Trotter The Penses of Blaise Pascal By Lawrence C. Trotter 18 November 2003 1.

Pascals Life and Writings Born June 19, 1623, Blaise Pascal was the only son of four children born to Etienne and

Antoniette in Clermont, which is located in the Auvergne region of France. The oldest daughter, Anthonia, died shortly after her baptism, and Blaise was sickly as an infant and during much of his life. His mother Antoniette also died when Blaise was only three years old, leaving the three surviving children to the care of their father (Cailliet 24). After the death of his wife, Etienne dedicated himself to the instruction of his children, he being particularly interested in ancient languages and mathematics (Cailliet 27). After liquidating and investing his assets, Etienne moved the family to Paris in 1631, where he focused on his childrens education and interacted with the leading scientific thinkers of France (Cailliet 40). At age eleven, Blaise was fascinated by the sound a plate made when struck by a knife. After receiving a basic explanation of harmonics from his father, young Blaise investigated further and wrote a respectable treatise on sound (Cailliet 41). His father considered geometry to be the most sublime of subjects and to be reserved for a time after the mastery of ancient languages. However, Blaise showed an unquenchable curiosity about the subject. According to Emilie Cailliet, One day he came into a room where the boy had escaped his watchful eye. There he found Blaise just about to finish demonstrating the thirty-second proposition of the First Book of Euclid, having rediscovered for himself every one of the principles that preceded it! (42).1 Etienne then permitted his son access to every work he had on mathematics. When Blaise was sixteen, he produced an original work on conic sections, and shortly thereafter, promulgated
1

Although some question this account of Pascals rediscovery of geometry (Copleston 154), by

all accounts, he was a prodigy in mathematics.

Trotter what is now known as Pascals Theorem, which earned him admiration from Leibniz (Cailliet 41-42). He also read Montaigne and Descartes, against whom he would later write in his Penses (Cailliet 47). After Etienne was appointed Deputy Commissioner of Upper Normandy in 1639, Blaise observed the great burden laid upon his father of calculating tax figures for the entire region. In order to help his father, at age nineteen, Blaise designed and built the worlds first calculating machine (Cailliet 49). In terms of Blaises early religious convictions, they paralleled those of his father, who was respectful of the Roman Catholic Church and kept questions of science and religion in two separate categories. Science was based on reason, and religion on faith, which itself was based on the proper authority of the Bible and the Church (Cailliet 31). Thus, in spite of some Protestant heritage on both sides of the family, Blaise was raised in a Roman Catholic religious environment, although not an especially devout one. One winter day in 1646, when his father rushed outside to prevent a duel from taking

place, he slipped on the ice and dislocated his hip. The Deschamps brothers, physicians both and devout Jansenists, came to his assistance, stayed on at the Pascal home, and contributed to a complete cure. These two men made a powerful impression on Blaise, who was quickly drawn to their religious convictions. As Cailliet explained: These two brothers were recent converts to Jansenism, an evangelical theology derived from the teachings of Saint Augustine, and adapted to the needs of the seventeenth century by Cornelius Jansen; hence the name of their school, whose center was Port-Royal. [. . .] These fundamentalists, exalting the grace of God, had set out to reform Christianity while insisting that personal salvation was possible only in and through the Church of Rome. (53)

Trotter Jansenism emphasized two elements of Augustinianism, its soteriology (based on grace alone) and its ecclesiology (insisting on the necessity of union with the Roman Church). Protestantism followed Augustinian soteriology, while Rome followed its ecclesiology. Jansenism affirmed both aspects and could thus be considered more thoroughly Augustinian than either

Protestantism or Roman Catholicism. These two aspects of Augustinianism, as communicated to Pascal through the Jansenists, would exercise a profound influence on him for the rest of his life. As an important aside, it is worth noting that Pascals connection to Jansenism is a matter of some dispute. Many authors refer to him as a Jansenist, while some deny that he ever was a Jansenist himself but merely a faithful Roman Catholic who supported his Jansenist friends. For example, Allen Guelzo called him Jansenists most famous convert (OConnell x), while Peter Kreeft flatly stated that Pascal was not a Jansenist (14). This controversy began immediately after Pascals death and has been used for polemical purposes by those who have wanted either to own Pascal or to deny him. Nonetheless, certain facts are clear. Pascal was converted to his lively faith under the influence of the Jansenists at Port-Royal, collaborated with them in defense of their doctrines against Jesuit attacks, and wrote against the recantation that their leaders and followers were forced to sign after the condemnation of Jansens Augustinius by Rome (OConnell 181-83). He died shortly thereafter, after having confessed to the local priest and having received the sacraments on several occasions (OConnell 189-90). He explicitly condemned Protestantism and expressed his unfaltering loyalty to the Roman Church, with which he was in full communion at the time of his death. However, Jansenism had been condemned as heretical, and Pascal clearly held Jansenist views. Kreeft pointed out the difficulty of categorizing Pascal when he wrote, For one thing, he is too Protestant for Catholics

