Thoughts on ‘Pensées’

Friday, Sep. 05, 2025

Blaise Pascal’s Pensées have given me much food for thought since I read it a couple of weeks ago.

Pascal, who lived in the 17th century, was a child prodigy who came up with a proof for the binomial theorem, invented one of the first mechanical calculators, established what is considered the first modern public transport system and pioneered work on the existence of physical vacuums. His mathematical and scientific work informed his theological writing; one of his well-known sayings is, “There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of each man which cannot be satisfied by any created thing but only by God the Creator, made know through Jesus Christ.”

Reading this immediately brought to my mind Saint Augustine’s famous saying, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”

Pascal quotes Augustine several times, and was obviously influenced by the saint. In particular, in pensée 18 he writes, “If man is not made for God, why is he only happy with God? …” This theme, which he returns to several times, echoes Augustine, who said, “To fall in love with God is the greatest romance, to seek him is the greatest adventure, to find him the greatest achievement.”

Unlike Augustine, however, Pascal often questions the tumultuous relationship humankind has with the Creator. For example, the second part of pensée 18 is “… If man is made for God, why is he so hostile to God?” This, too, is an idea he returns to again and again.  

One objection I do have to Pascal’s religious writing is that, even though he was Catholic, he believed in predestination – that God preordains who will be saved and who will be damned. This goes against Church teaching, which holds that although God knows whether we will accept his gift of salvation, that knowledge isn’t the same as predestination. God desires every person to be saved but allows those who wish to reject salvation to go to hell. As Augustine wrote, “God created us without us, but he did not will to save us without us.”

I also object to Pascal’s views of the Jewish and Islam religions, which he discusses while trying to prove the truth of Christianity. 

Nevertheless, Pensées has plenty of material for reflection that fits right in with good Catholic theology. For example, 271 states, “Man is not worthy of God, but he is not incapable of being made worthy of him. It is unworthy of God to associate himself with man’s wretchedness, but not unworthy of him to extricate man from his wretchedness.”

Pensées isn’t a book in the traditional sense. Rather, “They were miscellaneous private jottings concerning God, religion, and many sorts of human behavior, analysed in support of Pascal’s religious views,” states the introduction by Anthony Levi in the Oxford University Press’ volume. The entries, which were selected, arranged and numbered after his death, don’t always follow each other in logical sequence, and sometimes leave the reader wondering what prompted Pascal’s thought. For example, Pensée 138 reads: “Greatness. The law of cause and effect demonstrates man’s greatness through the construction of such a fine moral order drawn out of concupiscence.” This is followed by 139: “The parrot’s beak, which it wipes even though it is clean.”

These unusual jottings aside, Pensées is full of interesting thoughts on a wide range of subjects that I’m continuing to ponder. For example, one famous pensée about how history can be affected by seemingly insignificant matters: “Cleopatra’s nose: if it had been shorter, the whole face of the earth would have been different.” Another that struck me was under the heading of tyranny: “Can there be anything more ludicrous than a man having the right to kill me because he lives over the water and his king has a quarrel with mine, even though I have none with him?”