I know, I know… you were all terribly disappointed when I did not post a pensee last week, and you’ve been eagerly waiting for another. I won’t let you down again. This one is near the end of Pascal’s pensees, when he is putting the finishing touches on his defense of the Christian faith and theology. How about that final concluding sentence in this one? That is SOOOO on point for what has been on my heart and mind lately, trying to figure out how God intended faith and works to work together, our role, Gods’ role… I really think Pascal has the answer here. So insightful… so simple… and yet so challenging
This religion [Christianity]… strives equally to establish these two facts: that God has appointed visible signs so that He shall be recognized by those who genuinely seek him, and that he has hidden these signs in such a way that He will only be perceived by those who seek him with all their heart. Then, what advantage can critics derive when, unconcerned to seek the truth as they profess to be, they protest that nothing shows it to them?
We know well enough how people in this frame of mind behave. They think they have made great efforts to learn when they have spent a few hours reading some book of the Bible, and have questioned some ecclesiastic about the truths of the faith. After that they boast that they have sought without success among books and men. But, in fact, I should say to them what I have often said: “such negligence is intolerable. It is not a question here of the trifling interest of some stranger: it is a question of ourselves, and our all.
