FROM THE PULPIT
he 17 th century French mathematician, physicist, theologian and
philosopher, Blaise Pascal (1623-62), lived a short life, dogged as he
was by illness. But in his brief period on this planet he produced a
dazzling body of loosely connected aphorisms known to us as his Pensées. I
say loosely connected, because Pascal, as was his custom, would write as
the mood took him on a large sheet of paper and the resultant thoughts were
later cut up and linked together by thread to produce a more coherent whole.
It was, if you like, a 17 th century cut-and-paste exercise. There was, however,
one part which didn’t find its way connected to the others. This fragment was
found in the lining of Pascal’s coat after his awful death in 1662. This is a
portion of what it said:
T
The year of grace 1654
Monday, 23 November
From about half past ten in the evening until half past midnight
Fire
‘God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob’,
Not of philosophers and scholars
Certainty, certainty, heartfelt, joy, peace
God of Jesus Christ
God of Jesus Christ
My God and your God
‘Thy God shall be my God’
What is fascinating and paradoxical about this passage from the Pensées is
that Pascal himself was, in many ways, a man of the Enlightenment. Indeed,
from a psychological perspective, Pascal appears the last person one would
describe as a zealot or, to use the 18 th century term of ridicule, an
“enthusiast”. He had lost his mother at three years of age and, possibly as a
result of this lack of maternal solace, found things like showing visible
affection to be frankly (and weirdly) immoral. I don’t think Pascal would have
had much time for the peace in church! And yet, here we have him writing of
a religious experience which affected him so deeply that he sewed the paper
into the lining of various jackets, and wore it close to him for the rest of his
days. How do we square this with his deep reserve and his somewhat
morose attitude? I guess no definitive answer can be given, other than to
bring to bear some Yorkshire wisdom: There is nowt so queer as folk.
We are all a bunch of contradictions. We each have the capacity for
engagement or estrangement; we each can say one thing and do another;
we each can live tepid lives and suddenly, from nowhere, fires can erupt. All
of this reminds me of those other contrary folk – the disciples. A less likely
bunch of flame bearers you couldn’t possibly find. But that is precisely what
we reflect upon at this time in our church year. The story of Pentecost is a
story of contrast being shown up and not resolved but celebrated.
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