Trotter and too Catholic for Protestants (13). He was, as already suggested, too Augustinian for either camp. After the death of his father and the entrance of his beloved sister into the Jansenist-

dominated abbey at Port-Royal in 1652, Pascal went through what many authors call his worldly phase, during which his mathematical approach to life gave way to a more intuitive approach. However, he never renounced his interest in mathematics and science as some authors assert. In addition to the already mentioned works on sound (1634) and conic sections (1639), he also wrote about his calculating machine (1645), his original experiments on the vacuum (1651), and the arithmetic triangle (1654)2. Later on in his short life, he laid the foundation of the infinitesimal calculus, the integral calculus, and the calculus of probabilities (Copleston 155). His published work on the vacuum brought him into his first public dispute with the Jesuits, who, in agreement with Aristotle, denied the possibility of a vacuum (Cailliet 67). Pascals response to the Father Nols attack carefully distinguished between the knowledge gained from the experimental method and the knowledge gained from the authority of Scripture, a distinction learned from his father that would reappear later in his defense of Christianity. In his last year of life, Pascal launched his final innovation, the worlds first public transport as a means to help the poor move about Paris. Although Pascal never abandoned his scientific pursuits, his later years were characterized by an intense devotion to Christianity, which informed all of his efforts. On November 23, 1654, Pascal had an overwhelming spiritual experience called the night of fire,

The arithmetic triangle consists of a triangle of numerals with 1 at the apex and along two of

the sides. The rest of the numerals are the sums of the two above them. For a diagram of the arithmetic triangle, see page 78 of McPhearson.

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which he described in a semi-coherent memorial, which he never showed anyone but which was found sewn to his clothes upon his death. It read: Year of grace 1654. Monday, 23 November, feast of Saint Clement, pope and martyr and others in the martyrology. Eve of Saint Chrysogonus, martyr and others. From about half past ten at night until about half an hour after midnight. FIRE. God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob (Exodus 3:6), not of the philosophers and the scholars. Certitude, heartfelt joy, peace. God of Jesus Christ. God of Jesus Christ. My God and your God (John 20:17). Your God shall be my God (Ruth 1:16). The world forgotten, everything except God. He can only be found by the ways that have been taught in the Gospels. Greatness of the human soul. O righteous Father, the world has not known you, but I have known you (John 17:25). Joy, Joy, Joy, tears of Joy. I have separated myself from him. They have forsaken me, the spring of living water (Jeremiah 2:13). My God, will you leave me? Let me not be cut off from him forever! Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent (John 17:3). Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ. I am separated from him; for I have shunned him, denied him, crucified him. May I never be separated from him. He can only be kept by the ways taught in the gospel. Compete and sweet renunciation. Total submission to Jesus Christ and to my director. Everlasting joy in return for one days striving upon earth. I will not neglect your Word (Psalm 119:16). Amen. (Houston 41-42) Several of the themes that would later appear in his defense of Christianity were evident in his testimony: a rejection of the god arrived at by philosophical reasoning, the centrality of Christ as

Trotter the only way to know God, the depravity of humanity, the necessity of Scripture to reveal God, and the importance of the heart in the apprehension of God.

After Pascals night of fire, and as the opposition of the Jesuits to the Jansenists mounted, he wrote a series of pseudonymous letters in defense of the Jansenists and critical of the Jesuits views on sin, human ability, and grace. In these Provincial Letters, which were later placed on the list of books banned by Rome, and in his Facts about the Priests of Paris (1657), he also lampooned the Jesuits lax morals. In 1657, he wrote a treatise on grace, in which he attempted to reject what he considered to be the opposite errors of the Jesuits and the Calvinists, although it is difficult to see in what substantial way his Jansenist views differed from the Calvinists (OConnell 164). The following year he presented his plans for his apology of the Christian faith to the leaders at Port-Royal (Coleman 212). However, his health worsened considerably in 1659, leaving him bedridden for a time and unable to continue his work. The next year he was able to write his Prayer to Ask God for the Right Use of Sickness. The year 1661 was tragic for Pascal with the condemnation of five propositions of Jansen, the controversy over signing the oath that condemned these propositions, and the death of his beloved younger sister, provoked in part by the controversy whirling around her convent. After writing his tract, Concerning Signing the Oath, Pascal played no further part in the controversy (Coleman 213). In 1662, Pascal moved into his older sisters home where he died on August 19. He left behind his bundles of papers that were the notes for his defense of the Christian religion, later published under the title Penses, (Thoughts). 2. The Project of Pascals Penses Family members and friends published the Penses in 1670 calling them the Port-Royal Edition (Houston 25), and scores if not hundreds of editions, commentaries, and rearrangements

