Pascal's Pensées
limited the meaning to worldly goods? But those whose only good was in
God referred them to God alone. For there are two principles, which
divide the wills of men, covetousness and charity. Not that covetousness
cannot exist along with faith in God, nor charity with worldly riches;
but covetousness uses God, and enjoys the world, and charity is the
opposite.
Now the ultimate end gives names to things. All which prevents us from
attaining it, is called an enemy to us. Thus the creatures, however
good, are the enemies of the righteous, when they turn them away from
God, and God Himself is the enemy of those whose covetousness He
confounds.
Thus as the significance of the word "enemy" is dependent on the
ultimate end, the righteous understood by it their passions, and the
carnal the Babylonians; and so these terms were obscure only for the
unrighteous. And this is what Isaiah says: _Signa legem in electis
meis_,[208] and that Jesus Christ shall be a stone of stumbling. But,
"Blessed are they who shall not be offended in him." Hosea,[209] _ult._,
says excellently, "Where is the wise? and he shall understand what I
say. The righteous shall know them, for the ways of God are right; but
the transgressors shall fall therein."
571
Hypothesis that the apostles were impostors.--The time clearly, the
manner obscurely.--Five typical proofs.
{1600 prophets.
2000 {
{ 400 scattered.
572
_Blindness of Scripture._--"The Scripture," said the Jews, "says that we
shall not know whence Christ will come (John vii, 27, and xii, 34). The
Scripture says that Christ abideth for ever, and He said that He should
die." Therefore, says Saint John,[210] they believed not, though He had
done so many miracles, that the word of Isaiah might be fulfilled: "He
hath blinded them," etc.
573
_Greatness._--Religion is so great a thing that it is right that those
who will not take the trouble to seek it, if it be obscure, should be
deprived of it. Why, then, do any complain, if it be such as can be
found by seeking?
574
All things work together for good to the elect, even the obscurities of
Scripture; for they honour them because of what is divinely clear. And
all things work together for evil to the rest of the world, even what is
clear; for they revile such, because of the obscurities which they do
not understand.
575
_The general conduct of the world towards the Church: God willing to
blind and to enlighten._--The event having proved the divinity of these
prophecies, the rest ought to be believed. And thereby we see the order
of the world to be of this kind. The miracles of the Creation and the
Deluge being forgotten, God sends the law and the miracles of Moses, the
prophets who prophesied particular things; and to prepare a lasting
miracle, He prepares prophecies and their fulfilment; but, as the
prophecies could be suspected, He desires to make them above suspicion,
etc.
576
God has made the blindness of this people subservient to the good of the
elect.
577
There is sufficient clearness to enlighten the elect, and sufficient
obscurity to humble them. There is sufficient obscurity to blind the
reprobate, and sufficient clearness to condemn them, and make them
inexcusable.--Saint Augustine, Montaigne, Sébond.
The genealogy of Jesus Christ in the Old Testament is intermingled with
so many others that are useless, that it cannot be distinguished. If
Moses had kept only the record of the ancestors of Christ, that might
have been too plain. If he had not noted that of Jesus Christ, it might
not have been sufficiently plain. But, after all, whoever looks closely
sees that of Jesus Christ expressly traced through Tamar,[211]
Ruth,[212] etc.
Those who ordained these sacrifices, knew their uselessness; those who
have declared their uselessness, have not ceased to practise them.
If God had permitted only one religion, it had been too easily known;
but when we look at it closely, we clearly discern the truth amidst this
confusion.
_The premiss._--Moses was a clever man. If, then, he ruled himself by
his reason, he would say nothing clearly which was directly against
reason.
Thus all the very apparent weaknesses are strength. Example; the two
genealogies in Saint Matthew and Saint Luke. What can be clearer than
that this was not concerted?
578
God (and the Apostles), foreseeing that the seeds of pride would make
heresies spring up, and being unwilling to give them occasion to arise
from correct expressions, has put in Scripture and the prayers of the
Church contrary words and sentences to produce their fruit in time.
So in morals He gives charity, which produces fruits contrary to lust.
579
Nature has some perfections to show that she is the image of God, and
some defects to show that she is only His image.
580
God prefers rather to incline the will than the intellect. Perfect
clearness would be of use to the intellect, and would harm the will. To
humble pride.
581
We make an idol of truth itself; for truth apart from charity is not
God, but His image and idol, which we must neither love nor worship; and
still less must we love or worship its opposite, namely, falsehood.
I can easily love total darkness; but if God keeps me in a state of
semi-darkness, such partial darkness displeases me, and, because I do
not see therein the advantage of total darkness, it is unpleasant to me.
This is a fault, and a sign that I make for myself an idol of darkness,
apart from the order of God. Now only His order must be worshipped.
582
The feeble-minded are people who know the truth, but only affirm it so
far as consistent with their own interest. But, apart from that, they
renounce it.
