Pascal's Pensées
men to know both these points; and it is equally dangerous for man to
know God without knowing his own wretchedness, and to know his own
wretchedness without knowing the Redeemer who can free him from it. The
knowledge of only one of these points gives rise either to the pride of
philosophers, who have known God, and not their own wretchedness, or to
the despair of atheists, who know their own wretchedness, but not the
Redeemer.
And, as it is alike necessary to man to know these two points, so is it
alike merciful of God to have made us know them. The Christian religion
does this; it is in this that it consists.
Let us herein examine the order of the world, and see if all things do
not tend to establish these two chief points of this religion: Jesus
Christ is the end of all, and the centre to which all tends. Whoever
knows Him knows the reason of everything.
Those who fall into error err only through failure to see one of these
two things. We can then have an excellent knowledge of God without that
of our own wretchedness, and of our own wretchedness without that of
God. But we cannot know Jesus Christ without knowing at the same time
both God and our own wretchedness.
Therefore I shall not undertake here to prove by natural reasons either
the existence of God, or the Trinity, or the immortality of the soul, or
anything of that nature; not only because I should not feel myself
sufficiently able to find in nature arguments to convince hardened
atheists, but also because such knowledge without Jesus Christ is
useless and barren. Though a man should be convinced that numerical
proportions are immaterial truths, eternal and dependent on a first
truth, in which they subsist, and which is called God, I should not
think him far advanced towards his own salvation.
The God of Christians is not a God who is simply the author of
mathematical truths, or of the order of the elements; that is the view
of heathens and Epicureans. He is not merely a God who exercises His
providence over the life and fortunes of men, to bestow on those who
worship Him a long and happy life. That was the portion of the Jews. But
the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, the God of
Christians, is a God of love and of comfort, a God who fills the soul
and heart of those whom He possesses, a God who makes them conscious of
their inward wretchedness, and His infinite mercy, who unites Himself to
their inmost soul, who fills it with humility and joy, with confidence
and love, who renders them incapable of any other end than Himself.
All who seek God without Jesus Christ, and who rest in nature, either
find no light to satisfy them, or come to form for themselves a means of
knowing God and serving Him without a mediator. Thereby they fall either
into atheism, or into deism, two things which the Christian religion
abhors almost equally.
Without Jesus Christ the world would not exist; for it should needs be
either that it would be destroyed or be a hell.
If the world existed to instruct man of God, His divinity would shine
through every part in it in an indisputable manner; but as it exists
only by Jesus Christ, and for Jesus Christ, and to teach men both their
corruption and their redemption, all displays the proofs of these two
truths.
All appearance indicates neither a total exclusion nor a manifest
presence of divinity, but the presence of a God who hides Himself.
Everything bears this character.
... Shall he alone who knows his nature know it only to be miserable?
Shall he alone who knows it be alone unhappy?
... He must not see nothing at all, nor must he see sufficient for him
to believe he possesses it; but he must see enough to know that he has
lost it. For to know of his loss, he must see and not see; and that is
exactly the state in which he naturally is.
... Whatever part he takes, I shall not leave him at rest ...
556
... It is then true that everything teaches man his condition, but he
must understand this well. For it is not true that all reveals God, and
it is not true that all conceals God. But it is at the same time true
that He hides Himself from those who tempt Him, and that He reveals
Himself to those who seek Him, because men are both unworthy and capable
of God; unworthy by their corruption capable by their original nature.
557
What shall we conclude from all our darkness, but our unworthiness?
558
If there never had been any appearance of God, this eternal deprivation
would have been equivocal, and might have as well corresponded with the
absence of all divinity, as with the unworthiness of men to know Him;
but His occasional, though not continual, appearances remove the
ambiguity, If He appeared once, He exists always; and thus we cannot but
conclude both that there is a God, and that men are unworthy of Him.
559
We do not understand the glorious state of Adam, nor the nature of his
sin, nor the transmission of it to us. These are matters which took
place under conditions of a nature altogether different from our own,
and which transcend our present understanding.
The knowledge of all this is useless to us as a means of escape from it;
and all that we are concerned to know, is that we are miserable,
corrupt, separated from God, but ransomed by Jesus Christ, whereof we
have wonderful proofs on earth.
So the two proofs of corruption and redemption are drawn from the
ungodly, who live in indifference to religion, and from the Jews who are
irreconcilable enemies.
560
There are two ways of proving the truths of our religion; one by the
power of reason, the other by the authority of him who speaks.
We do not make use of the latter, but of the former. We do not say,
"This must be believed, for Scripture, which says it, is divine." But we
say that it must be believed for such and such a reason, which are
feeble arguments, as reason may be bent to everything.