Trotter

of the Penses have appeared since then as a testimony to the ongoing appeal of Pascals creative approach to apologetics. In addition to carefully constructed arguments, among the Penses are also cryptic comments, witty aphorisms, astonishingly perceptive observations, random pieces of wisdom, and humorous criticisms. Following the example of the commentators, this writer will attempt to outline the main lines of Pascals apologetic, but the other miscellaneous contents are well worth pondering, for they are apt to make the reader either laugh or cry, and always to think. Regarding his apologetic, Kreeft wrote, The penses are prophetic; they were written for our time more than for Pascals (20). Kreeft based his claim on the fact Pascal aimed his defense at contemporary skeptics inspired by Montaigne. Although few read Montaigne today, skeptics abound and may well require the kind of harrowing apologetic that Pascal offered. At the same time, the Penses were not aimed only at skeptics but offered much encouragement and challenge to Christians, as well as criticism of other attempts to defend the Christian faith. Pascal had strong words for Descartes and Cartesian rationalists who thought themselves able to prove Gods existence by reason alone. I cannot forgive Descartes. In all his philosophy he would have been quite willing to dispense with God. But he had to make Him give a fillip to set the world in motion; beyond this, he has no further need for God. Descartes useless and uncertain (77-78).3 Pascal also criticized the Jesuits and their use of the classical proofs for Gods existence. The metaphysical proofs of God are so remote from the reasoning of men, and so complicated, that they make little impression; and if they should be of service to some, it would be only during the moment that they see the demonstration; but an hour afterwards they fear they have been
3

The numbers following quotations of the Penses refer to the thoughts as numbered in the

Trotter translation, which is available online.

Trotter mistaken (543). His chief objection to such proofs was that they do not prove the God of the Bible, the Father of Jesus Christ but some other god, the god of the philosophers: We know God only by Jesus Christ. Without this mediator, all communion with God is taken away; through Jesus Christ we know God. All those who have

claimed to know God, and to prove Him without Jesus Christ, have had only weak proofs. But in proof of Jesus Christ, we have the prophecies, which are solid and palpable proofs. (547) This quotation reveals the thoroughly Christocentric direction that Pascal took to prove Christianity, relying especially on the Old Testament prophecies fulfilled in him. In his focus on knowing God only through Christ, Pascal was thoroughly Augustinian. 3. Part One of Pascals Penses Pascal began his defense by using reason to prepare the way for revelation, especially the fulfilled prophecies. He himself outlined his argument thus: First part: Misery of man without God. Second part: Happiness of man with God. Or, First part: That nature is corrupt. Proved by nature itself. Second part: That there is a Redeemer. Proved by Scripture (60). This arrangement revealed much about Pascals epistemology, which he learned from his father: science depends on reason, not authority, and religion depends on authority, not reason. However, this neat distinction does not mean that Pascal did not employ reason in his argumentation. On the contrary, there is scarcely a reference to Scripture in the first 424 thoughts, which are abundant in the remaining 500 thoughts. Pascal employed reason (or nature) to make his first point, that man is miserable without God, and Scripture to make his second point, that there is a Redeemer who can make man happy. This approach to apologetics was not new with Pascal, being the same approach employed in the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes.

