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Title: Pensees (Penguin Classics) by Blaise Pascal, A. J. Krailsheimer ISBN: 0140446451 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: December, 1995 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.62
Rating: 4
Summary: a spiritual genius
Comment: The Pensees place Pascal among the great spiritual geniuses of Christianity. His depth and clarity of thought are remarkable; his devotion unwavering. Pascal's knowledge of the Bible and the church fathers enrich and inform his writing. His skill as a writer is precise (showing his scientific training). This book makes one think.
Rating: 5
Summary: a testament to faith
Comment: This book proved to be an excellent one to read right after Galileo's Daughter -- after reading of G's struggle to stay within the bounds of the church (he had no problem with a struggle for faith -- he knew he was right about the sun being at the center), it's refreshing to read of a near contemporary who was much more conflicted. Pascal was one of the great geniuses of all time -- if you study math at all, you'll realize the extend of his scope and reach. His talents crossed into other fields as well. Unfortunately, like Galileo (although I think worse), he was very sickly for much of his life. Sometimes, he could barely get down a "pensee" because it hurt so much to write. No surprise then that many are short jottings or musings on many aspects of Christian faith. One doesn't have to be a Christian to understand one man's struggles to reconcile what he saw in the world around him to his scientific and mathematical discoveries. There are infinite nuggets of wisdom in these pages. Sure, he misinterprets the bible a lot, but he was blazing a trail in criticism of translation that he didn't have primary sources for.
Like a Bartlett's book of quotations, this book is best read in small doses or it becomes too much. The book takes the form of many small comments and analysis, a notebook written in shorthand if you will. This translation allows us a look inside one of the greatest thinkers of all time.
Rating: 5
Summary: Pascal is hard to pigeonhole
Comment: This book, representing Pascal's 'pensees', or thoughts, contains many provocative views that have managed to arouse critics from many different perspectives. And while there are several strains of Pascal's thought that I considerably dissent from, it can hardly be denied that in many ways, Pascal's insights into human character as it relates to the divine are not easily dismissed, at least intellectually.
Because this work is a collection of thoughts rather than a systematic presentation, which is what Pascal ultimately had in mind but his illness and subsequent death prevented, the reader will likely find Pascal to be quite quotable. There are quite a few 'one liners' in here that are profound to the point of being humorous when one thinks about how insightful his thoughts are. And Pascal, in arguing in favor of the truth of Christianity, makes a very big investment in fulfilled prophecy and the history of the Jews that readers should find interesting. His 8 page discourse on indifference at the beginning of the second section is among the best 8 pages I've ever read and have succeeded in providing a noticeable amount of discomfort for atheists for three centuries now.
The portion of Pensees that is the most well known is Pascal's wager argument early in the second section. Personally, this argument, while interesting, is not the most compelling argument he makes and I consider it a shame that the wager argument has really overshadowed what I believe to be Pascal's most provocative argument in favor of the Christian religion - his anthropological argument. While not stated in this manner, section 1 of Pensees spends considerable time developing the notion that the extreme paradox of humanity (as Pascal sees it) of both immense greatness and horrible evil demand an explanation. How can man be both, and what worldview best explains this clear reality? These are the questions that Pascal presents, and he argues that only the Biblical narrative of man from creation forward provides an intelligent framework upon which to explain the human condition adequately. It is a very provocative argument that a number of thoughtful theologians from Groothuis to McKenzie have opined upon quite recently, and it is an argument that deserves extensive thought not just about the Christian religion, but about the very nature of man and whether Pascal's grasp of it is correct or not. I have found that one can take the sketches of the argument put forward by Pascal here and get into some very deep anthropological water that is healthy, even if one ultimately takes issue with Pascal's paradox.
Being a Jansenist, Pascal was not as willing as mainstream Roman Catholicism to rely on human reason, believing that man's 'wretchedness' calls such reason into question. As such, the reader will notice that Pascal tends to employ a general polemic against reason, even though he clearly refutes the complete abandonment of reason. But as part of this general polemic, he clearly distrusts natural theology as well as the rationalizations of the philosophers (which is kind of ironic), believing that philosophical rationalizing is ultimately an impediment to faith. It is in these basic areas (and a few others) which I respectfully dissent from Pascal in varying degrees. Pascal intends here to walk a fine line between what he believed to be the logical absurdity of faith in complete contradiction to reason, but also of the bankruptcy as he saw it of reason alone becoming the basis for our faith. In my own reading of the book, my view is that Pascal devoted more energy to dealing with the latter concern than the former.
A highly provocative book that has, and will continue to arouse thought and contemplation at the deepest levels.
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Title: Making Sense of It All Pascal and the Meaning of Life by Thomas V. Morris ISBN: 080280652X Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. Pub. Date: October, 1992 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: Confessions (Oxford World's Classics) by Saint Augustine, Henry Chadwick ISBN: 0192833723 Publisher: Oxford Press Pub. Date: April, 1998 List Price(USD): $7.95 |
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Title: Blaise Pascal: Reasons of the Heart (Library of Religious Biography) by Marvin R. O'Connell, Allen C. Guelzo ISBN: 0802801587 Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. Pub. Date: August, 1997 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: The Mind on Fire: A Faith for the Skeptical and Indifferent by Blaise Pascal, James M. Houston, OS Guinness ISBN: 1573832456 Publisher: Regent College Pub Pub. Date: March, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Christianity for Modern Pagans: Pascal's Pensees by Peter Kreeft, Blaise Pascal ISBN: 0898704529 Publisher: Ignatius Press Pub. Date: October, 1993 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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