Blaise Pascal

Life

Pascal was born on June 19, 1623, in Clermont-Ferrand, France. He excelled in mathematics and science from an early age, and as a young man he made his name as a scientist by building a mechanical calculator and conducting experiments on atmospheric pressure. Around 1646 he is said to have encountered Jansenist piety through the believers who cared for his injured father. Jansenism was a seventeenth-century theological movement within the Catholic Church that rigorously emphasized Augustine's understanding of grace. This encounter is said to have led Pascal and his family into a deeper commitment to the faith.

His decisive conversion came through an experience on the night of November 23, 1654. He recorded this experience, commonly called the "Night of Fire," in a short text known as the "Memorial." He is said to have sewn it into the lining of his coat and carried it with him until his death. In January of the following year, he made a retreat (a period of withdrawal from daily life for prayer) at the Abbey of Port-Royal, the center of Jansenism. From about 1659 his health declined severely, and he died on August 19, 1662, at the age of thirty-nine.

Work and Achievements

In science, Pascal laid the foundations of probability theory together with Pierre de Fermat. He is also known for a principle concerning fluid pressure. In 1661 he operated a fare-paying carriage service in Paris, which is sometimes regarded as the first public transportation system in history.

Two of his religious writings are especially notable:

• The Provincial Letters (Lettres provinciales): A series of eighteen letters published from January 1656 to March 1657 under the pseudonym "Louis de Montalte." In them he criticized the moral theology of the Jesuits and defended the Jansenists, whom the Jesuits were attacking as heretics.
• The Pensées (Thoughts): A collection of the manuscript notes Pascal was writing as an apology for Christianity addressed to unbelievers. Apologetics is the work of explaining and defending the faith rationally. Pascal died before completing the book, and it first appeared in 1670 in the Port-Royal edition. This first edition was incomplete, its contents selected and revised by his family and associates of Port-Royal; later editions came closer to the original manuscripts.

The Pensées argues that humanity without God is wretched and is delivered from that wretchedness in union with God. The work is widely known for the phrase "Man is a thinking reed." It is also the source of the so-called "wager argument," which holds that it is rational to bet on the existence of God. The book is also read as Pascal's presentation of his own thought in dialogue with the skeptic Montaigne and the rationalist Descartes.

Influence on the Korean Church

The Pensées has been translated into Korean by several publishers and is read as a classic even outside the church. Although Pascal was a Catholic, he is reportedly cited frequently in sermons and devotional books within Korean Protestantism as a Christian apologist who addressed faith and reason together.

Assessment

Because Pascal was both an outstanding scientist and a profound religious writer, he is frequently invoked in discussions of the relationship between faith and reason. In 2023, marking the 400th anniversary of his birth, Pope Francis issued an apostolic letter in his honor, Sublimitas et miseria hominis (The Grandeur and Misery of Man).

There have also been criticisms. The Jansenism he championed was accused of heresy in his day by the Jesuits and others. Philosophers have also objected that the wager argument treats faith as a matter of calculating gains and losses.