1656
Pascal publishes the first of his Provincial Letters.
Blaise Pascal (1623-62) was an enormously influential French scientist, philosopher and religious writer. His work on hydraulic power, geometry, mathematics and mechanical computation helped to energize the nascent Second Scientific Revolution.
In his 20s Pascal became acquainted with Jansenism, a Catholic movement with pronounced ideas on grace which ran into controversy with Church authorities who labelled it a heresy. Before the sect was outlawed by the pope and Louis XIV, Pascal began to write on religious subjects. On this day in 1656 he published the first of his Provincial Letters, which were eventually to number eighteen. In them, Pascal, under a pseudonym, used brilliant satire and elegant language to attack current notions on grace and the Jesuit use of the philosophical tool known as casuistry, which Pascal condemned as a mere clever use of language to rationalize moral laxity. The series of essays won wide praise for its literary style but condemnation for its religious content. The king ordered the writings shredded and publicly burnt; Pascal had to go into hiding.
The Provincial Letters remain a monument of French literature, praised by critics of all sorts. The agnostic philosophe Voltaire and Bossuet, the ultra-orthodox Catholic bishop, were both admirers. Even the 20th-century Catholic apologist Hilaire Belloc, who attacked Pascal’s accusations against the Jesuits, spoke of the work’s “wit and fervour”.
Pascal is probably best known for his famous wager about the existence of God, outlined in his Pensées and a giant step in probability theory.
If there is a God, He is infinitely incomprehensible, since, having neither parts nor limits, He has no affinity to us. We are then incapable of knowing either what He is or if He is…God is, or He is not.” But to which side shall we incline? Reason can decide nothing here. There is infinite chaos that separated us. A game is being played at the extremity of this infinite distance where heads or tails will turn up. What will you wager? According to reason, you can do neither the one thing nor the other; according to reason, you can defend neither of the propositions.
Do not, then, reprove for error those who have made a choice; for you know nothing about it.
“No, but I blame them for having made, not this choice, but a choice; for again both he who chooses heads and he who chooses tails are equally at fault, they are both in the wrong. The true course is not to wager at all.”
Yes; but you must wager. It is not optional. You are embarked. Which will you choose then? Let us see. Since you must choose, let us see which interests you least. You have two things to lose, the true and the good; and two things to stake, your reason and your will, your knowledge and your happiness; and your nature has two things to shun, error and misery. Your reason is no more shocked in choosing one rather than the other since you must of necessity choose. This is one point settled. But your happiness? Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is.