Trotter However, such an approach had lain dormant for centuries while apologists developed their logical proofs for Gods existence. It fell to Pascal to recover this ancient line of defense. Voltaire, and many since his day, have rejected Pascals pessimistic view of the human condition: As for me, when I look at Paris or London I see no reason whatever for falling into this despair that M. Pascal is talking about (OConnell xii). However, anyone familiar with Augustines or the Apostle Pauls theology will find that Pascals depiction did not go beyond

the biblical picture. Voltaire perhaps purposefully misconstrued Pascals conclusion by referring only to part one of his argument. Pascals purpose in describing the wretchedness of humanity without God (in part one), was to drive people, not to despair, but to God through Jesus Christ (in part two). In thought 4, Pascal playfully revealed his method in the first part: To make light of philosophy is to be a true philosopher. Ben Rogerss little book on Pascal more fully described Pascals method: The most important point to make here is that Pascal did not propose simply to lead his reader through an ordinary Augustinian denigration of man. Instead he had his own characteristic method. This, in essence, was to use opposing nonChristian schools of thought to discredit each other, while at the same time highlighting certain apparently incompatible truths, to which, it could be shown, only Christianity can do justice. (13-14) Pascals favorite two opposing forces were the people and the philosophers, which he employed to negate each other. As Rogers concluded on page 56, Pascal uses the two worldly systems of thought to undermine each other, thus contributing to his portrait of human ignorance and wretchednessto the argument that man without faith can know neither good nor justice (148

Trotter 10 [in the Alban Krailsheimer edition of the Penses]). Having allowed the uncultured masses and the cultured elite to undo each other, Pascal hoped to present the Christian answer to both groups. 4. Pascals Wager However, he had first to deal with the indifferentists, those who assumed skepticism as a fixed way of thinking, not merely as a transitional step toward belief in something. Pascal wanted to shove them toward a favorable decision about Gods existence. For this reason, he proposed his famous wager (thoughts 184-241), which he designed by using the probability and decision theories he had previously developed to help his worldly friends with their gambling. Probably no aspect of Pascal has been more examined than his wager because of its interest to mathematicians, philosophers, theologians, and apologists.4 Pascals own presentation of the wager in thought 233 is as follows: God is, or He is not. But to which side shall we incline? Reason can decide nothing here. There is an infinite chaos which separated us. A game is being played at the extremity of this infinite distance where heads or tails will turn up. What will you wager? According to reason, you can do neither the one thing nor the other; according to reason, you can defend neither of the propositions. Do not then, reprove for error those who have made a choice; for you know nothing about it. No, but I blame them for having made, not this choice but a choice; for again both he who chooses heads and he who chooses tails are equally at fault, they are both wrong. The true course is not to wager at all. Yes, but you must wager. It is not optional. You are embarked. Which will you choose then? Let
4

Alan Hjeks article in the online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy provides a helpful

summary of the wager itself along with philosophical and mathematical objections to it.

Trotter 11 us see. Since you must choose, let us see which interests you least. You have two things to lose, the true and the good; and two things to stake, your reason and your will, your knowledge and your happiness; and your nature has two things to shun, error and misery. Your reason is no more shocked in choosing one rather than the other, since you much of necessity choose. This is the one point settled. But your happiness? Let us weigh the gain and loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then without hesitation that He is. In the terminology of decision theory, Pascal begins with a two-by-two matrix: either God exists or does not, and either you believe or you do not (Saka). This matrix yields four possible outcomes. If you believe in God, and he exists, you receive an eternal reward. If you believe in God, and he does not exist, you lose nothing. If you do not believe in God, and he does exist, you suffer eternal punishment. If you do not believe in God, and he does not exist, you neither gain nor lose. In other words, the worst outcome of believing is at least as good as the best outcome of not believing, but the best outcome of believing is infinitely better than the worst outcome of not believing. The conclusion is that the smart wager is on Gods existence. There are many arrangements, defenses, and criticisms of Pascals wager, but it is important to note the role it played in his Penses. He did not offer it as a proof of Gods existence, nor did he think it capable of producing faith in the skeptical, nor did he consider it the reason that someone should believe. Rather, he intended it to be a hard shake to try to dislodge those who were comfortably perched on an imaginary fence between belief and unbelief. As he wrote at the opening of the section containing his wager, A letter to incite to the search after God (184). He concluded the section with a summary of his personal reflection on the wager,

