CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Blaise Pascal. Help support New Advent and get the full contents of this website as an instant download. He was the son of Etienne Pascal, advocate at the court of Aids of Clermont, and of Antoinette. B. His father, a man of fortune, went with his children (1. Paris. He taught his son grammar, Latin, Spanish, and mathematics, all according to an original method. In his twelfth year Blaise composed a treatise on the communication of sounds; at sixteen another treatise, on conic sections. In 1. 63. 9 he went to Rouen with his father, who had been appointed intendant of Normandy, and, to assist his father in his calculations, he invented the arithmetical machine. He repeated Torricelli's vacuum experiments and demonstrated, against P. Sheet Music Download is a site dedicated to all amateur music performers around the world, giving them the opportunity to download the sheet music for free. Search the history of over 273 billion web pages on the Internet. The Pilgrim's Progress from This World to That Which Is to Come; Delivered under the Similitude of a Dream is a 1678 Christian allegory written by John Bunyan. Presents the history of modern medical science from its Greek foundation. Tagged makes it easy to meet and socialize with new people through games, shared interests, friend suggestions, browsing profiles, and much more. The 2011 Christmas issue of the New Statesman was guest edited by Richard Dawkins. This is his interview with Christopher Hitchens from that issue. Does PETA have the right to determine what’s “humane” considering their view on animals? You can reach us at [email protected]. Letters may be published. Want to see other people talking about Motherboard? Check out our letters to the editor. Video credit: an old Soviet documentary, featured in Trinity and Beyond. Nuclear fusion is responsible for the most powerful release of energy ever. The 1914 Catholic Encyclopedia is the most comprehensive resource on Catholic teaching, history, and information ever gathered in all of human history. He published works on the arithmetical triangle, on wagers and the theory of probabilities, and on the roulette or cycloid. Meanwhile, in 1. 64. Jansenism, and induced his family, especially his sister Jacqueline, to follow in the same direction. In 1. 65. 0, after a sojourn in Auvergne, his family returned to Paris. On the advice of physicians Pascal, who had always been ailing and who now suffered more than ever, relaxed his labours and mingled in society, with such friends as the Duc de Roannez, the Chevalier Mere, the poet Desbarreaux, the actor Milton. This was what has been called the worldly period of his life, during which he must have written the . But the world soon became distasteful to him, and he felt more and more impelled to abandon it. During the night of 2. November 1. 65. 4, his doubts were settled by a sort of vision, the evidence of which is in a writing, always subsequently carried in the lining of his coat, and called . After this he practiced the most severe asceticism, renounced learning, and became the constant guest of Port Royal. In 1. 65. 6 he undertook the defense of Jansenism, and published the . This polemical work was nearing completion when Pascal had the joy of seeing his friends, the Duc de Roannez and the jurisconsult Domat, converted to Jansenism, as well as his niece Marguerite Perier, who had been cured of a fistula of the eye by contact with a relic of the Holy Thorn preserved at Port Royal. Thenceforth, although exhausted by illness, Pascal gave himself more and more to God. He multiplied his mortifications, wore a cincture of nails which he drove into his flesh at the slightest thought of vanity, and to be more like Jesus crucified, he left his own house and went to die in that of his brother- in- law. He died at the age of thirty- nine, after having received in an ecstasy of joy the Holy Viaticum, for which he had several times asked, crying out as he half rose from his couch: . He shows himself a determined advocate of the experimental method, in opposition to the mathematical and mechanical method of Descartes. As to his authorship of the . The Duc of Liancourt, a friend of Port Royal, having been refused absolution by the cur. He wished to appeal to the public in a pamphlet which he submitted to his friends, but they found it too heavy and theological. He then said to Pascal: . Appearing under the pseudonym of Louis de Montalte, they were published at Cologne in 1. Les Provinciales, ou Lettres . Jesuites sur le sujet de la morale et de la politique de ces p. The first four treat the dogmatic question which