, and therefore all false, except one” (§198/693). I find that “pensée” very clever. Whereas atheists would say, as they find all kind of religions in conflict, that they throw them all out, Pascal has the genius to see that that does not follow logically: one may – indeed could well be – the true one coming from the one true God. “Religions want to be believed on their own authority”, Pascal adds, and they make threats against those who refuse to believe: “I do not believe them on that account”, he wisely says. “But I see Christianity, and find its prophecies” (numerous fulfilments of biblical prophecies he catalogues in several pages of his Pensées); he concludes, “no other religion can do that!”

Society needs a Transcendent Authority to maintain peace, order, and stability; that authority may come from “religion”. But not just any religion will do. We need a “decent religion” such as even Richard Dawkins recognises Christianity to be. We need the one true religion, the religion that comes from our Creator God, a God who is objectively there and who speaks both wisdom, truth, and goodness into the world he created; not “the god of philosophers and scholars” – as Pascal put it in his Memorial; rather, “the God of Jesus Christ” who transformed the thinker’s life as he submitted to his lordship. That’s what we need, both individually and as a guide to society.

Clive Every-Clayton

May 30, 2024 0

Diagnosis of human nature

“What is man?” is an age-old question. Another question we should also ask is, What’s wrong with man? Because we are fraught with trouble that we cannot easily grasp. Things are not right with human nature, but how to make sense of our psychological ills – that is the question.

Blaise Pascal had an astute understanding of this human dilemma; indeed, few had the penetrating insights that he expressed with such incisive prose: “Man is neither angel nor beast, and it is unfortunately the case that anyone trying to act the angel acts the beast” (§678/358).

Speaking of the unity in man of mind and matter, Pascal writes: “This is the thing we understand least; man is to himself the greatest prodigy in nature, for he cannot conceive what body is, and still less what mind is, and least of all how a body can be joined to a mind. This is his supreme difficulty, and yet it is his very being. The way in which minds are attached to bodies is beyond man’s understanding, and yet this is what man is” (§199/92).

But there is another duality in our nature that Pascal points up: some, he says, are “exalted at… the sense of their greatness” while others are “dejected at the sight of their present weakness… If they realised man’s excellence [but] they did not know [man’s] corruption… the result [is] … pride, and if they recognised the infirmity of nature, [without knowing] its dignity… the result [is] that they… fall headlong into despair.” So he sums up: “We feel within ourselves the indelible marks of excellence, and is it not equally true that we constantly experience the effects of our deplorable condition?” (§208/435).

“Who cannot see that unless we realise the duality of human nature we remain invincibly ignorant of the truth about ourselves?” (§131/434).

So, is man good and glorious? Or is he weak and wicked?

“What shall become of man? Will he be the equal of God or the beasts? What a terrifying distance! What then shall he be? Who cannot see from all this that man is lost, that he has fallen from his place, that he anxiously seeks it, and cannot find it again? And who then is to direct him there? The greatest men have failed” (§430/431).

“You are a paradox to yourself” says Pascal – echoed by Professor of Psychology Jordan Peterson, “You are too complex to understand yourself”. We need help!

“Men, it is in vain that you seek within yourselves the cure for your miseries. All your intelligence can only bring you to realise that it is not within yourselves that you will find either truth or good” (§149/430).

“Know then, proud man, what a paradox you are to yourself. Be humble, impotent reason! Be silent, feeble nature! Learn that man infinitely transcends man, hear from your master your true condition, which is unknown to you. Listen to God.” (§131/434).

When we are seriously ill without realising it, a doctor’s diagnosis is hard to take. So also it is humbling to face up to our existential pain, when our pride is the main problem, and our pride is hurt.

On the other hand, a doctor’s mistaken diagnosis can be very harmful for a patient, because the remedy proposed may actually be detrimental to the patient’s health. So it is with our human predicament: many a wrong diagnosis of our ills has only led people into further distress. So, what is wrong with us? Where is the doctor who can bring the right diagnosis?

“Listen to God”. Only our Maker can mend us.

Clive Every-Clayton

August 21, 2023 0