A summer with Pascal
Antoine Compagnon, translated by Catherine Porte (The Belknap Press / Harvard University Press, £19.95 / €23.60)
Thoughts
by Blaise Pascal, translated edited by Pierre Zoberman with an introduction by David Wetsel, with notes by both (Catholic University of America Press, £29.99 / €35.50
Pope Francis issued an apostolic exhortation in June 2023 to mark the 400th anniversary of the birth of Blaise Pascal. As commentators noted, here we had a Jesuit pope supporting and praising one of the Jesuits’ most famous critics.
Pope Francis did not praise Pascal for his Provincial Letters, published in 1667 and still in print. (I found five English editions on Amazon.) The work deserves attention as a classic of French prose; a work that expanded the possibilities of language with its wit, satire and rhetorical power.
I doubt many read it for its scathing criticism of the seventeenth-century French Jesuits, whose casuistry reduced the tension between moral teaching and social practice and made the world a pleasant place for the rich, powerful, and wealthy. Some, however, may be attracted to the intricacies of the relationship between nature and grace in the economy of salvation that underlay Pascal’s dispute with the Jesuits.
Nor was it his mathematical genius and his skills as an experimental physicist that brought him to the forefront of the scientific revolution that, together with religious and political upheavals, gave us the modern world.
to teach
The world that was thus displaced had given us a home in the natural order. Happiness lay in recognizing that order, worshipping its Creator, and obeying its commands. In the new world, we are not part of nature but observers of it. We should learn from Pascal, for he makes the message of the Gospels compelling in this new landscape.
Pascal tells us that we exist in three orders, each different, each with its own dynamics, each with its own motivations. These are the carnal order, the order of the intellect, and the supernatural order of charity. The carnal is the world of power; its heroes are kings, generals, the rich. In these egalitarian times, we can think of it as the everyday world, where we follow the scripts that earn us the esteem of our fellow men, while at the same time fixating with a mixture of envy, jealousy, and hatred on the celebrities whose actions fill the media.
“He decided to make this world real for those who are indifferent to God and who despise Christianity.”
The order of the intellect corresponds to our need to understand the world. In it, we enjoy the achievements of scientists, philosophers and scholars who lead us to truth, which is valued for its own sake.
On the night of November 23, 1665, Pascal had an intense experience with the Order of Charity, where the gift of grace leads us into the presence of God and into his kingdom of unconditional love. He decided to make this world real for those who were indifferent to God, despised Christianity and assumed that everything human life had to offer could be found in the other orders.
He began to compile notes, reflections and observations for this purpose. He suffered from poor health throughout his life and died on August 18, 1662, at the age of 39. The treatise for which the notes were probably compiled remained incomplete. However, they were eventually published in his most famous work, Pensées, in 1670.
Pathetic
The wretchedness of human existence is a central theme of the Pensées. Look at the growing shelves of self-help books in our bookstores, observe the explosive growth of the therapy industry, for contemporary evidence. We seek diversion in the vanities of the carnal order or in the mindless curiosity of the intellectual.
Yet our dissatisfaction with ourselves, our relationships, our world, keeps coming to the surface. Pascal asks us to see in our misery a sadness at the lack of any fulfillment we might feel. Only in the spirit of charity can we understand the gap between what we are and what we could be. Only there can we learn how to work to close it.
“The 41 short chapters are an insightful read for Pascal connoisseurs and an excellent introduction.”
I suspect that many people find reading the Pensées challenging. I certainly did, even with the help of the translation of the definitive French edition with its background information, notes and guide.
It’s not that the individual ideas are difficult to decipher. Pascal’s prose is crystal clear. I guess it’s more like being presented with the ingredients of a cake, each of which is excellent; what’s missing is a feel for the finished cake.
This is where Compagnon’s short book makes a valuable contribution. Professor Compagnon is Professor of French and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, Professor Emeritus at the Collège de France, and a member of the Académie Française. He has been commissioned by the radio station France Inter to present a series of fifteen-minute programs to run throughout the summer.
The 41 short chapters of the book, now published as Summer with Pascal, are an insightful read for anyone familiar with Pascal and an excellent introduction for anyone following Pope Francis’ recommendation to engage with this great thinker who speaks to the spiritual needs of our time.
