LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Blaise Pascal: Reasons
built 617 days ago
In 1657 Pascal conceived the idea of an apology based upon reason to counter atheism; he had become convinced of the errors of Stoicism and Pyrrhonism. He started making notes on scraps of papers, backs of bills, etc.; to be sure, he had a prodigious memory, but it began to cloud shortly thereafter and his illness prevented the completion of this project. it represents Pascal's spiritual growth.
Source:
Pascal believed that even if these arguments were valid, few would reason well enough to be persuaded by them. And, even if the arguments persuaded someone, that person would still not be saved. Pascal was concerned with leading people to Christ, not merely to monotheism. Therefore, he believed the traditional arguments for God's existence were counterproductive.
Source:
In the human mind Pascal recognizes the strict demands for the absolute yet the need for a living truth. The reason is too weak to achieve the absolute, yet it is strong enough to prove that "there are an infinite number of things which surpass it." The human mind recognizes the contradiction of man but cannot explain it. It is only faith—which is superior to reason—in the revelation of the living God that can resolve the problems imposed by reason. Furthermore, reason can grasp revelation as a historical fact surrounded by certain wonderful events that guarantee its supernatural character.
Source:
In the Pensées, Pascal ... presents his famous argument for faith: the wager. Since reason cannot give one absolute certainty, he argued, every person must risk belief in something. When it comes to the Christian faith, he said, a wise person will gamble on it because, "If you win, you win everything; if you lose, you lose nothing."
Source:
Updated edition of the famous Krailsheimer translation, the first to follow the order of notes as Pascal left them. This unfinished apology for Christianity was meant to confound the followers of Descartes by emphasizing the inadequacy of reason.
Source:
There are exegetical problems already here, partly because Pascal appears to contradict himself. He speaks of "the true" as something that you can "lose", and "error" as something "to shun". Yet he goes on to claim that if you lose the wager that God is, then "you lose nothing". Surely in that case you "lose the true", which is just to say that you have made an error. Pascal believes, of course, that the existence of God is "the true" — but that is not something that he can appeal to in this argument. Moreover, it is not because "you must of necessity choose" that "your reason is no more shocked in choosing one rather than the other". Rather, by Pascal's own account, it is because "[r]eason can decide nothing here". (If it could, then it might well be shocked — namely, if you chose in a way contrary to it.)
Source:
MORE ABOUT
Reasons