Trotter 12 I would have far more fear of being mistaken, and of finding that the Christian religion was true, than of not being mistaken in believing it true (241), a thought well worth pondering. 5. Part Two of Pascals Penses In the Trotter translation, the pivotal thought that concludes the first part and introduces the second reads, All these contradictions, which seem most to keep me from the knowledge of religion, have led me most quickly to the true one (424). That is, the contradictions generated by comparing worldly philosophies might lead one to despair, but with Pascals help, they lead one to Christianity. After leading his readers into the infinite abyss, Pascal hoped to lead them out of it: All men seek happiness. This is without exception. [. . .] And yet, after such a great number of years, no one without faith has reached the point to which all continually look. [. . .] A trial so long, so continuous, and so uniform, should certainly convince us of our inability to reach the good by our own efforts. [. . .] But these are all inadequate, because the infinite abyss can only be filled by an infinite and immutable object, that is to say, only by God Himself. (425) Having used reason to show the contradictions of humanitys wretchedness, Pascal pointed the only way to find God, through Scripture. If it is a sign of weakness to prove God by nature, do not despise Scripture; if it is a sign of strength to have known these contradictions, esteem Scripture (428). From this point on, the Penses are full of Scripture references designed to show that the Christian message exactly answers to the infinite abyss found in humanitys natural condition. Pascal believed, The prophecies are the strongest proof of Jesus Christ (706). His exposition of the prophecies fulfilled in Christ would be familiar territory to anyone who has

Trotter 13 read modern evidentialist apologetics (such as Josh McDowell offers). However, Pascal combined the strongest proof with three others: miracles, doctrine, and perpetuity (822). Against what David Hume would later assert, Pascal claimed, It is not possible to have a reasonable belief against miracles (815). As to the relationship between miracles and prophecy, Pascal explained, Jesus Christ performed miracles, then the apostles, and the first saints in great number; because the prophecies not being yet accomplished, but in the process of being accomplished by them, the miracles alone bore witness to them (838). Pascal found the doctrine of the Christian religion to be superior to that of other religions (e.g., deism, Judaism, and Islam) and all other philosophies (e.g., rationalism, skepticism, and Stoicism). He also found the perpetuity of the Christian faith, including its Jewish history, to be an argument in its favor: But the fact that this religion has always maintained itself, inflexible as it is, proves its divinity (614). In this way, Pascal presented part two of his Penses, his positive defense of the Christian faith. 6. Pascals Contributions to Philosophy Pascal was certainly a brilliant mathematician, scientist, and apologist, but was he a philosopher? Copleston observed, We can understand at least how it is that while some writers see in him one of the greatest of French philosophers, others refuse to call him a philosopher (153). On the same page, and in order to avoid a useless discussion, Copleston concluded that ones answer to this question is partly dependent on personal decisions as to what constitutes philosophy and a philosopher. The reader may decide whether or not to call Pascal a philosopher. However, it is undeniable that Pascal addressed himself to fundamental questions that are within the scope of philosophy such as how we know what we know, the existence of God, and

Trotter 14 the purpose of our existence. Regarding the question of knowledge, the power of Pascals criticism of Descartess rationalism stems from the fact that Pascal was himself a mathematician to rival (or even surpass) Descartes. Certainly no one can accuse Pascal of not understanding the mathematical way of thinking. Even so, he asserted, as many would do after him, that life cannot be reduced to mathematics, and mathematical reason is not the only way of knowing. He raised this objection while at the same time embracing mathematical thinking as valuable. His chief contribution to epistemology was to maintain equilibrium between mathematical and intuitive thinking as complementary ways of knowing, while there has been a tendency in the history of philosophy to emphasize one or the other. Pascals approach to knowledge had some ironic and unintended consequences in the development of philosophy. In the same way as he employed the people and the philosophers to negate each other, he also opposed the Jesuits and the Protestants, hoping to have them cancel out each other (e.g., thought 777, the Provincial Letters, and his treatise on grace). However, his witty criticism of other professing Christians would later be turned against his own project. As Coleman observed: Without being able to foresee how his Provincial Letters would be read in the Age of Enlightenment, Pascal unintentionally supplied the techniques and attitudes that would lead some of the best minds in the following centuryVoltaire, Condillac, Hume, and Gibbonto scoff at all revealed religion. By discussing theological issues in a profane and often witty way, and emphasizing the importance of the light of reason, Pascal opened the gates for a similar examination of the contradictions and extravagant positions to be found in the Church Fathers and even in the Bible. (132)

