Pascal was right. Rorate Caeli Article

[Philip G.]

I am a big fan of Blaise Pascal, and even though this article was from November, I am not going to miss the chance to post it.  If you have not read his Provincial Letters, you really should.  Catholic author Peter Kreeft says Pascal is the "single most effective apologize" he knows.  And, I do not object. 

https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2018/11/blast-from-past-on-bergoglio-pascal-was.html

[Maximilian]

Providential Letters

Provincial Letters

[Gardener]

Providential Letters

Provincial Letters

Well one might say they were providential.

[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zXDo4dL7SU[/yt]

[Philip G.]

Thanks for going easy on me.  We can all see how long it has been since I read it.  I got the name wrong.     Either way, I still loved the book.

[Heinrich]

Pascal was a Jansenist.

[Sempronius]

Pascal was a Jansenist.

Funny that. In my younger days I bought a volume of his books and it made me see the grandeur of religion and inspired me to be a better man.. didnt have a clue what Jansenism was. Still have a soft spot for him.

[Graham]

I just read the first two letters and must say that i think they add clarity to the ongoing discussions on grace and free will here on SD. Pascal is able to present the ideas in a really lively and clear way.

[Gardener]

I just read the first two letters and must say that i think they add clarity to the ongoing discussions on grace and free will here on SD. Pascal is able to present the ideas in a really lively and clear way.

Which makes one wonder how and why Jansenism was condemned and actually heresy, since it is pretty much indistinguishable from Banezian Thomism, which was never censured.

[Prayerful]

Pascal was a Jansenist.

The Jesuits and other powerful academics of a Sorbonne, men able to put their case with the utmost skill to the Sun King and Popes, were enraged at how Blaise Pascal made them looks fools, and so obtained condemnations of positions which neither the followers of Port Royal des Champs, the Arnauds, Blaise Pascal nor even Bp Cornelius Jansen espoused. The 'Provincial Letters' are great works of literature, but it involved humiliating Jesuits and other powerful elements in the Kingdom of France who had the ear of the King, exposing them as pseuds. Winning arguments can be positively harmful if allied to a lack of severe political skill. Retrospectively Pascal could well have held to some of the many positions espoused by Pasquier Quesnel, later condemned in Unigenitus in 1713, but that was after most concerned were dead, unable to recant positions now proscribed.

Nowadays, while Jesuits do have traditional minded and orthodox priests somewhere in their orders, they are now mostly a cancer, and have done far more harm than good since the 1950s at least. It does work to erase from the mind the early heroism and witness of their missionaries.

[Gardener]

I think it's safe to say that despite his theological speculations, right or wrong, the man was a verifiable genius who shouldn't be written off with a mere epithet, particularly when we don't know his true beliefs before his death.

[Philip G.]

The part I liked best from Pascals Provincial Letters was when he argues that the spanish Jesuits were creating a new moral authority comprised solely of their own collection of probabilist theologians both conservative and liberal to replace the deposit that is the fathers of the church, and that they modeled themselves after some scriptural reference to I think 24 elders, or something like that.  Once this collection had established legitimate notoriety in the eyes of the rest of the church, they would make use of their novel doctrinal variety and do exactly what Pascal describes in the Rorate article, which is open the door to widespread heterodoxy by way of speculation and probability/false authority.  Not only is collegiality a false authority, but posturing on the part of the papacy is as well(Rorate).  I found it so compelling.  I think one can trace the widespread collegiality of today back to the limited collegiality in Pascal's time, the Jesuits.  And, this of course has morphed further into the clerical gay lobby, no surprise led by Jesuits.  It would be no surprise to Pascal if he were alive today that Vatican 2 happen. 

The Bishop is the Church's living-stone, not the Jesuit. 

I think we can partner probability with collegiality.  But, with whom do we partner speculation?  When we figure that one out, we will have the culprit of this crisis.   

[Philip G.]

I just noticed another error in my OP.  It is supposed to read "the single most effective apologist".  Not "apologize".

[Graham]

I just read the first two letters and must say that i think they add clarity to the ongoing discussions on grace and free will here on SD. Pascal is able to present the ideas in a really lively and clear way.

Which makes one wonder how and why Jansenism was condemned and actually heresy, since it is pretty much indistinguishable from Banezian Thomism, which was never censured.

Pascal suggests there were political reasons, viz., the Dominicans were too influential to confront directly, so the Jesuits figured it was a coup to see the substance of their doctrine, though not the precise wording, condemned in a less influential, less politically astute group. That seems to be his take anyway.

[Prayerful]

I think it's safe to say that despite his theological speculations, right or wrong, the man was a verifiable genius who shouldn't be written off with a mere epithet, particularly when we don't know his true beliefs before his death.

Pascal was also someone of incredible personal generosity directly giving over part of his home to a poor family,  or helping other poor people to get work, probably the probalists were somewhat satirised too, and wrote far beyond the boundaries of polemic, and even tried to revolutionise the tax collection of his father with a sort of difference engine, but it could not be replicated economically (perhaps if it could have, the Bourbons could have sustained their kingdom without the fatal problem of needing authority for additional taxes and imposts), part of his mathematical and mechanical genius.

[Heinrich]

I think it's safe to say that despite his theological speculations, right or wrong, the man was a verifiable genius who shouldn't be written off with a mere epithet, particularly when we don't know his true beliefs before his death.

Pascal was also someone of incredible personal generosity directly giving over part of his home to a poor family,  or helping other poor people to get work, probably the probalists were somewhat satirised too, and wrote far beyond the boundaries of polemic, and even tried to revolutionise the tax collection of his father with a sort of difference engine, but it could not be replicated economically (perhaps if it could have, the Bourbons could have sustained their kingdom without the fatal problem of needing authority for additional taxes and imposts), part of his mathematical and mechanical genius.

I wonder if he could have simplified the US tax code.