Pensées — Blaise Pascal

Pensées

Blaise Pascal · Licencia: Public domain · Fuente

• ... Whatever part he takes, I shall not leave him at rest ... SECTION VIII · ¶1638
• What shall we conclude from all our darkness, but our unworthiness? SECTION VIII · ¶1642
• 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. SECTION VIII · ¶1646
• 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. SECTION VIII · ¶1647
• 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. SECTION VIII · ¶1648
• 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. SECTION VIII · ¶1650
• 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. SECTION VIII · ¶1651
• 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. SECTION VIII · ¶1653
• 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. SECTION VIII · ¶1655
• _Vere discipuli, vere Israëlita, vere liberi, vere cibus._[207] SECTION VIII · ¶1658
• 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. SECTION VIII · ¶1660
• 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. SECTION VIII · ¶1662
• 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. SECTION VIII · ¶1664
• Do you think that the prophecies cited in the Gospel are related to make you believe? No, it is to keep you from believing. SECTION VIII · ¶1667
• _Canonical._--The heretical books in the beginning of the Church serve to prove the canonical. SECTION VIII · ¶1669
• 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. SECTION VIII · ¶1671
• So that this cannot lead us into error, and could only be misunderstood by so carnal a people. SECTION VIII · ¶1678
• 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. SECTION VIII · ¶1680
• Hypothesis that the apostles were impostors.--The time clearly, the manner obscurely.--Five typical proofs. SECTION VIII · ¶1683
• {1600 prophets. 2000 { { 400 scattered. SECTION VIII · ¶1684
• _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? SECTION VIII · ¶1688
• 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. SECTION VIII · ¶1690
• God has made the blindness of this people subservient to the good of the elect. SECTION VIII · ¶1694
• 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. SECTION VIII · ¶1696
• Those who ordained these sacrifices, knew their uselessness; those who have declared their uselessness, have not ceased to practise them. SECTION VIII · ¶1698
• 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. SECTION VIII · ¶1699
• _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. SECTION VIII · ¶1700
• 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? SECTION VIII · ¶1701
• 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. SECTION VIII · ¶1703
• So in morals He gives charity, which produces fruits contrary to lust. SECTION VIII · ¶1704
• Nature has some perfections to show that she is the image of God, and some defects to show that she is only His image. SECTION VIII · ¶1706
• 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. SECTION VIII · ¶1708
• 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. SECTION VIII · ¶1710
• 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. SECTION VIII · ¶1713
• _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. SECTION VIII · ¶1717
• 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._ SECTION VIII · ¶1718
• _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. SECTION IX · ¶1728
• Men must be sincere in all religions; true heathens, true Jews, true Christians. SECTION IX · ¶1730
• J. C. Heathens __|__ Mahomet \ / Ignorance of God. SECTION IX · ¶1732
• _The falseness of other religions._--They have no witnesses. Jews have. God defies other religions to produce such signs: Isaiah xliii, 9; xliv, 8. SECTION IX · ¶1734

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