Modern Age - Winter 2017 - 37

PASCAL IN THE POST-CHRISTIAN WORLD

mind's relationship to the world and the transformation of the
meaning of truth. Truth is made, not discovered, by the mind.
Pascal does break with the ancient and medieval approach to
natural science. However, he does not accept this modern notion
of experience and truth as dependent on the mind. But neither
does he return to the standpoint of medieval theology in order
to understand the human and the divine. In other words, Pascal
does something new and unique: he rejects Aristotle, but he does
not embrace modern reason; he breaks with medieval theology,
but he does not separate philosophy from faith.

S

t. Thomas Aquinas and many other medieval theologians
claim to prove the existence of God from nature, following
Aristotle's metaphysics and natural philosophy (e.g., God as the
Unmoved Mover, First Efficient Cause, etc.). Pascal does not try to
prove the existence of God from nature. Indeed, he says, "it is a
remarkable fact that no canonical [biblical] author has ever used
nature to prove God" (463 [243]).4 And he cautions the believer
not to approach those who doubt with proofs for the existence
of God from nature (781 [242]). The scientist can study nature and
can arrive at knowledge of nature, but God is a hidden God, and
nature does not proclaim him unequivocally (429 [229]).
The God who can be proved from nature is the God of the
philosophers, not the God of faith. He is the God of Descartes
and Voltaire, the God of the Deists, who need God only to set
the world in motion but then want him to disappear from the
world, especially from the life of human beings. For Pascal, Deism
is "almost as remote from the Christian religion as atheism" (449
[556]). In the outcry of his heart on the night that was to be a turning point in his thought, Pascal exclaims: "'God of Abraham, God
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Modern Age - Winter 2017

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