Blaise Pascal
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Blaise Pascal
Author: Marvin R. O'Connell
language: en
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
Release Date: 1997
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), mathematician, physicist, inventor, and religious thinker was a man at odds with his time. The optimism of the Enlightenment and the belief among philosophers and scientists that the universe was both discoverable and rational made them feel invincible. Reason alone, declared the intellectuals, could discover a God of natural religion that was to replace the God of traditional Christianity. Pascal, on the other hand, was not so confident. In his Pens es, he wrote, "The eternal silence of these infinite spaces fills me with dread." For Pascal, the universe was full of a mystery that went far beyond the powers of reason. Blaise Pascal: Reasons of the Heart, the latest addition to Eerdmans LIBRARY OF RELIGIOUS BIOGRAPHY series, captures Pascal's life and times with a chronicle narrative based on the published sources and Pascal's own works. Marvin O'Connell takes readers on an eloquent journey into Pascal's world, showing the passion that drove the man and the radical spirituality he sought in his own heart. In the process, O'Connell also illumines the social, political, and religious intrigue of seventeenth-century Paris, especially the winner-take-all struggle between the Jesuits and the Jansenists, with whom Pascal himself was allied. Written in an enjoyable style accessible to all, this meticulously researched biography will acquaint readers with the life and thought of Blaise Pascal, a remarkable human being and luminous Christian thinker.
The Life of Blaise Pascal
The Life of Blaise Pascal (La vie de Monsieur Pascal), first published in 1684 and written by Madame Jacqueline Perier, the sister of Blaise Pascal and wife of Monsieur Perier (an advisor to the Court of Aides of Clermont), is a biographical account that provides an intimate portrait of Pascal's life, personality, and religious journey, including a first-hand account of the moment of his death. Deeply involved in Pascal's life, Madame Perier offers a detailed description of his early intellectual brilliance, scientific achievements, and later conversion to a deeply spiritual life influenced by Jansenism. The biography also highlights Pascal's struggles with illness, his ascetic practices, and his deep religious convictions, especially his embrace of the doctrine of grace. Written with affection and insight, the work reflects both Pascal's human frailties and his extraordinary intellect and faith, portraying him as a complex figure who balanced rigorous scientific inquiry with devout Christian mysticism. This biography is essential for understanding Pascal's personal and spiritual development, as well as the family context that shaped much of his thought and work. This new Reader's Edition contains a new Afterword by the translator on Pascal's personal relationship with Descartes and his intellectual objections to the new Cartesian rationality which fundamentally changed the course of both Science and Philosophy, a short biography on Pascal's life and impact. This is followed by a timeline of his life and relationships, an index of his core Philosophic terminology, a chronological list and summary of all of his published and posthumous works, and the text of Pascal's Memorial, a poetic, fragmented account of his divine vision in 1654. This volume introduces the reader to Pascal's metaphysical works and brings to life Pascal's witness of the dawn of a new Scientific age. This is volume 6 of the 7-part Complete Works of Pascal. This volume covers Pascals groundbreaking contributions to mathematics, science, and engineering, as well as his Scientific-Philosophical commentary on the Enlightenment's Scientific progress. Pascal was far from a systematic theologian or philosopher- he was a talented Scientist, Mathematician and respected thinker, but did not make a career of it. Yet his critique of Descartes (whom he knew personally) and scholastic philosophy has endured as a defense of Christian existentialism and a return to a more religiously grounded understanding of human nature and the limits of reason. His critiques specifically target Descartes' mechanistic and rationalist approach, especially as it relates to God, faith, and the nature of human existence. His criticisms do not stand up in terms of sheer intellectualism, but they are full of heart. Descartes argued that the existence of a benevolent God guarantees the reliability of human reason and the truth of clear and distinct ideas. This role of God, however, can be seen as largely mechanistic or deistic, since God was invoked primarily to validate human knowledge rather than to be worshiped or existentially related. Pascal famously quipped that Descartes' God was "a little too much of a philosopher's God".
Blaise Pascal
This chronological survey explores Pascal's (162362) achievement as mathematician, physicist and religious thinker; it also has a chapter on his life. His work on conic sections, the probability calculus, number theory, cycloid curves and hydrostatics is considered in detail. Analyses of the Provincial Letters and the Thoughts bring out the many distinctive features, thematicnn and technical, of each text. Pascal's lesser known works are also studied. There is a chapter on the Wager argument. A wide-ranging bibliography completes the book.