Pensées

Pensées, published in 1670, is an incomplete work by Blaise Pascal which consists of his thoughts and opinions regarding Christianity, life and human nature. Originally these pensées were to be used in a book as a justification for the Christian faith, however Pascal died before completing his work. Pensées contains many vital musings; yet the one that is most well known is Pascal’s “wager.” Section 3, entitled “Of the Necessity of the Wager,” explains this idea immensely. This idea is the issue of whether or not God exists; Pascal states that we should seek God because we have more to gain than the alternative: “I would have far more fear of being mistaken, and of finding that the Christian religion was true, than of not being mistaken in believing it true” (241 Pensées). 

Besides the section on Pascal’s “wager,” I enjoyed reading section 2 “The Misery of Man without God” because Pascal provided insight and knowledge on the human condition. Pascal starts off by stating that the misery of man without God is explained by the fact that nature is corrupt. He then says that the happiness of man with God is because there is a Redeemer. This opening statement I think foreshadows his wager in the third section because he establishes that we are wagering our happiness when deciding to seek God; one gains happiness when they live for God. Pascal wants to do far more than convince people to believe in God’s existence, he wants to challenge them to dedicate their life to Him because in doing so they will reap the benefits of eternal life. 

Here are some of my favorite of Pascal’s thoughts from section 2: 

66. One must know oneself. If this does not serve to discover truth, it at least serves as a rule of life, and there is nothing better.

100. Man is, then, only disguise, falsehood, and hypocrisy, both in himself and in regard to others. He does not wish any one to tell him the truth; he avoids telling it to others, and all these dispositions, so removed from justice and reason, have a natural root in his heart.

102. Some vices only lay hold of us by means of others, and these, like branches, fall on removal of the trunk.

122. Time heals griefs and quarrels, for we change and are no longer the same persons. Neither the offender nor the offended are any more themselves. It is like a nation which we have provoked, but meet again after two generations. They are still Frenchmen, but not the same.

129. Our nature consists in motion; complete rest is death.

Regarding number 129, Francis Bacon, an English philosopher and statesman in the 1600s, wrote something similar to Pascal in his work Novum Organum. He said that “The human understanding is unquiet; it cannot stop or rest, and still presses onward, but in vain. Therefore it is that we cannot conceive of any end or limit to the world, but always as of necessity it occurs to us that there is something beyond.” Our human nature cannot rest because even after death our spirit lives on and is in motion; this is the something beyond that Bacon is referring to. Both him and Pascal are relaying their beliefs to their readers and how they should seek God.