561
There is nothing on earth that does not show either the wretchedness of
man, or the mercy of God; either the weakness of man without God, or the
strength of man with God.
562
It will be one of the confusions of the damned to see that they are
condemned by their own reason, by which they claimed to condemn the
Christian religion.
563
The prophecies, the very miracles and proofs of our religion, are not of
such a nature that they can be said to be absolutely convincing. But
they are also of such a kind that it cannot be said that it is
unreasonable to believe them. Thus there is both evidence and obscurity
to enlighten some and confuse others. But the evidence is such that it
surpasses, or at least equals, the evidence to the contrary; so that it
is not reason which can determine men not to follow it, and thus it can
only be lust or malice of heart. And by this means there is sufficient
evidence to condemn, and insufficient to convince; so that it appears in
those who follow it, that it is grace, and not reason, which makes them
follow it; and in those who shun it, that it is lust, not reason, which
makes them shun it.
_Vere discipuli, vere Israëlita, vere liberi, vere cibus._[207]
564
Recognise, then, the truth of religion in the very obscurity of
religion, in the little light we have of it, and in the indifference
which we have to knowing it.
565
We understand nothing of the works of God, if we do not take as a
principle that He has willed to blind some, and enlighten others.
566
The two contrary reasons. We must begin with that; without that we
understand nothing, and all is heretical; and we must even add at the
end of each truth that the opposite truth is to be remembered.
567
_Objection._ The Scripture is plainly full of matters not dictated by
the Holy Spirit.--_Answer._ Then they do not harm faith.--_Objection._
But the Church has decided that all is of the Holy Spirit.--_Answer._ I
answer two things: first, the Church has not so decided; secondly, if
she should so decide, it could be maintained.
Do you think that the prophecies cited in the Gospel are related to make
you believe? No, it is to keep you from believing.
568
_Canonical._--The heretical books in the beginning of the Church serve
to prove the canonical.
569
To the chapter on the _Fundamentals_ must be added that on _Typology_
touching the reason of types: why Jesus Christ was prophesied as to His
first coming; why prophesied obscurely as to the manner.
570
_The reason why. Types._--[They had to deal with a carnal people and to
render them the depositary of the spiritual covenant.] To give faith to
the Messiah, it was necessary there should have been precedent
prophecies, and that these should be conveyed by persons above
suspicion, diligent, faithful, unusually zealous, and known to all the
world.
To accomplish all this, God chose this carnal people, to whom He
entrusted the prophecies which foretell the Messiah as a deliverer, and
as a dispenser of those carnal goods which this people loved. And thus
they have had an extraordinary passion for their prophets, and, in sight
of the whole world, have had charge of these books which foretell their
Messiah, assuring all nations that He should come, and in the way
foretold in the books, which they held open to the whole world. Yet this
people, deceived by the poor and ignominious advent of the Messiah, have
been His most cruel enemies. So that they, the people least open to
suspicion in the world of favouring us, the most strict and most zealous
that can be named for their law and their prophets, have kept the books
incorrupt. Hence those who have rejected and crucified Jesus Christ, who
has been to them an offence, are those who have charge of the books
which testify of Him, and state that He will be an offence and rejected.
Therefore they have shown it was He by rejecting Him, and He has been
alike proved both by the righteous Jews who received Him, and by the
unrighteous who rejected Him, both facts having been foretold.
Wherefore the prophecies have a hidden and spiritual meaning, to which
this people were hostile, under the carnal meaning which they loved. If
the spiritual meaning had been revealed, they would not have loved it,
and, unable to bear it, they would not have been zealous of the
preservation of their books and their ceremonies; and if they had loved
these spiritual promises, and had preserved them incorrupt till the time
of the Messiah, their testimony would have had no force, because they
had been his friends.
Therefore it was well that the spiritual meaning should be concealed;
but, on the other hand, if this meaning had been so hidden as not to
appear at all, it could not have served as a proof of the Messiah. What
then was done? In a crowd of passages it has been hidden under the
temporal meaning, and in a few has been clearly revealed; besides that
the time and the state of the world have been so clearly foretold that
it is clearer than the sun. And in some places this spiritual meaning is
so clearly expressed, that it would require a blindness like that which
the flesh imposes on the spirit when it is subdued by it, not to
recognise it.
See, then, what has been the prudence of God. This meaning is concealed
under another in an infinite number of passages, and in some, though
rarely, it is revealed; but yet so that the passages in which it is
concealed are equivocal, and can suit both meanings; whereas the
passages where it is disclosed are unequivocal, and can only suit the
spiritual meaning.
So that this cannot lead us into error, and could only be misunderstood
by so carnal a people.
For when blessings are promised in abundance, what was to prevent them
from understanding the true blessings, but their covetousness, which