If you have even a passing interest in philosophy or theology, you will likely have at least heard of Blaise Pascal. A celebrated French mathematician and writer who is credited with (among other things) the invention of the bus, developing a forerunner of integral calculus, and the founding of probability theory, Pascal was undisputedly a genius. He even has an SI unit (for pressure) named after him.
Yet Pascal is also well-known for his religious faith, and particularly for a collection of writings known together as his Pensées (“thoughts”). These contain a great number of aphoristic and fragmentary reflections never fully organised by the author. Yet they remain influential to this day, including providing the basis for what has come to be known as “Pascal’s wager”.
I am joined in this episode by Graham Tomlin, a recent biographer of Pascal and former Bishop of the Church of England. We discuss Pascal’s life, accreditations, philosophy, and wager, as well as his so-called “night of fire” in 1654, when he had a religious experience which caused him to reject what he called “the God of the philosophers” in favour of the God he had directly encountered.
For Pascal, a recurring theme of importance seems to be that religion is something not rational, nor irrational, but perhaps arational.
TIMESTAMPS
0:00 - Can Blaise Pascal Be Categorised?
3:05 - Who Was Blaise Pascal?
11:12 - Pascal’s First Conversion
17:19 - Pascal’s “Night of Fire”
20:50 - Did Pascal Reject Reason?
30:36 - Pascal’s War With Descartes
41:22 - Did Pascal Invent the Bus?
44:33 - The Heart Has Its Reasons, Of Which Reason Knows Nothing
48:54 - How Pascal Invented Probability Theory
51:20 - Pascal’s Wager
1:14:26 - The Pensées
01:17:21 - Pascal’s “Two Minds”
01:21:30 - The Importance of Boredom
01:25:49 - Why Should Atheists Read Pascal?
01:30:25 - What Would Graham Ask Pascal?
