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Pascal: Thoughts on the approach of 4 points. The nose of Cleopatra

Whatever the light cast by the successive editions of Thoughts of Pascal, no grading will establish the specific plan adopted What would it lead if he could out his "Apology for the Christian religion." But if one ignores this plan, the overall strategy of the author - outlined in the famous Brunschvicg edition - can be little doubt. Pascal's approach is, in fact, starting from the contradictions of human nature, to show that Christianity alone provides an explanation consistent. Here is a brief summary, or rather an overview, at the request of my partner 'Phoenix ingenuous, with a few quotations (followed by their number in the edition Brunschvicg répérage for a more convenient):

■ Step : Pascal describes the misery, or rather the miseries of the human condition, thrown into the cosmos and delivered in itself. Misery of being immersed for no reason in the space-time: "What is man in nature? A nothing in relation to infinity, a unit in respect of nothingness, a mean between nothing and everything. " (Thought 72); " The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me. " (Thought 206). Hence the disproportion makes this universe unintelligible to the human conscience.

But the misery of man is also in deceptive powers which, within itself, render it incapable of knowing the truth
- it The Self-Esteem , which grows to flatter each other and refuse to see as ("The nature of self-esteem and this human self is to love only themselves and consider only self ", 100), hence a lie generalized social ( "The man is then only disguise, falsehood and hypocrisy, and self and against others ", 100, - which shows, if necessary, how "The ego is hateful," 455);
- it IMAGINATION , "This is the dominant part in man, this mistress of error and falsehood, and all the more treacherous than it is not always " (82), so that the wisest are the first victims (" The greatest philosopher of world on a larger board that we should "... not fail to tremble like a coward, 82);
- it CUSTOM , which makes us take our nature of Simple acquired characters, so we no longer know what is our essence.

Also misleading as these faculties, they can not yet we hide "Vanity" of our being and its behavior (see the thought on "Cleopatra's nose" in our previous post) and boredom harrowing days that lead us inexorably to the cemetery ("The Last Act is bloody beautiful as any comedy in everything else: it takes a little earth on the head, and that's forever " , 210). A quick look at social hierarchies and the vanity of political systems are incapable of truth and justice, tells us that we can hardly find our happiness in the organization of the city (" strange justice that a river terminal! Truth on this side of the Pyrenees, error on the ", 294)

What then man? He "entertains. All its businesses, including the most serious, are a vast entertainment, a "diversion" by which he hides his tragic condition, instead of his search for meaning by collecting ("All the misfortune the man has just one thing, which is not knowing how to stay quietly in a room " , 139) And this headlong amplifies his misfortune.

■ Second step. Table precedent could lead to suicide ... except that Pascal has not finished with his readers, he assumes eager truth. After temporarily "desperate", it struck him while another consideration: the man is great! And it's the thought that made it great ( Man is a reed, the weakest of nature, but it is a thinking reed " ). Are we reassured? Not at all, because you have to find consistency this contradiction of our nature: " Man is neither angel nor beast, and the misfortune is that he who wants to play the angel plays the beast " (358; it is both one and the other). The paradox is that it is the consciousness of his misery that the greatness of the human being: "The greatness of man is great in that it knows miserable [...] All of his misery then prove his greatness. These are the miseries of a great lord, miseries of a dispossessed king " (397-398). We are now well advanced. Well, rightly says Pascal, the Christian mystery of the Fall explains This dual nature of man: he was like a king in the garden of Eden, then he was stripped of his kingship by sin. Hence its status deposed king, - a term made famous. What then?

■ Third step. Pascal has hitherto served human reason alone to describe the contradictions of the man (she also will also show the consistency of Christianity). But this point established, we must go beyond reason, because it leads to its own excess: "The last step of reason is to recognize that there are an infinity of things which surpass it, they are only small, if it is not going to know that." (267) accesses are in fact the truth by faith and that faith can only be obtained only with the help of another faculty: the heart . The heart, beyond what the eye sees (perceptual knowledge), beyond what is included in the result (knowledge intelligible), is a sort of third option, a higher intuition made to "capture" the spiritual dimension Our Reality any inhabited the presence of God (cf. Thinking 793, which establishes the existence of "Three Orders"). "It's the heart that feels God, not reason. That is what is that faith, God sensitive heart, not reason. " (278). This is the precise meaning of the famous thought: "The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing. " (277). But how to get this "faith" is "a gift from God", not "a gift of reasoning"? We must bet ...

■ Fourth step. The argument Pari . In the absence of certainty about the existence of God we can ask that at least a chance that there are many cons N likely does not exist. If you bet that God exists and that it behaves according to the ethical demands of Christianity, it has a chance to gain eternal life (that is to say an infinite number of happy lives). If you bet on the contrary that God does not exist, and that its absence is making the most of earthly sojourn, it has N chances to win a very good life. Comparing the two possibilities, one can see mathematically advantage of the first option, because:

(1 chance) x (infinitely happy lives)> (N opportunities) x (a happy life)

On side the gain is infinite, the other is finished. A player must make sense to bet that God is and live accordingly ... But if you do not bet? It is as if God did not exist, which amounts therefore to make a second choice. But we can not do not bet, "we are embarked" !

Actually, Pascal offers this bet (which shocked) because it is certain that involvement in religious practice, even if one has not faith, led him to leave the "entertainment" that distracted from the spiritual dimension, and therefore, to " plug "on the" reality "of God, which will only become increasingly sensitive to that which he opens his" heart "(heart who feels God).

Provisional Conclusion: should we seek with groans?

With everything he has "demonstrated", Pascal thinks that a reader of good faith can not remain indifferent or the question of man or the question of God: "I blame equally, and those who take advantage of the rent man, and those who are to blame, and those who take it to entertain, and I can not approve that those who seek with groans. " Another sentence that shocked! We must understand that Pascal does not want you groan, but knows (from experience?) That the search for God is not easy. Its severity can also be qualified by the end of the Thought 194, where he calls those who live in indifference "to feel sorry for themselves, and taking at least a few steps to try if they find no lights. " These few steps will lead them to judge knowingly, to enter into the considerations that will allow the apologist and the superiority of the Christian religion and the prominent role it gives to human beings. "Learn , they said Pascal that man infinitely transcends man, and hear your Master your true condition as you know. Listen to God." ( Thought 434). Needless
Of course, to let his readers "listen" to God, so Pascal is silent. And not to disturb the meditation, I choose to be silent in my turn ...

BH