forms the basis of Jansenism on the agreement between grace and human liberty. Pascal answers it by practically, if not theoretically, denying sufficient grace and liberty. The seventeenth and eighteenth letters take up the same questions, but with noteworthy qualifications. From the fourth to the sixteenth Pascal censures the Jesuitmoral code, or rather the casuistry, first, by depicting a na. The most famous are the fourth, on sins of ignorance, and the thirteenth, on homicide. That Pascal intended this to be a useful work, his whole life bears witness, as do his deathbed declarations. His good faith cannot seriously be doubted, but some of his methods are more questionable. Without ever seriously altering his citations from the casuists, as he has sometimes been wrongfully accused of doing, he arranges them somewhat disingenously; he simplifies complicated questions excessively, and, in setting forth the solutions of the casuists sometimes lets his own bias interfere. But the gravest reproach against him is, first, that he unjustly blamed the Society of Jesus, attacking it exclusively, and attributing to it a desire to lower the Christian ideal and to soften down the moral code in the interest of its policy; then that he discredited casuistry itself by refusing to recognize its legitimacy or, in certain cases, its necessity, so that not only the Jesuits, but religion itself suffered by this strife, which contributed to hasten the condemnation of certain lax theories by the Church. And, without wishing or even knowing it, Pascal furnished weapons on the one hand to unbelievers and adversaries of the Church and on the other to the partisans of independent morality. As to their literaryform, the . From his conversion to Jansenism Pascal nourished the project of writing an apology for the Christian Religion which the increasing number of libertines rendered so necessary at that time. He had elaborated the plan, and at intervals during his illness he jotted down notes, fragments, and meditations for his book. In 1. 67. 0 Port Royal issued an incomplete edition. Condorcet, on the advice of Voltaire, attempted, in 1. Pascal with the Philosophie party by means of a garbled edition, which was opposed by that of the Abb. After a famous report of Cousin on the manuscript of the . What Pascal's plan was, can never be determined, despite the information furnished by Port Royal and by his sister. It is certain that his method of apologetics must have been at once rigorous and original; no doubt, he had made use of the traditionalproofs — notably, the historical argument from prophecies and miracles. But as against adversaries who did not admit historicalcertainty, it was stroke of genius to produce a wholly psychological argument and, by starting from the study of the humansoul, to arrive at God. We must listen to God. Christianity alone, through the doctrine of the Fall and that of the Incarnation, gives the key to the mystery. Christianity, therefore, is truth. God being thus apprehended and felt by the heart — which . God exists or He does not exist, and we must of necessitylay odds for or against Him. If I wagerfor and Godis — infinite gain; If I wagerfor and Godis not — no loss. If I wageragainst and Godis — infinite loss; If I wageragainst and Godis not — neither loss nor gain. Wisdom, therefore, counsels me to make the wager which insures my winning all or, at worst losing nothing. Innumerable works were devoted to Pascal in the second half of the nineteenth century. Poets, critics, roman- writers, theologians, philosophers have drawn their inspiration from him or made him the subject of discussion. Bourget has said, he is not only one of the princes of style, but he represents the religioussoul in its most tragic and terrified aspects. Moreover, the problems which he presents are precisely those which confront us nowadays. Comments. Sources. SAINT- BEUVE, Port- Royal, I, II, III (Paris, 1. VINET, Etude sur Blaise Pascal (Paris, 1. SULLY- PRUDHOMME, La vraie religion selon Pascal (Paris, 1. BRUNETIERE, Etudes critiques, ser. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. MLA citation. Lataste, Joseph. New York: Robert Appleton Company,1. Transcription. This article was transcribed for New Advent by Rev. Richard Giroux. Ecclesiastical approbation. Nihil Obstat. Remy Lafort, S. T. D., Censor. Imprimatur. The editor of New Advent is Kevin Knight. My email address is webmaster at newadvent. Regrettably, I can't reply to every letter, but I greatly appreciate your feedback — especially notifications about typographical errors and inappropriate ads.
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