10.15.09

Pensées on Pascal’s Pensées

Posted in Life Betwixt Book Covers at 10:15 am by Miracle ♪♫

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The perfect writings on Christianity would be those that emphasize the gravity of God’s Word, and the importance of reading it. In so doing, the reader and author would both have a firm basis of the truth of which they claim to hold, and one would know whether the other is still in the bounds of Truth or whether one is relying on his personal speculations and “going beyond what is written”. For what is a more indisputable and abiding basis of our faith than His Word?

For this reason, I find religious writings not altogether futile but also not entirely necessary. The Bible is not destitute that we should seek Godly wisdom from any other source. It is even more ironic how we read more of these Christian books but never read the Bible with the same zeal.

After stating all those things, I hope I will be forgiven and understood when I confess to reading Blaise Pascal’s Pensées for its literary value rather than for matters of faith. By doing this, I was able to embrace what was faithful to the Word and consider, respect, but not always agree with those portions that were labeled as religious but went beyond the gospel truth. Because he is Pascal does not mean his word is always truth but that does not mean we reckon ourselves better than this great man but that we should always examine truth according to the Bible and be very cautious when it comes to such matters. This attitude should not be misunderstood as presumptuous but to accept it as our duty.

Much has been said about Kierkegaard’s Catholic counterpart and the Pensées, and personally, when Pascal laid outlines on how to know God, I think he failed to stress the weight of The Word. On the other hand, reading this has enriched my starved understanding of Existentialism and of how one can incorporate Existentialism in the Christian life. I have always noted how existentialists seem to be the world’s gravest pessimists, but now I perceive that it is because they know the human condition all too well and they are the ones who are brave enough to scrutinize such a daunting subject. Furthermore, what makes the Christian existentialists superior is that they do not end with the discovery of our true state, but with the acknowledgment that we are in dire need of a saviour.

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One of the things I did not expect from Pascal was his view of baptism that harmonizes well with the Bible but is ignored in today’s practices - both in Catholic and Protestant churches:

“In the present day, Baptism having, for very important considerations, been granted to infants before the use of reason, the negligence of their relations allows these Christians to grow old without any knowledge of our religion.

When instruction preceded Baptism, all were instructed; but now baptism preceding instruction, that instruction which before was necessary in order to receive the sacrament, is become optional: it is consequently neglected, and almost abolished. Reason teaches the necessity of instruction, so that when instruction preceded baptism, the necessity of the one naturally led to the practice of the other: but now, baptism preceding instruction, as men are made Christians without instruction, they believe they may remain Christians without it.”

While Pascal may have referred to this baptism as the physical baptism, one can also apply this same view to the true spiritual baptism - not as an initiation to a religion but as a symbol of the remission of sins. So yes, what sins have infants committed in order that they should be washed? As much as they are incapable of sinning, they are also still incapable of repenting.

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Now in the hope of becoming a “mogul diamond” of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s classification of readers, I wish for others to profit by this reading with these excerpts from the Pensées. =)

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