Trotter 15 On the one hand, Pascal unwittingly added fuel to the fire of later skeptics. On the other hand, he provided fodder for later Christian apologists who continue to develop and promulgate aspects of Pascals defense of Christianity. Evidentialist apologists like McDowell pile up fulfilled prophecies as proof of Christianity, while presuppositionalist apologists like Cornelius Van Til use reason to expose contradictions in non-Christian thinking in order to show that the Bibles message solves those contradictions. Both schools are using aspects of Pascals approach to apologetics. In addition to influencing skeptics and Christian apologists, sometimes Pascal is also called an existentialist, because he wrestled so profoundly with the existing human condition. Although it is anachronistic to call Pascal an existentialist, it is also difficult not to notice in his work the same sort of ruthless analysis of his own existence and human existence that one finds in the father of existentialism, Sren Kierkegaard. Both men were brilliant expositors of the wretchedness of humanity apart from God. Another similarity between the two men is that neither one offered an absolutely certain proof of Christianity (as others claimed to do), but they both urged faith and commitment based on the available evidence.5 Because of these bridges between the two, it requires no great leap to get from Pascal to Kierkegaard. Another more surprising connection exists between Pascal and Friedrich Nietzsche. On the one hand, Nietzsche is was quoted by Michael Sugrue as having said, I will never forgive Christianity for what it did to Pascal. On the other hand, OConnell quoted Nietzsche as having said, Pascals blood flows in my veins! (xvi). Upon further reflection, these two statements are not as contradictory as they might at first appear. The Pascalian blood that flowed in Nietzsches veins was the same blood that flowed in Kierkegaards, which produced a relentlessly
5

Without explanation, in his chart 22, Milton Hunnex gestured at these connections by drawing a

line of influence directly from Pascal to Kierkegaard.

Trotter 16 penetrating analysis of the human condition. That which Nietzsche could not forgive was Pascals solution, Christianity, and particularly his severely ascetic practice of it. That Pascals thinking should have influenced Kierkegaard and Nietzsche does not mean that Pascal was the originator of the impulse to penetrate the human condition in a relentless fashion. To find the originator, it is necessary to travel backward in time to the fourth and fifth centuries, to Augustine of Hippo. Although each of the three moderns thinkers turned in a distinct direction, each was indebted to him to a large degree. In the conclusion to his work on Augustine, Karl Jaspers explicitly linked these four men, The self-penetration that set in with Augustine continued down through the Christian thinkers to Pascal, to Kierkegaard and Nietzsche (119). 6. Pascals Life Posture In his The Closing of the American Mind, Allan Bloom wrote, To overstate only a bit, there are two writers who between them shape and set the limits to the minds of educated Frenchmen. Every Frenchman is born, or at least early on becomes, Cartesian or Pascalian (5152). In his lecture on Pascal, Michael Sugrue extended Blooms analysis to the two possible life postures not only of the French but of every human being: a Promethean posture that emanated from Athens and a Jobian posture that sprang from Jerusalem. The Promethean posture is that of standing erect before the universe, confident in human ability to scale the heights of heaven to bring down its fire, while the Jobian posture is that of kneeling before God in humility before his knowledge, power, and will. In the 1600s, Descartes was the chief representative of the Promethean stance, while Pascal carried on in the spirit of Job, the one who said, Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him (Job 13:15).

Trotter 17 Works Cited Bloom, Allan. The Closing of the American Mind. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987. Cailliet, Emilie. Pascal: the Emergence of Genius. New York: Greenwood Press, 1969. Coleman, Francis. Neither Angel nor Beast. New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1986. Copleston, Frederick. A History of Philosophy. Vol. 4. New York: Image Books, 1985. Hjek, Alan. Pascals Wager. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 26 Oct. 2001. 6 Nov. 2003. <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pascal-wager/>. The Holy Bible, New International Version. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1984. Houston, James, ed. The Mind on Fire: A Faith for the Skeptical and Indifferent. Vancouver: Regent College Publishing, 1989. Hunnex, Milton D. Chronological and Thematic Charts of Philosophies and Philosophers. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1986. Jaspers, Karl. Plato and Augustine. Trans. Ralph Manheim. New York: Harcourt Brace & Co., 1962. Kreeft, Peter. Christianity for Modern Pagans. San Francisco: Ignatius Press. 1993. McPhearson, Joyce. A Piece of the Mountain: The Story of Blaise Pascal. Lebanon, TN: Greenleaf Press, 1995. OConnell, Marvin. Blaise Pascal: Reasons of the Heart. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1997. Pascal, Blaise. Penses. 1660. Trans. W. F. Trotter. [1910.] 28 Aug. 2003 <http://www.ccel.org/ p/pascal/pensees/pensees.htm>. Rogers, Ben. Pascal: In Praise of Vanity. New York: Routledge, 1999.

Trotter 18 Saka, Paul. Pascals Wager. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2002. 5 Nov. 2003. <http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/p/pasc-wag.htm>. Sugrue, Michael. Pascals Penses. Lecture 11 of The Great Minds of the Western Intellectual Tradition, Part 2, 2 ed. Audiocassette. Springfield, VA: The Teaching Company Limited Partnership, 1995.