I have to be honest, I didn't like the readings that much this week. I don't know why, but they didn't grip me like they usually do. I was digging Kreeft's comments more than Pascal's insights. To wit:
page 111: Indeed, how could reason itself be validated? There are only three possibilities: (1) by something subrational, like animal instinct (which is obviously absurd: How can the inferior validate the superior?); or (2) by something rational, by a piece of reasoning (which is also absurd: How can the part justify the whole? All reason is on trial; how dare the one piece of reasoning you use to justify all reasoning be exempt from trial?); or (3) by something superrational, by faith in God (which is the only possibility left).
page 120: Science no more proves nature is not a mother but only matter than an X-ray proves that a woman is not a mother but only a bag of bones.
page 135: Our civilization has the fidgets.
page 144: Voltaire joked that medieval French peasants knew more about the geography of Heaven than about the geography of France. Pascal would not see this as a joke but as a privilege, and eminently reasonable.
But one of Pascal's comments brought me up short:
164: I agree the Copernicus' opinion need not be more closely examined. But this: It affects our whole life to know whether the soul is mortal or immortal.
How many useless facts have you mastered at Stanford?
Compare that with how many class sessions have been devoted to discussing whether or not this life is all that there is.
Also, was I the only one not digging Blaise this week?
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