583
The world exists for the exercise of mercy and judgment, not as if men
were placed in it out of the hands of God, but as hostile to God; and to
them He grants by grace sufficient light, that they may return to Him,
if they desire to seek and follow Him; and also that they may be
punished, if they refuse to seek or follow Him.
584
_That God has willed to hide Himself._--If there were only one religion,
God would indeed be manifest. The same would be the case, if there were
no martyrs but in our religion.
God being thus hidden, every religion which does not affirm that God is
hidden, is not true; and every religion which does not give the reason
of it, is not instructive. Our religion does, all this: _Vere tu es Deus
absconditus._
585
If there were no obscurity, man would not be sensible of his corruption;
if there were no light, man would not hope for a remedy. Thus, it is not
only fair, but advantageous to us, that God be partly hidden and partly
revealed; since it is equally dangerous to man to know God without
knowing his own wretchedness, and to know his own wretchedness without
knowing God.
586
This religion, so great in miracles, saints, blameless Fathers, learned
and great witnesses, martyrs, established kings as David, and Isaiah, a
prince of the blood, and so great in science, after having displayed all
her miracles and all her wisdom, rejects all this, and declares that she
has neither wisdom nor signs, but only the cross and foolishness.
For those, who, by these signs and that wisdom, have deserved your
belief, and who have proved to you their character, declare to you that
nothing of all this can change you, and render you capable of knowing
and loving God, but the power of the foolishness of the cross without
wisdom and signs, and not the signs without this power. Thus our
religion is foolish in respect to the effective cause, and wise in
respect to the wisdom which prepares it.
587
Our religion is wise and foolish. Wise, because it is the most learned,
and the most founded on miracles, prophecies, etc. Foolish, because it
is not all this which makes us belong to it. This makes us indeed
condemn those who do not belong to it; but it does not cause belief in
those who do belong to it. It is the cross that makes them believe, _ne
evacuata sit crux_. And so Saint Paul, who came with wisdom and signs,
says that he has come neither with wisdom nor with signs; for he came to
convert. But those who come only to convince, can say that they come
with wisdom and with signs.
SECTION IX
PERPETUITY
588
_On the fact that the Christian religion is not the only religion._--So
far is this from being a reason for believing that it is not the true
one, that, on the contrary, it makes us see that it is so.
589
Men must be sincere in all religions; true heathens, true Jews, true
Christians.
590
J. C.
Heathens __|__ Mahomet
\ /
Ignorance
of God.
591
_The falseness of other religions._--They have no witnesses. Jews have.
God defies other religions to produce such signs: Isaiah xliii, 9; xliv,
8.
592
_History of China._[213]-I believe only the histories, whose witnesses
got themselves killed.
[Which is the more credible of the two, Moses or China?]
It is not a question of seeing this summarily. I tell you there is in it
something to blind, and something to enlighten.
By this one word I destroy all your reasoning. "But China obscures," say
you; and I answer, "China obscures, but there is clearness to be found;
seek it."
Thus all that you say makes for one of the views, and not at all against
the other. So this serves, and does no harm.
We must then see this in detail; we must put the papers on the table.
593
_Against the history of China._ The historians of Mexico, the five
suns,[214] of which the last is only eight hundred years old.
The difference between a book accepted by a nation, and one which makes
a nation.
594
Mahomet was without authority. His reasons then should have been very
strong, having only their own force. What does he say then, that we must
believe him?
595
The Psalms are chanted throughout the whole world.
Who renders testimony to Mahomet? Himself. Jesus Christ[215] desires His
own testimony to be as nothing.
The quality of witnesses necessitates their existence always and
everywhere; and he, miserable creature, is alone.
596
_Against Mahomet._--The Koran is not more of Mahomet than the Gospel is
of Saint Matthew, for it is cited by many authors from age to age. Even
its very enemies, Celsus and Porphyry, never denied it.
The Koran says Saint Matthew was an honest man.[216] Therefore Mahomet
was a false prophet for calling honest men wicked, or for not agreeing
with what they have said of Jesus Christ.
597
It is not by that which is obscure in Mahomet, and which may be
interpreted in a mysterious sense, that I would have him judged, but by
what is clear, as his paradise and the rest. In that he is ridiculous.
And since what is clear is ridiculous, it is not right to take his
obscurities for mysteries.
It is not the same with the Scripture. I agree that there are in it
obscurities as strange as those of Mahomet; but there are admirably
clear passages, and the prophecies are manifestly fulfilled. The cases
are therefore not on a par. We must not confound, and put on one level
things which only resemble each other in their obscurity, and not in the
clearness, which requires us to reverence the obscurities.
598
_The difference between Jesus Christ and Mahomet._--Mahomet was not
foretold; Jesus Christ was foretold.
Mahomet slew; Jesus Christ caused His own to be slain.
Mahomet forbade reading; the Apostles ordered reading.
In fact the two are so opposed, that if Mahomet took the way to succeed
from a worldly point of view, Jesus Christ, from the same point of view,
took the way to perish. And instead of concluding that, since Mahomet