Wretchedness and Vanity

This summer we're reading through Christianity for Modern Pagans, an annotated edition of Blaise Pascal's Pensees. For the record, this week we were to have read chapters 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 (pages 47-104). I'll try to put the schedule in the sidebar so that there's an online reference in case you lose your little sheet.

By the way - anyone doing the readings is welcome to post. You can post almost anything - the passage you liked best, an anecdote that illustrates the point, or questions about the reading you want us to answer. Just up and do it - if you need help posting email Glen or Alan.

I had hoped to post on this earlier, but I couldn't find my book. It's lying lost somewhere in my house, no doubt buried beneath some discarded Happy Meal toys. *sigh* Such is the lot of parenthood. Lindsey was kind enough to loan me her copy, so here's what stuck out to me from this set of readings.

This week's reading includes the line from Pascal that has shaped my thought more than any other, "There is enough light for those who desire only to see, and enough darkness for those of a contrary disposition" (page 69). It's an amazingly simple explanation of the thing we observe every day at Stanford, namely that some smart people think God's existence is blindingly obvious, some smart people thing that God's nonexistence is blindingly obvious, and some people who are just confused.

I also like Pensees 697 & 699 (page 94-95):

697: Those who lead disorderly lives tell those who are normal that is it they who deviate from nature, and think they are following nature themselves; just as those who are board ship think that the people on shore are moving away. Language is the same everywhere; we need a fixed point to judge it. The harbour is the judge of those aboard ship, but where are we going to find a harbour in morals?

699: When everything is moving at once, nothing appears to be moving, as on board ship. When everyone is moving towards depravity, no one seems to be moving, but if someone stops he shows up the others who are rushing on, by acting as a fixed point.

We've reached a very strange place in our culture whereby merely stating that you don't participate in debauchery yourself can offend people. You can actually be called "holier-than-thou" simply for exercising minimal self-restraint. Pascal explains the underlying dynamics beautifully.

And did anyone else think of Jerry and balloons while reading page 102? Or maybe Esther and spiders? Or Hilary and rats?

Oh, and check this out: Kreeft has an essay on surfing and spirituality which he has evidently turned into a book: I Surf, Therefore I Am. For real. Might make for good beach reading.

Talking about God with atheists

Hey all,

This week's reading made me wince a bit. It was excellent and
thought-provoking, but it also reminded me very clearly that I often
approach things the wrong way when I talk about God with my atheist
friends. I was particularly convicted by a quotation of Kierkegaard
that Kreeft places in his explication of the 701st Pensee (pages
39-41).

From page 40:
"A direct attack only strengthens a person in his illusion and, at the
same time, embitters him.... It implies moreover the presumption of
requiring a man to make to another person, or in his presence, an
admission which he can make most profitably to himself privately.
This is what is achieved by the indirect method which, loving and
serving the truth, arranges everything dialectically for the
prospective captive, and then shyly withdraws (for love is always
shy), so as not to witness the admission which he makes to himself
alone before God--that he has lived hitherto in an illusion....
If real success is to attend the effort to bring a man to a definite
position, one must first of all take pains to find him where he is and
begin there. This is the secret of the art of helping others.... If,
however, I am disposed to plume myself on my greater understanding, it
is because I am vain or proud, so that at bottom, instead of
benefiting him, I want to be admired. But all true effort to help
begins with self-humiliation...."

And Kreeft adds, "What Kierkegaard describes above is also exactly
Socrates' method."

Sometimes, when talking with atheist friends about God (or, more
honestly, arguing with them), I give good answers--and sometimes
not--but even when I do, it's useless. No matter how reasonable I may
seem, it means very little if I'm just trying to appear all wise and
logical in their eyes. People are much more swayed by humility, and
also:

737. "We are usually convinced more easily by reasons we have found
ourselves than by those which have occurred to others."

So the method that Kierkegaard and Pascal advocate is really much
better, both because it's simply more effective, and because it
doesn't cause the gospel to be dishonored by our pride and our desire
to be considered smart.

I've always known that the way I converse with atheists about our
different beliefs is less than ideal, but I hadn't really found a
clear alternative. This chapter has given me a pattern to match.
Woohoo!

Clare

Preface: On Kreeft and Pascal

I have to let you in on a secret: I heart Peter Kreeft.

It started when I picked up a copy of a book he wrote called Between Heaven and Hell. In it, Kreeft writes an imaginary dialog between C.S. Lewis, President John F. Kennedy and author/philosopher Aldous Huxley. As it turns out, those three men died on the same day in 1963 and Kreeft imagines their conversation on their way to the afterlife. It was a really imaginative and clever little apologetic about the intersection of worldviews and the person of Christ and I was hooked.

I downloaded some of his lectures from the Veritas Forum. I find his style engages both my heart and mind, a trait he asserts is vital in the writings of Pascal and the teachings of Christ, but I add that Kreeft himself does it really well.

Now to my second point: I heart Pascal.

I encountered his writings in a philosophy class as an undergrad, but it wasn't until a recent seminary class that I gave some of his Pensees serious consideration. I was wrestling with some good points in a book written by an atheist when I read something Pascal said about the importance of knowing truth through reason and through the heart.

190. The metaphysical proofs for the existence of God are so remote from human reasoning, and so complex, that they have little impact. Even if they were of help to some people, this would only be for the moment during which they observed the demonstration, because an hour later, they would be afraid that they have deceived themselves...

George Michael sang about this: "...oh ya gotta have faith, faith, faith."

But Pascal says it better. And he uses bigger words. We'll stick with him. ;)

As we look deeper at Pascal, via Kreeft, this summer my prayer is that our heads and our hearts would engage, sharpening our reasoning and deepening our faith. Our summer reading schedule starts next week, hope you'll join us!

Love to all,
Lindsey