Blaise Pascal
1623-1662 · Scientific Revolution · Renowned
Pascal was a French mathematician who turned to religious writing. His Pensees call a human being a thinking reed, greatness and misery in one creature: the universe can crush a man, and he knows it while the universe does not. Argument alone never reaches a God who stays hidden, he held, and you meet that God through Christ and through the heart. His wager treats belief as a bet you are already placing.
Signature
The position Pascal is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Ground of Being
- strongly leans Transcendence
- Human Nature
- Redeemably Corrupted / Imago Dei
Positions on the 4 axes the sources answer
- Mind
- strongly leans Beyond Brain (100 on a 0–100 scale from Brain Only to Beyond Brain)
- Meaning
- leans Inherent (81 on a 0–100 scale from Constructed to Inherent)
- Ground of Being
- strongly leans Transcendence (100 on a 0–100 scale from Immanence to Transcendence)
- Ethics
- leans Means (88 on a 0–100 scale from Ends to Means)
16 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Pascal refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Trinitarian Monotheism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Highest Good
- Union with God
What is the highest good? - Knowledge
- Intuition
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Agency
- Divine Providence
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Paradox
- Productive Tension
What is the status of paradox? - Law
- Customary Law
What is the ultimate source of legitimate law? - Death
- Judgement
What happens at death? - Human Nature
- Redeemably Corrupted / Imago Dei
What is human nature? - Primary Bond
- The Divine
What is your primary bond and loyalty?