@scribe: Foundations of the Christian Religion

Blaise Pascal kept appearing at random places that I can’t even think of at the moment. It was after reading one of his quotes in Desiring God and then sporadically turning to another quote that hit me from his Pensees, which I didn’t realize my wife had, that I decided I needed to read some of his work. So at the book store I was looking for a paperback companion to aid me in a 16 hour road trip (driving from Bellingham to San Francisco) and found Relevants’ Foundations of the Christian Religion. This is basically a circumcised version of Pensees which allowed for a shorter introduction to Pascal and his writing while still having the balls of the full text [was that sentence an oxymoron?]. Though I didn’t find the quote I originally read in this abridged version (The greatness and the wretchedness of man are so evident that the true religion must necessarily teach us both that there is in man some great source of greatness and a great source of wretchedness. It must then give us a reason for these astonishing contradictions) I did find some other gems that I’ll come back to in the future.

A good portion of the book deals with what I would call the Theology of Man, which is a combination of mans’ wretched nature and mans’ ability to know God (which together point to Jesus). While this was depressing most of the time it aids in identity, the whole know who you are and where you’re from and where you’re going stuff; just don’t get stuck in the old. I think we tend to subdue our acknowledgement of our own wretchedness and try to keep it in the dark not really trusting that Christ can recover us from it and then since it is never willfully exposed to the light it is never fully redeemed, thus hindering our earthly sanctification like a one-armed monkey trying to play the ukulele.

The Christian religion, then, teaches men these two truths; that there is a God whom men can know, and that there is a corruption in their nature which renders them unworthy of Him. It is equally important to men to know both these points; and it is equally dangerous for man to know God without knowing his own wretchedness, and to know his own wretchedness without knowing the Redeemer who can free him from it. The knowledge of only one of these points gives rise either to the pride of philosophers, who have known God, and not their own wretchedness, or to the despair of atheists, who know their own wretchedness, but not the Redeemer.

There were a few articles that made my head boggle and my eyes become heavy, but lucky the aphorisms are short, a lot of times limited to one paragraph, and the next one is just around the corner. Diversion, what we do to not think about the things that are, was another remembered topic. We do not rest satisfied in the present. We anticipate the future as too slow in coming, as if in order to hasten its course; or we recall the past, to stop its too rapid flight.

A co-worker mentioned that Pascal had a dualistic view of human nature which could possibly lead to antinomianism. While I could understand why someone could be led to that extreme, I didn’t really interpret compartmentalizing in his writing; he did talk about internal and external but that they must be joined, maybe I just automatically disregarded that thought pattern. Still, it’s nice to read a Christian Author that wasn’t always Christian and was successful for something more than his Christian thought. The kingdom of God breaks through when you can accomplish something that is beneficial to the world (not exclusive for the Christian sub-culture nor is it restricted to it) and still stand and say Jesus is true.

If you are going to pick up Foundations of the Christian Religion, check out the Foundations of Faith Series which includes some old school lit from Augustine, Wesley, and Spurgeon (I’ll be hitting up Augustine in the near future).